Predict the six, a UK business hit its funding target on the Crowd for Angels platform by raising almost £300,000 from investors. Predict the six is an online football jackpot business. We spoke to their Founder and Director, Paul Cope and asked him questions to help support your fundraising journey.

Why did you choose crowdfunding over other traditional sources of funding?

The main advantage of crowdfunding for a business like ours is that many of the potential investors are also potential customers. In addition to that, the business is a simple concept, is fun and is something which investors can take an active interest in by playing the game every week. All of those factors meant that I was confident that crowd investors would back the business and would then become advocates for the game, which helps us from a marketing perspective.

What did you hope to achieve and what will the funds allow you to do?

We hoped to raise £ 100,000 to boost our marketing spend, but ended up far exceeding that target and obtain-ing £ 285,000. Having the funds means that we can increase our marketing budget significantly in order to bring the game to the attention of as many people as possible in the UK within the next few months.

What did you think of the investors' response to your pitch?

It was generally very positive. Investors liked the idea of the business and we also received good feedback on the pitch video. We wanted to make sure that the pitch video reflected the business and the people running it, so we put a couple of light hearted bits in there to create talking points - mainly me doing keepy ups with a football in my suit, which received mixed reviews...

The only negative feedback we received was from people who were too late to invest because we had already reached our maximum target, which is not a problem I can complain too much about.

What was the most difficult part about the crowdfunding process?

It is easy to let yourself get carried away with stories of crowdfunding projects that raised huge sums of money in a very short time, so it was important for us to focus on our own targets and to remember that huge amounts of work go into pitches that achieve their targets quickly.

Finally, what advice you would give to another start-up in your position?

The biggest piece of advice I would give is based on my last answer. The crowdfunding market is becoming more and more saturated, so you cannot rely on a crowdfunding platform alone to help you to raise invest-ment. It is important that you build your own networks which can help you to spread the word about your pitch. Use the crowdfunding platform as a part of that network and work closely with them to make sure that there is an overarching strategy behind what you are trying to achieve.