I recently moderated a crowdfunding conference in NYC that was hosted by We The People.
The event featured many successful creators, bringing together creators and entrepreneurs looking to learn from successful Kickstarter campaign creators.
In this post, you are going to hear from three uber-successful creators about how to knock your crowdfunding campaign out of the park.
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For now, let’s dive into some of the highlights from the FCBC event. Here we go!
Harrison Grant – Co-founder Think Board
Harrison Grant started his entrepreneurial journey his sophomore year of college.
He set out to reinvent the whiteboard, as he couldn’t install one in his own dorm room. It started with Saturday night brainstorming sessions, using vinyl film and expo markers to write down ideas.
These collegiate endeavors ended up leading to a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over $10,000.
Quickly, Grant and his partner realized that launching a business was a responsibility. As more and more strangers backed their product, they had to fulfill those orders.
Especially for your first Kickstarter launch, it’s all about figuring out development.
On their second launch, they put more focus into understanding the demographic of the customer through surveys, product testing, and a dedicated pre-launch strategy.
The second campaign raised over $200,000 from 2,500 backers on both Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
Grant talked about the importance of setting up an infrastructure for your company for longevity. While sometimes Kickstarter can feel like somewhat of a sprint with a 30-day fundraising window, it’s important to think long term for fulfillment!
Jacob Durham – Co-founder of Nomatic
Jacob Durham has launched eight crowdfunding campaigns.
He’s had a ton of success in the industry, launching successful campaigns for a wide variety of products.
Durham and his team’s strategy has always been rooted in logic.
They asked themselves: what products are successful on Kickstarter? Then started designing based on niches that were trending well.
Their travel bag ended up raising $1.7 million on Kickstarter, catapulting the company into a different league of crowdfunding success stories.
They realized that people valued features and functionality in travel bags. With this in mind, they set out to be a market leader in creating functionable travel bags.
Durham gave some top priorities to keep in mind when launching your campaign:
- Know your numbers. Bust out the spreadsheet to know every dollar it takes from production to reaching the customers’ doorstep.
- Use Facebook Ads and other modern marketing strategies to drive traffic and grow quickly. 25-30% of revenue should go back into marketing.
Anibal Marin – Founder of Auxilry
Anibal founded the world’s first interchangeable button system that requires no sewing whatsoever.
The idea is that you can change out your styles and customize your shirts on the fly.
He took a shot at his first Kickstarter campaign in 2015 and failed.
But that didn’t stop him. He came back to the platform with a more comprehensive marketing strategy that led to a successful launch.
Anibal talked about using Kickstarter as a learning experience. Even if your first campaign isn’t successful, you will take away tons of good understanding about consumer connection based on emotion.
We buy what we want, not what we need.
At the end of the day, people are trying to solve an emotional problem through a solution—which should be your product.
The Kickstarter community is looking for new novelty; they are looking for exciting user experiences.
By selling to these early adopters, you can make them idea spreaders that breaks your product into the mainstream.
Conclusions
You can learn a ton of valuable information towards launching a successful crowdfunding campaign by listening closely to those who have triumphed in the past.
I talk to these folks all the time on my Podcast, which I’d highly recommend you check out if you are interested in learning more about best practices.
You should also do some research via my blog and YouTube Channel, where I’m always giving tons of great crowdfunding tips and trips that can go to work for you!
Looking to launch a product?
Book a free coaching call with me! I’d love to talk further about how to make your product the next great thing on Kickstarter.
