33: Ultimate Crowdfunding Pre-Launch Checklist

Zach Smith: (00:00) Funded Today Nation, welcome back to the Funded Today podcast. Man it feels like it's been a while since the last time where we talked about “All Things Legal” that one was featuring our very own Thomas Alvord, take a listen to that one, if you missed I think it's going to be very helpful for those of you, who have dealt some legal things and Thomas is going to later on in the episode just a little a teaser he is going to talk about another little legal issue and some things you might be able to do to help out as well. So anyway, we’re reenergized and pumped up to be back with you, as promised we’re going to breakout our newly minted “Ultimate Crowdfunding Prelaunch Checklist” in the product of the week that we’re featuring we actually use this “Crowdfunding Prelaunch Checklist” to great success and brought a project that was literary dead in the water, hadn’t raised hardly any money completely failed relaunched it and now it's a tremendous success, you’re going to want to hear about that as well, and after the show we’re going to give it away to you all for free no catches, nothing at all you’re going to love it when I show you where to download it and you can start using it, print it off and get prepared to take your next big idea to the next level, so hang in there until the end of this episode and lets gets started.

Announcer: (01:01) The Funded Today podcast is brought to you by fundedtoday.com. Funded Today is a premier marketing and video agency. From startups to Crowdfunding to Amazon and beyond, Funded Today has helped their clients generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. If you’d like help launching or growing your business visit www.fundedtoday.com to speak with one of their experts.

Zach Smith: (01:28) Welcome back to the show, I am Zach Smith.

Thomas Alvord: (01:31) And, I’m Thomas Alvord.

Zach Smith: (01:33) And I just wanted to briefly remind you to download our Ultimate Crowdfunding Success Guide not to be confused with our Prelaunch Checklist that we’re giving today, that can be downloaded at fundedtoday.com/guide, if you've not done so it's beautiful now, we've updated recently, so get ready for that I think you're going really like it that's pretty much everything we know, all of our knowledge distilled into a beautiful little guide soon to be book, so take a look at it, we think you'll love it if you like any of the hundreds of listeners who have already downloaded they’re already reading it, putting it to use. Now, I want to just jump right into today's episode, the topic the “Ultimate Crowdfunding Prelaunch Checklist”. So to get started Thomas, what's the idea behind this guide, and, you know, why did we create it? I kind of want to have a big overview before we kind of get into the nitty-gritty, so this episode is going to follow kind of a pattern of when we go through each of the items, so you know exactly how to analyze the different things you're going check off. But before that, I want to talk about why this thing came to life? What made us do it, and we think it's going to be effective for you.

Thomas Alvord: (02:32) If you look at the most critical and important times of your campaign it's the day you launch. Everything with your launch is going to impact and influence, everything, whether the press picks used up, whether their social proof, whether you get the traction you need, there is so many different things we've learned running more than 3,000 campaigns and raising hundreds of millions of dollars. If you knockout every single one of these you're going to have an absolutely killer campaign, and we share this and I think sometimes people might think like why is Funded Today sharing all their knowledge just can't be legit, and you actually were the one who taught me this Zach, five plus years ago remember when we were talking and you had your marketplace for courses right?

Zach Smith: (03:21) Yes, -- no that’s exactly right.

Thomas Alvord: (03:24) You said “Hey, Thomas I know, you know paid media marketing really well Do you want to put together a course and share that course”. And I thought, yes I could but then no one is going want to hire. He's like no people will watch it and sees your expertise, and then they'll be like “man, this is amazing, they -- might not still have the time, and so they'll hire you”. And so I think in that same light, right, whether people hire us or not, obviously like that's great if people work with us, but if they don't we want to see people bring their products to life. Or If they do work with us right, this will help them that when they come and work with Funded Today right however they want to may be engage with us it's going to make their campaign now much better, so it's a win for everyone regardless.

