Crowdfunding, Entrepreneurship, and Design Education
The purpose of this paper is to develop further insights into micro-entrepreneurship programs participated in by Chinese industrial designers. A model of creative thinking is employed to explain the campaign creation process. A case study research in sample design entrepreneurs was designed and conducted, and it was composed of three steps: preparing for data collection, collecting the evidences, and analyzing the evidences. It was found that five main defects in creative thinking work as obstacles to crowdfunding success. In order to overcome these drawbacks, it is suggested that designers involved in micro-entrepreneurship programs should acquire the abilities of building prototypes, following the design procedure, finding and solving problems, defining ideation and applying the evaluation methods. Current findings and future study can contribute to the curriculum development for China's industrial design education.