eCommerce - Friday, May 23, 2008
Chicago's Crowdspring Launches With $3M From Angels For Graphic Design Marketplace
Chicago-based Crowdspring has raised $3M from 16 angels and his launched its marketplace for graphic designers. The service has graphic designers bid to win business to create logos and site designs and takes a 15% for the trouble. Several have commented that this is a highly competitive business online. At the same time there is lots of business here to be had so if Crowdspring can get better at marketing to buyers and bidders all power to them. We have expressed our pessimism for all tech startups that hail from Chicago. Our hunch is always that the staff will call it quits once the winter kicks in, but $3M should get the 6 of them through the Winter of 2009.
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Thanks for noticing. We saw a huge gap between Threadless and Innocentive that was being unmet in the marketplace. And a huge opportunity. Millions of businesses need creative services and there are many outstanding creatives around the world looking for clients. It's real work. Real clients. Real projects. And real money. crowdSPRING offers full project management tools, legal agreements, escrow/payment, and top-notch customer service.
One small correction to your write-up: designers don't "bid" to win business - that's the traditional model you see on sites like Elance and Guru. On crowdSPRING - creatives submit actual work. On crowdSPRING - it's about the work and only the work. Buyers choose their favorite design(s). And we offer a simple guarantee: if a buyer does not get at least 25 choices - they can walk. No questions asked.
We've heard there is some general pessimism about tech companies in Chicago. We are very proud to be here - Threadless and 37 Signals are great role models for us. And when the weather gets cold - we put on a warm jacket and throw a few more logs into the firepit (and when it gets really cold, we take a short trip to California to warm up) :)
Best,
Ross
Posted by: Ross at May 23, 2008 12:28 PM
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