Zach Smith: (04:04) Oh! Absolutely, and like we've kind of always made our policy at Funded Today I guess sometimes to our -- for the most part we're very happy about by having this abundance mindset, this abundance mentality, believing that it's important to share what we know, it's important to kind of put our knowledge out to the universe we've just had all kinds of amazing things come back to us, and it's always worked out for the better, so we're not trying to be maybe like other consultants who will kind of give you the big picture, the overview, the “hey, here is kind of what you need to do” or “hey do this” we don't have arrangements or agreements with affiliates or partners or anything like that, and so we're able to be real and genuine with you. And I think that kind of sets us apart from anybody else out there, because we tell you exactly how it's done, not because we're teachers, but because we've done it, and because we've done it we know exactly what works and we know what's going to help you, and I think that's really a different way of going about things and like you said, just barely Thomas, we're not holding anything back either, we could kind of give you just a little bit and then you'd still need us. We like to give you everything, and then if you need us great, if you don't great, we don't care we're just out to help us many people as we possibly can, it's right in our code of ethics, it's right in our core values, we want to help a lot of people bring their next big idea to life and so this “The Ultimate Crowdfunding Prelaunch Checklist” we think is everything you need to know high-level, low-level, nitty-gritty, literally check them all as you go along to succeed for your next big idea. So, with no further ado, let's just kind of jump right into it. This is the 2019 edition the question that we ask, what do you need to do, before launching a crowdfunding campaign, and here are our recommendations, Thomas take us away right at the top with “my personnel”, what are we looking at there, and again we don't have to go through all of these, this is going to be a PDF that you can download, that you can print off, and you can literally grab yourself a black permanent marker and check them off as you go along. We're going to talk about the high-level points of each of these, so you kind of understand what you're getting into, and then after the episode, you can download it and you can print these off, and get ready and be prepared to launch your next big idea, so let's go through each of these points now, Thomas?

Thomas Alvord: (06:11) Yes the first point, and this is an interesting point I saw a video I think it was one of the general partners at a VC firm, and he shared that One of the things that he looks for when he's deciding whether to invest money into a new startup is are the founders passionate about what they're doing right, is that their life's mission? In a similar note although slightly different is to see are you trying to serve not yourself alone, but actually to serve the market customer specifically right? Are you actually trying to help people right because I think if you have that passion its going be this passion to create something great, and if it's just on you like I want to make a quick buck not that it won't work, it's just less likely because you're really not going have the passion to go build a company. So again, that's an important point to look at, it's kind of the why your -- why are you even approaching or doing this? If it's just about the bottom dollar, it's going to be a lot harder not that it won't work, but it's harder.

Zach Smith: (07:19) One of the points that kind of stood out to me in this checklist was, and get this one might sound a little self-promotion but I think it matters, our story works this way. We wrote it like this “I'm hiring competent specialists as needed, who also passionately share my values and vision” I mean Thomas, what's the story of Funded Today? I'm working on the RooSport, I am doing everything I know, what do I do I look for the best Facebook specialist in the world happened to find you, and the rest is history, that's the long story that's exactly what I did, and by adding paid media to our repertoire with everything else we were doing it created a tremendous success story and really a tremendous company from that point forward. So make sure you're looking at that, you can't do everything on your own, right?

Thomas Alvord: (07:57) No, no, yes you have to build a team, and in terms of building a team right it's thinking broader than just yourself, and I've learned this right, over the last I think year, year and half, two years I've really learned the greatest success is always a team effort.

Zach Smith: (08:14) Absolutely.

Thomas Alvord: (08:16) If you think it's you, it ain't going be like maybe, maybe, like in the NBA like you could say it's just you right, if you're like the best player ever but that's just not how it works, right like even Zuckerberg or others they didn't get to where they're at, yes and they might be the prominent figures or the largest shareholders, but they didn't get their just by themselves it's always a team effort. And so it's a think broader, and in that light, the next point on the checklist is, are you as an entrepreneur more committed to success than any specific product or service. Now that might seem kind of backwards to the first point, but the idea is an entrepreneur has to realize, you win some and you lose not some but probably most. Look at Bezos, look at these others who innovate, you're not going to get it right every time, and it doesn't mean you're a failure, like it's totally cliché but it's true, like failure is failing to try like that is failure and so, if you're going to go and “hey if it doesn't work, pick yourself up and try again”, right, like the song goes, so you just have to be committed to success and if you have that drive, then you're going to be successful, and I might not be on this campaign or this business, but eventually you will have one If you are actually striving and going.

