THE LAB

Crowdsourcing has proved to be an effective method for supporting ideas, political movements, and businesses.  Whether a crowd gathers energy around a political campaign, or gathers together to run a Carrot Mob – encouraging local businesses to turn their dollars into energy-savings programs – the power of the people in these realms has been incredibly successful.

But here’s a new thought: what about crowdsourced business models?

After reading a recent post about a crowdsourced art space + coffeehouse + lounge on one of my favorite blogs, I got to thinking: crowdsourcing is not just for supporting an already existing idea or business, but it is also useful in forming a great idea.  When a crowd speaks their needs, businesses can rise up and meet them. That’s what Raw Canvas did – by listening to the crowd around them, they opened up a collaborative “art + social” space.

There are other crowdsource-based models like this out there: coworking is a great example.  Coworking was born from a group of independent professionals who were sick of attempting to be productive in isolation at home or in busy coffee shops.  Once there were enough voices, once the crowd amassed, coworking spaces began opening up all over the US and throughout the world to respond to the call of the crowd.  Office Nomads does this for independent professionals in Seattle – even before opening our doors we had a crowd of independents who were calling for our space to open (full disclosure: I am one of the owners & founders of Office Nomads, so I tend to speak pretty highly of us).

You could call this simply responding to demand.  But these examples prove a slightly different model than just one of simple demand.  This is not a group of people looking for a better low-calorie cola option.  These business examples arise from the desire of a crowd to have a dynamic, collaborative, and responsive new business that taps into the crowd itself in order to function.  The crowd is calling for a business that the crowd gets to be a part of. 

This is beyond just responding to the call of a group customers.  Because crowdsourced business models are not about customers, they’re about the crowd.  These models ask the crowd to continue to participate.  They require the crowd to become the community.

What other crowdsourced business models exist out there?  What models are soon to come?

Similar Posts:

• Community Supports Business. Repeat.
• …and your car company is listening.
• Collaboration, Not Competition, Breeds Success