Among other things, Singaporeans have been labeled as lacking in entrepreneurial spirit. Government funding for projects is also notoriously difficult to get, with many criteria to fulfill before the project is even considered. With obstacles like these in the way, it is likely that many great Singaporean business ideas are buried before they even get any traction.

However, creative entrepreneurs can now get a legitimate shot at crowdfunding opportunities through clever organizations that have put together a system for people to secure seed capital.

Enter Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com)

Kickstarter is a growing internet phenomenon that has been attracting plenty of attention from interested entrepreneurs looking for funding. Kickstarter is a site that allows any business idea to be featured to any site visitor to take notice of and of course, learn more about.

This is where things get interesting: Visitors actually have the opportunity to offer organized funding for these entrepreneurs. For as little as $1 (depending on the project), anyone can chip in voluntarily to any project, as long as he or she thinks it’s worthwhile. While $1 isn’t a lot of money when the subject at hand is about commercial project funding, visitors to Kickstarter number in the millions, and continues to rise.

Take a quick look on some of the successful projects on Kickstarter:

Kickstarter

LunaTik

In just 30 days, the LunaTik project amassed a funding of over $900,000, despite an initial target of only $15,000.

LunaTik is a minimalist, yet incredulously creative project. The idea is to use the iPod Nano as a wrist watch, coupled with futuristic functions that current watches don't possess.

RoboCop

Ever heard of the famous 80’s movie RoboCop? Well it won’t disappoint RoboCop if you haven’t, since there’s already a statue in his honor. The RoboCop Statue project on Kickstarter is actually planning to gather enough funding to build a live statue of the android law enforcer in Detroit, much like how Philadelphia erected Rocky from stone. Targeting $50,000 by late Mar, the project has generated enough interest to gather $67,436 by the deadline to begin construction.

Although $67,436 pales in comparison to LunaTik’s $900k, we’re talking about building a Statue of a movie hero in a city. This is the kind of funding power we’re talking about from Kickstarter.

Read more about The RoboCop Statue Project here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/imaginationstation/detroit-needs-a-statue-of-robocop

Glif – iPhone 4 Tripod Stand

The idea sounded simple; build a tripod stand specially designed for the iPhone 4 that allows it to functionally act as a camera tripod, YouTube TV, tabletop alarm clock and a dozen of other creative applications. That’s what the Glif is, a small little portable add-on that allows you to do many more things with your iPhone 4. Glif is clearly a popular idea, as it collected $137,417 with only a $10,000 target in mind.

What Gilf in action here:

Rounding up these impressive examples of what crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Y-Combinator can do, it is clear that many great and innovative projects only need a little bit of help to get off the ground.

In a country like Singapore where we’re constantly under fire for a lack of creativity, a local crowdfunding site could be just what we need to showcase the world that Singaporeans can be highly creative, if appropriate support in the form of funding can be procured.

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