Zach Smith: (09:35) And that kind of fits perfectly into our next point on personnel, just adhering to the golden rule "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", it's so easy as an entrepreneur to kind of think it's you against the world, and I felt that way many times as well, but it's so much better if you can see that long term vision, because what you do today is going to affect you a year down the road, sometimes even five years down the road decisions we made a funded today still affect us today even years down the road. And so it's so important to seek those mutually beneficial transactions with everybody else you do business with, and it's important to start right to do that right, because if you don't do with them right now you're going to have lots of problems that you didn't even realize what problems down the road. Listen to us, trust us we've been there, go about it the right way it's not good to make a quick buck when you can build something that's going to last a really long time if you just get that foundation right, I think that's so important. And along those same lines I mean while you're doing the golden rule to those you do business with it needs to be the same way with your employees, your contractors everybody else, we've had experiences where we didn't and they still come back to haunt us. So, listen to us, treat your people right, treat your contractors right, treat your distributors right, treat the platforms that you work with right, and in the end, it's better to be nice, it's better to treat people how you'd like to be treated, and it will come back to your benefit. In the end, you will feel very happy about doing this even though it might feel like a loss like there's many times where if we would have screwed somebody over it probably would have helped out Thomas and I a lot more, and we always go back to ask ourselves, well technically the contract says this, but how can we kind of -- we call it “spirit of the law versus letter of the law, letter law contract” “spirit of the law”, how would you handle this if you were the person having to deal with what is heaped upon them, and for the most part obviously, have your contracts in place, obviously be legal, you know, incorporate your business, do all those other thing that's one of our checklist on this point. But most importantly, treat people the way you would like to be treated, it sounds stupid, it sounds simple but if there's one thing I can tell you in business, it's that if you treat people the right way, they're going to treat you better, people are going like you, people are going to respect you, and you're going to have a business that lasts rather than just fly by night type of company that ultimately you're going to had a bad reputation for -- in 2019 you don't want that?

Thomas Alvord: (11:57) Yes, so that is great and that's kind of more -- I guess emotional, more personal, more kind of your ethos, is it? Moving on is your product, and this is so critical, if you're launching a Crowdfunding Campaign, do you have a tangible product? Because if you don't, it's going be a hard time selling something right, if you're trying to promote a product that is digital, that's not physical, it's going to be incredibly hard, and there's people who come and they have an idea for an App or an idea for a SaaS. The problem with that most people don't expect to pay some upfront amount for a SasS they're used to seeing what's the service, what's the value, let me try it for a month, and then I'll pay you a little bit every month. Or for an App most people are used to getting an app for absolutely free, or if they need to it's a couple of bucks that they pay for it, and so really the things that we have found to be most successful or not have really any success are to have a tangible product. And again, that doesn't mean if you have a app, it's not going to work, we've raised, you know, $100,000 or so for an app, I think it's the most funded app on Kickstarter. So there is still the possibility to do it, but there has to be something more or tangible on top of that.

Zach Smith: (13:22) And Thomas playing off your point, and you've probably heard us talk about this Funded Today Nation on many episodes, probably the episode where it first came to be was when we featured our Director of Client Specialist Curtis Child, and we talked about how your product needs to be sufficiently new to the crowdfunding community on Kickstarter Indiegogo or wherever you decide to launch. And the idea behind that is you can't launch a wallet on Kickstarter, a watch on Kickstarter again I just used these types of things that are ubiquitous essentially. If they're just like everything else it's already been out there, sometimes even if a product may already be out there but it's never been done on Crowdfunding you can differentiate your product in a way that is unique from everything else it's ever been launched, specifically on the crowdfunding platform say Kickstarter then you have a very, very good chance of raising a lot of money. That probably on the product side of things for this checklist is your most important point is your product sufficiently new? Is it never been seen before on Kickstarter? If you can answer that question without bias and get 30 other people to agree, they've never seen anything like it who are also serial Kickstarter type backers, you got yourself a really good head start, and you can put a good checkmark across that one.

