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Alec Lynch - Design Crowd
Alec Lynch is the founder of DesignCrowd - a marketplace for creative services that uses a new business model called ‘crowdsourcing’. Businesses from around the world can post logo design, web design and custom t-shirt design projects on DesignCrowd and receive scores of ideas and designs from designers around the world. DesignCrowd’s mission is to give creative people opportunities and to help businesses access risk free creativity. DesignCrowd (launched as ‘DesignBay’ in 2008) was one of the first online marketplaces of its kind worldwide.
In 2009, Alec – with the help of Australian venture capital service Business Angels – successfully raised investment capital from a group of private ‘angel’ investors. While still a relatively young business, DesignCrowd has been featured by The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, Smart Company and B&T magazine. DesignCrowd continues to grow at 20% each month and is listed as one of Australia’s top 50 web start-ups.
Alec holds a Bachelor of Information Technology from the University of Technology Sydney and previously worked at Booz & Co as a management consultant. Alec is a thought leader in crowdsourcing and has spoken on the topic at the CeBIT tradeshow in Sydney as well NSW Government events.
Notes From The Talk
Alex Lynch provided an overview of his company Design Crowd, discussed the use of crowd sourcing and ways in which aspiring entrepreneurs can raise the capital necessary to fund their project. Alex has a unique approach to graphic design, or as he put it “graphic design on steroids”. Basically, a client needing a design will visit the Design Crowd website and pay a registration fee. The client will specify how much they are willing to pay for a design and then designers registered on site from around the world (around 16,000) will submit designs. The client will then select the winning design and own that particular design. More information about the process here.
Alex also spent some time discussing the topic of raising capital, suggesting that aspiring entrepreneurs ask family for money first before approaching external entities. This led on to the next topic which was crowd-sourcing. Alex outlined several methods for raising capital using crowd-sourcing such as using fundbreak.
The next part of the session involved using audience participants to suggest names for a new retail space. The winner of the naming competition was eligible for a $200 cash prize, a $100 budget for a design sourced through Design Crowd. Conference attendees were invited to submit a name and which organisers culled and three finalists were invited on stage at the end of the session whereby the audience would vote on their favourite. The crowd ended up voting for the official photographer for the event, who submitted the name "Raw Meet".
