Heterogeneous in their motivations, funders engage in crowdfunding for at least five distinct incentives. These incentives include:

Early access to new products: To the extent that hybrid crowdfunding models enable creators to bundle equity with early access, pre-buying may play an even greater role in the crowdfunding process. Non-equity crowdfunding demonstrates a perhaps surprising level of demand for early access to new products by unknown creators. The Pebble watch is again illustrative. There may be benefits to enabling product enthusiasts to be early shareholders since this would align their incentives with their means to enhance the value of the company