Thomas Alvord: (14:38) And that's great Zack. And the next point to that is it could be something new but how much ubiquity is there right? Does it serve a large portion of the human race, you could say right their needs, their wants because, yes it could be something new but it's like let's say it's some little gadget for hockey sticks, it's like that's not really going to uphill to a ton of people.

Zach Smith: (15:06) I love it.

Thomas Alvord: (15:07) You know, maybe the 50% of the Canadians who play hockey, some here in the States, outside of the States, I don't know how many people play hockey right, so you have something that is pulling a lot of people.

Zach Smith: (15:15) 50% of Canadians play in hockey Thomas I think, you’ve offended our Canadian listeners, isn’t that like 99%.

Thomas Alvord: (15:20) Oh! Sorry, I just, I was -- the retirees that’s what I’m thinking, you know.

Zach Smith: (15:24) Okay got you, yes. No, Thomas -- you're absolutely right just because I said new to Kickstarter does not mean the “ubiquity element” needs to be lost, this better have wide and broad uphill, and also never been seen before on crowdfunding, if you want to have a huge chance of success, love it. Yes, all right there is a lot of things on this one that we just want to kind of briefly go over there's something called an NNN Agreement and that's what you want to sign with your manufacturer to make sure they help you mass produce it, we link out to some examples of that in the guide. If you have any patents it's sometimes good to file provisional patents, design patents, different things like that, and finally I think it’s important to talk about your product development along the way I was just consulting with somebody last night, actually who is bringing a pretty cool product of life, and I was telling him that -- he said I have bought so many different parts across the Internet whether wherever he is buying them and he is like I've got a bucket full in my office that's I could just reach my hand in there and scoop so many of them out, and I said you got take pictures of that that's amazing, that's awesome I love to see all the development. You've got to share that process with people so they can get excited about your story in your journey to realize this isn't just something you thought up and now you're trying to make money for it, this is your vision, this is your dream, this is your passion and you have put blood, sweat and tears into bringing this thing to life. We’ll document it, and that helps us when we make your video, we design your page to give you a really strong start so that people trust you so that they know you, so they understand what they're getting into since they're never going to see you in person because we can use this so that we can help better market and sell your product, so keep track of that stuff.

Thomas Alvord: (16:53) And that point Zach I don't think could be stressed and you want to show the proof that you are actually in this to win it, and that you have committed the time, the resources that you have the expertise because you have to understand that on a crowdfunding campaign people are relying on you engaging whether they realize it or not, whether you are going to have the capacity and the means to bring this to life, and what is the depth of quality that your product is going to have? So, when they see many, many different prototypes it's going to whether they realize it or not, it's going to impress upon them that this is going to be an amazing product right. It has taken that you have taken the time and the care to really make it something, and being able to put that in your video, being able to put that on your crowdfunding landing page, being able to use that for the ad copy or for the images can be powerful It makes a massive difference.

Zach Smith: (17:56) And now don't stress, one of the other checkpoints on the product that you'll be able to check off is your products form is maximally appealing, but your functionality is minimally viable, and that means that you don't got to do every single thing you've ever dreamed of. Get your product to do the main thing that you wanted to do right? Make that prototype function it's got to work -- Kickstarter requires that Indiegogo is now getting a lot more strict on things like that, and it's just good, if you can make something that's actually working and proven that you can make it work yourself before you sell it, that's going to help you so much to deliver on time, because if you deliver on time, then you're going to create that trust and report with your backers, so that when you create all of the other features and all of the other future ideas you have, you're going to have that huge community and crowd that's going quickly jump on board with your next big idea. So that is your product and yes Thomas go ahead.

