Crowd funding platforms like Kickstarter can be used to raise money for creative projects and products, but there are guidelines on what types of projects can be funded. A successful Kickstarter campaign requires thorough preparation including developing a business plan, brand identity, and website. The campaign page should include inspiring videos and explanations of the product, team, timeline, and reward tiers. Extensive marketing through social media, emails, and influencers is important before and during the campaign to promote the project and engage backers.

1. Crowd Source Funding
Week 7 of Project Starter
Presented by Brian Pichman and
Chad Mairn

2. Setting Up Kickstarter
• What You Can Do:
– You must have a clear project in mind (music, film, tangible
product, software product).
– In other words, there must be an end result product.
• What You Can’t Do:
– Raise money for causes (5ks, etc)
– If you are doing a software project, the Kickstarter must be run
by developers
– Cannot be used to build websites or apps for social networking,
e-commerce, or business
• Create an Amazon Payments Account
– This is different than your Amazon account that lets you shop.

3. What You Need When Putting It
Together
• From “Your Business Plan” (Week 2)
– Description (Executive Summary)
– You will need to highlight your key players for your start-up idea
– Discuss the risks and challenges
– Use your financial plan to determine how much money you need – and back
up why you need it in the descriptions.
• From “Your Brand” (Week 4)
– Pull your graphics out and make your logo and image noticeable.
• From “Building Websites” (Week 5)
– You want to include the web pages you built that include your brand, your
product idea, and/or any blogs you are running. Your websites should be
around well before you launch your campaign.
• From “Social Media and Videos” (Week 6)
– Link your social media accounts you have been working on to your page.
– Link your video you created. This is huge in selling your idea
• Projects with videos succeed at a much higher rate than those without (50% vs. 30%).

4. Case Study

5. When To Crowdfund
• Crowdfunding IS NOT free
– There are costs involved that you need to do
BEFORE launching your campaign to get
successfully funded
• Prototyping
• Marketing
• Business Plan Development
– There is a tremendous amount of effort behind
the scenes including PR, marketing, and
advertising.

6. DAN SHAPIRO
http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/
“If you plan to make this product regardless of the results of your
campaign then just run pre-orders on your own website and use the time
as a way to build initial customer demand. The positive is you can focus
all of your efforts to driving your own website traffic, while using
advertising to optimize the funnel.”

7. Campaign Decisions
• Length Of Time
– 1-60 Days
– Use www.kicktraq.com to track similar campaigns, and how they got funded
and when
• Amount to Raise
– This will take a considerable amount of research. Look up what similar people
have done.
– Identify your costs to produce or improve
• Backer Levels (awards)
– Keep It Simple
• https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danprovost/neat-ice-kit
– From Moment
• “From a creator’s perspective, every new level significantly complicates your ability to
deliver. Creating swag sucks especially if you aren’t in the clothing business. Lots of
custom colors are never appreciated with new supplier relationships. And having to
create accessories to differentiate your levels, is a nightmare”

8. Creating the Campaign
• Inspiration
– Your video should be inspiring and get people excited about your product
• Describe the Who and Why
– Who are you. Why are you awesome?
• http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action Simon Sinek
• What is your product
– Be clear and concise. People don’t want to read lengthy paragraphs about
what your product is.
• How did you get here?
– Give people your story, how you worked about coming to this idea, the needs
you saw, the challenges you faced and the obstacles you overcame.
• Don’t forget to ask
– Your end goal is to get people to back your product. Backing your product
means:
• You have proven customer demand
• You have funds to provide to finish or improve your product to match the demand

9. Your Campaign Video
• This is super, super, super, important.
• This will be the greatest expense and one of the most
time consuming processes
• Consider
– Music
– Film (background scenery matters)
– Some awesome photos to overlay your message
– Editing
– Conveying Your Message
• You want to drive traffic to your kickstarter page, and
website.

10. At the end, people are trusting you with their money.
Make sure they can trust you and your product.
– Video should be honest and charming
– Be direct to the point
– Establish your credibility
– Keep the video within 5 minutes.

11. Organizing The “Meat And Potatoes”
• How you layout the rest of your campaign page is crucial to success.
• Intro
– Show the who, what, and why
– Logos!
• Inspire others to help
• What makes you unique and amazing
– Features of your product
– Get more detailed and explain the specs
• Team
– People sell. Show them your awesome team. Personalize your mission.
• Timeline
– People want to know what you have done, how far along you are, and what
you plan on doing in the future
• Backer Levels
– Explain the various backer levels

12. Pre-Launch
• Identify Your Influencers In The Industry
– Reach out to them. Share them your pre-kickstarter
plan. Share the videos. Share your social media. Share
your site.
• Friends and Family
– Send updates every so often before you go live with
Kickstarter. Get them to be the first backers.
• Press
– Build a press page on your website that houses your
logos, graphics, videos, social media accounts. Get
the press excited about your product pre-launch

13. Identifying Your Contributors
“You only have one mom. Who else will
contribute” – Julie Babb
• Friends / Family
• Your Community/Industry/Contacts
– And Their Communities
• People who need or want the product
• People who admire your goals and are inspired

14. At Launch
• Email Blast the potential contributors.
– Blog, Flyers, Call Publishers as well
• Be Personal
– Be direct with some of the people you know who
will not only back your product, but also share
your campaign
• Social Media Blitz!
• Be On The Phones

15. During Campaign
• Continue Emailing your different lists and get their support (don’t
be SPAM though)
• Interacting with backers
– Backers want to see you are quick to respond to questions and
messages. Again, they are trusting you with their money. Give them
more reasons to trust you.
• Campaign Updates
– First week – update daily
– Then slowly spread out the updates, pushing people to reach new
goals, announcing new updates, maybe more product demos.
• Use photos and videos to update your following
– Share these on your social media accounts
– Share your milestones with your backers. Gives your backers more of a
reason to be proud of the work you are doing, and how they helped
you reach it.

16. Let’s Set Up A Campaign Together