Turning a vision into reality

Crowdfunding is yet to reach its full potential in India but Rohith Subramanian, the founder of Fund My Dream, is pushing to popularise the concept.

All of 20, the final-year MBA student believes that people are becoming more receptive to the idea these days. Fund My Dream is a one-of-a-kind crowdfunding platform. Rohith says that it is the first of its kind in South India. While most of these sites cater to NGOs and help raise money for charity, the youngster has created one solely for creative projects.

He says he started off crowdfunding for an NGO but didn’t find that exciting. “It gets monotonous after sometime because it is easy. People are more willing to fund various causes rather than encourage creativity. That’s when I decided there has to be a separate space for creative work,” he says.

Rohith kicked off the site in October 2013 and launched the beta version in February. “What makes us different from the other crowdfunding platforms is that we do only creative projects and have a team for every project that helps them reach their goal.” He says that they are currently handling two projects but expecting ten more in the next month or so.

At the moment, the site is hosting a Hindi/English feature film titled ‘My Son is Gay’, which has raised more than Rs one lakh in just over 20 days. It tells the tale of a mother who is unable to accept her son’s sexuality and her journey therein.

How does Rohith get strangers to participate in this venture? “There are three ways in which people get funds — from people they know, people they may know and complete strangers. How do you get strangers to fund something? It’s by giving them a reward. If someone were to pay Rs 100 towards a movie, they would get premier seats at the opening. As the money paid increases, so do the rewards. And each project has different kinds of rewards,” he says.

There are two models that are popular amongst crowdfunding sites – the ‘All or Nothing’ model and ‘Keep it All’ model. In the former, the campaigner must reach the target or the funds will be handed back to the contributor.

In the latter, the campaigner gets to keep whatever is raised. Fund My Dreams follows the ‘Keep it All’ model so even if the movie weren’t to reach its mark of Rs 40 lakh, they would have a start.

Rohith started this because he doesn’t want to see anyone losing out on something because of lack of funds.

“I was asked to do an internship during college and didn’t like it there so I came up with this idea. I have seen many of my friends, who could have done well for themselves, fail because they didn’t have the adequate funding. Crowdfunding could have helped them. I want this to be an alternative when all other methods of funding fail.

People shouldn’t say they didn’t have an alternate option,” he says.

The ambitious college-goer says he has just completed his first novel — ‘After All, It’s Your Life’. “I had gone on a Himalayan trek where I was completely disconnected from everyone and although I wouldn’t say it’s about me, I want to document my time there. It’s about a man going towards nothingness,” he says.

He has also made plans to go cross-country on his Enfield. “It has been my dream to go to London on my bike. I will be crossing 23 countries along the way,” he sums up.