Thomas Alvord: (18:43) And it's not necessarily bad, and this is so difficult because it's always hard to know where to draw the line, and as an entrepreneur, as a business person, you always think, oh well, there's this element and there's this people like this or people would like that 80% 20% suggest there's only going to be a few core components that are really critical, that make up your value proposition and that or what interest people. So you got to focus on that and hone in on what that is, but if you don't have all the bells and whistles, you could even launch the campaign, knowing if this takes off, then I'm going actually have some additional tears saying if we raise $250,000 then we're going to add this feature.

Zach Smith: (19:30) All of them.

Thomas Alvord: (19:32) Or you can always know that launch your Version 1.0 create it, deliver it, get feedback, and then go do a 2.0 with the additional features. You don't -- got to include all the features out of the gate.

Zach Smith: (19:43) And that ties in perfectly to pricing, which is the next subset on our checklist, we've got several different elements that we want you to go through and check off here, but what Thomas into that is called stretch goals, and stretch goals are good and bad, they stretch you in the sense that if you raise $100,000 then we're going to make this product go and white instead of just black or then we're going to add this widget in addition to the widget that we promised, and hint, you know, what Thomas talked about earlier the 80% 20% aspect of your product, what's the 20% of it that's going to get 80% of the uphill? The best way to do that is to survey people ask people what do you like about this product and then just let them freestyle, free response write into you, talk you and record what they're saying and listen to all of the feedback. Once you've got 30 or so people who have said what they like about your product, you're going hear recurring themes, those recurring themes that's your 80% 20% and that's what you want to make sure emphasizing as you go about selling your product, because that's what you're end-users are saying they love about it, and you sometimes won't be able to understand that yourself and that's why it's so important to survey other people to see what they like about your product, because you're too close to your product unnecessarily understand. So, again stretch goals you don't have to do him, but you can you consider them. The reason you don't always do stretch goals is because stretch goal, stretch you, and stretching you sometimes makes it harder to deliver, and you don't want to fail to deliver, and you don't want to be slow to deliver, because when you do that like we talked about earlier reputation golden rule if you buy something, you tell somebody you're going to get it to them in November, and you don't ship it to them until next November how is that doing unto others how you would have them do unto you, and people are going to be forgiving, they're going understand that you're a new entrepreneur, they're going to understand that stuff happens and unforeseen obstacles happen but your job as a creator, as a crowd funder is to mitigate those risks as much as possible. So as you plan your stretch goals take into account the extra added work, and cause that they are going to cause you, as you go about pricing your products so going -- that's kind of that's kind of deep level pricing, let's go a little bit more superficial on pricing, and just start it off really quickly, have you planned your reward packages featuring your core product, plus price your options? Easiest way to price your options multipacks I think of Katherine Krug and BetterBack, she sold her product for about 50 bucks, and if you lot to then it was like $89 bucks you saved a little bit of money, and that was surprising one, two or five or one, two, five and ten and she made it really simple, the core product was a reward, she didn't say donate a dollar to support my campaign because that's just not what people want, if you're going to do a crowdfunding campaign give them your brought. You love your product, you want the people back in your product to love it too, and that's what your core pricing should include. So, Thomas how do we actually picked the pricing? Where do we kind of get a little bit more detail and how we figure out how we want to price this thing before we launch it?

Thomas Alvord: (22:35) That is such a dynamite to deal with, because unless people have dealt with all of the ins and outs of manufacturing, and bringing a physical product to life, it is hard to know what the cost of something is going to be, and as best as possible you need to estimate and consider your production costs right to manufacture, and that could vary according to skill, right? The more units that you produce, typically you're going to have economies of scale, and you'll be able to get a lower cost a discounted rate, and so depending on how many units you produced, and sometimes we run into situations where we worked with creators and they said “hey, my price point in terms of my production cost was X, because I was assuming we would sell 10,000 units I'm not close yet I mean this pickle, because I haven't even raised enough to go manufacture” and again it's it can be kind of tricky but you need to think that through there is also the feast for the platform such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo which will take 5%, there is the credit card processing fees which are another 3% or so, there is going to be your marketing fees, whether you run in-house or with an agency like Funded Today there's going to be issues perhaps where people's credit cards fell, and you'll have to work on collecting that And you're also going to have to consider how you -- the costs would managing all of the shipment, all of the packing, and if you're doing free shipping what is your cost for shipping? What costs are you going to need to incur for returns, for relevant taxes, and for anything else that's unexpected. For example, what if you go manufacture and then you find oh crud this product is not shippable, and you can't get your money back or you don't have something built in with you manufacturer right, so that are -- those are some of the things you need to think about again all this is in the checklist, so if you're launching a campaign you need to go and download this checklist because it will make sure you don't miss anything. I'll give a legal disclaimer I suppose there could be something, but out of all the campaigns, we run it if you cover this, you've pretty much got all of your basis points.

