Success Factors in Reward based and Equity based Crowdfunding in Finland

Master’s Thesis 
69 
In order for communication and information sharing to be persuasive, it is also im-
portant to focus on the narrative. Narrative has been found to be integral to the crea-
tion of legitimacy and interest in a crowdfunding project. Stories help legitimate en-
trepreneurs in the eyes of the funders and competitors, enabling acquisition of capital. 
(Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001)
All the interviewees concurred with this, stating that 
their story was an integral part of their communication and a key reason for their suc-
cess. Suoheimo explained the importance of Ambronite’s story by claiming, “people 
do not buy what you do, but why you do it”. Suojanen also noted that communicating 
EkoRent’s story of getting cleaner city air through electric cars was very important to 
the campaign. Pere even wondered that Pyynikin Käsityöläispanimo’s story might 
have been more important to their crowdfunding success than financial information 
provided. Autolla Nepaliin and Ambronite both expanded on a story’s importance by 
claiming “people want to be a part of a story”. Clearly, story and narrative was per-
ceived as highly important to their success by the interviewees. Perhaps the im-
portance of stories compared to financial data and business plans is highlighted due to 
the “unprofessional” nature of crowdfunding. According to
Frydrych et al. (2014) 
crowdfunders are more dependent on social dynamics than professional investors, 
which might result in persuasive and charismatic stories and storytellers to drive deci-
sion-making. This would explain why even in equity crowdfunding the holistic pic-
ture of the business was viewed as more important to funders than financial details.
9.2.9. Geography 
With the rise of online platforms and communications tools, geographical effects on 
business are diminished. Location no longer acts as a barrier for crowdfunding 
(Agrawal et al., 2015), nor does crowdfunding depend on location (Frydrych et al., 
2014). In this study the interviewed projects were all based in Finland and for most of 
them, the majority of customers and funding came from Finland. 
Since Autolla Nepaliin was a movie in Finnish, most potential viewers and funders 
were Finnish. According to Leppänen from Autolla Nepaliin, this culture and lan-
guage condition was a driver in excluding foreign crowdfunding platforms. All Face-
book followers and funders were Finnish, so the Autolla Nepaliin team wanted the 
platform and checkout system to be in Finnish and easily accessible with Finnish bank 

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