Zach Smith: (24:56) Yes this is thorough and the reason Thomas kind of went through 5%, 3% refunds, chargebacks things like that is because he doesn't want you to have a million dollar campaign, and then have $800,000 land in your bank account after the 14-day waiting period when Kickstarter Indiegogo releases your funds and then you're like, wait a sec I thought I did a million, like it's important for you to under promise and over deliver with yourself as well. When you do a million dollar campaign, you might only end up having $100,000 profit, and that's perfectly okay, that's like that would be a wonderful outcome, probably the most creators. So by planning for all of the things that are possible to happen you're going to be much happier with the end result of your campaign, and you're going to know exactly how much you need to raise, so that you can make this idea happen. If you don't do that then you are going to run into issues and that's kind of where all the trouble starts, and we don't want that to happen to you, so that that is pricing in a nutshell. One thing I want out on pricing and this is one of those things we said we were going giveaway that we sometimes said well should we give this away? One of the most powerful things Funded Today does is a good upsell, we basically message every single backer within the last few days of the campaign, so maybe two, three days left on a project 48-72 hours, right, you message all of your backers, you say, “Hey, I loved you so much as a backer I know you got into my early bird pricing discount, here's the deal” how would you like to give one of these to your friends, or your family member as well How would you like to give this as a Christmas present, got any birthday's coming up? Well, here's the deal If you buy another one right now, I'll give you the same price I gave you before, when we do this, we get 10% to 20% more in pledges. So a million dollar campaign suddenly has $1,100,000 or $1,200,000, a $100,000 campaign suddenly adds another $10,000 to $20,000 in place it's very powerful, it's important to do, but why does that relate to pricing? Because you need to make sure you're pricing it right so that when you offer this amazing deal, it's actually amazing for you to, and you haven't hurt yourself in terms of your margins or what you're going to need to be able to do to ship, fulfill and deliver on this product, it's called upsell, and you absolutely need to do that, if you want some help with that our client specialists can help you go through some add copy and different psychological triggers that we've done to great effect to raise millions of dollars just applying this simple little principle, you got 1,000 backers and those 1,000 backers suddenly contribute 10% to 20% more to your project pretty much guarantee, it's a beautiful, beautiful strategy and it all starts with making sure you properly priced your product how's that for a tongue twister? Thomas, Platform what we got to understand about our platform?

Thomas Alvord: (27:30) It's good if somebody has not dealt with crowdfunding, back to Kickstarter Campaign Indiegogo Campaign to go and create an account on both of those platforms, and go explore the website, understand the community and the dynamic, and this doesn't need to take a lot of time, right, and you might go back a couple of campaigns just kind of see how the process works and even that is not critical, but again you want to understand the culture, and just kind of the process and how it works, and really you're not going to understand the whole process, but to just understand those platforms a little are going to be important, and we recommend we don't really care one way or the other, we just look at the numbers, and the numbers recommend that you should launch on Kickstarter if at all possible, and for some reason you can't then launch on Indiegogo they're both good platforms Kickstarter is just the better platform.

Zach Smith: (28:28) And that might be all we need to say on platform, obviously, we got a whole episode on Kickstarter versus Indiegogo so you want to listen to that, you will want to make sure you understand the rules of the platform to. We'll link out to Kickstarter’s rules and Indiegogo’s rules they're pretty simple and pretty straightforward, but it's important to read them probably the most important role that we talked about earlier in the product section is to simply understand that you need a working prototype. If you don't have a working prototype you may run the issues, even if Kickstarter Indiegogo approves you down the road you might have a lot of backers question whether or not this is a viable idea and if you can't prove to them that it's viable you run the risk of suspension we don't want that to happen to you, so make sure when you launch your project, you actually have something that is functioning and working and doing what your video on your page says it's going to do so you're not misleading your backers. Again kind of going back to that golden rule thing and it's going require some more work upfront for you, but I promise the more work you've done upfront the more money you're going raise down the road. Okay, next topic, “the timing” why is this so important, Thomas? What are the key points on this aspect of our checklist?

Thomas Alvord: (29:33) It's interesting, and I actually want to expand a little broader, to put this message out there people need to expect at least two months to prepare for all their launch, for their media, for their video, they're page design, the pre-launch marketing setup at a minimum two months, ideally three to four months right? It does take time and I would add to that Zach we were just chatting about this today that you need all that buildup, and what's interesting is about that build up you're not taking any sales, and then you have this little window where you generate all the sales during 30 days or 45 days, and then you're done, and it becomes a sprint during that time but you've actually been preparing like a bear hibernating that is a weird analogy, but that is an analogy kind of right, you've been preparing for these 30 to 45 days, and then you execute. And so you need to understand there are timeframes, and there is different timeframes for different platforms, because we often will work with somebody on their crowdfunding campaign, then work with them on Amazon and sometimes they're surprised that it takes us three months or six months to actually build everything out, and they fail to realize that if you look at your crowdfunding campaign it wasn't 30 days, it was actually two months, three months, four months or maybe six months in the making with the video, with the photography, with the page designed with the copy with honing in on the ads, and it's no different but, for example on Amazon, it's actually going to take you longer, don't expect sales to be booming on the first day right, crowdfunding like we just spoke about on launch day you need to be ready to have to come out with a bang. Amazon, for example yes, you want to have a strong launch, but it's going to be substantially different, and so understand the timing, and don't be disappointed just realize there is cycles and seasons and different timing, and yet you need at least two months before you launch at a minimum.

Zach Smith: (31:43) We always say Kickstarter is a sprint, Thomas said that earlier and then we say Indiegogo InDemand is a marathon, and then maybe we could say Amazon and e-commerce is you’re.

Thomas Alvord: (31:54) Yes, my brother just did a 100 mile one I forget the name of that.

Zach Smith: (31:58) Super marathons or something, one of our listeners going to have to correct us on that.

Thomas Alvord: (32:02) Your pre-launch is not a super marathon, but it is work still.

Zach Smith: (32:06) Absolutely, so give yourself time, this is when you are preparing your email list, this is when you’re doing your surveying, this is when you're making sure everything is working, you don't want to rush, so make sure all your ducks are in a row before you get going. And a couple other point that we want to talk about plan around seasonal peaks, Coolest Cooler obviously not really a success story it's a success story in the sense that it raised millions of dollars, the delivery side of things, unfortunately, didn't get that pricing right, and so they're still struggling, but the timing was really good. Did you know that product actually fell the first time around? Failed miserably, all they did his launch it in the summer and everybody thought, “Oh! Wow, cooler beach party fun hanging out of the park” and that seemed to do the difference for them. So, timing does matter for seasonal type products consider that as you launch, even if you're not going to be delivering your product for months down the road when it's winter, it matters in the sense of the person's mind who is backing how they feel in the moment psychologically, and, believe it or not, that really does matter for certain types of products, A couple other kind of really nitty-gritty points launched between a Monday and a Wednesday except for around major American holidays. Launch in the morning in the USA, because that's where most crowdfunding backers are from so make sure you take that into account when wherever you live in the world. You know, 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM Eastern is probably a pretty good time to launch, and then kind of a timing in terms of how long your crowdfunding campaign goes, 30 to 45 days, and then if you do an Indiegogo InDemand I would just keep extending for as long as Indiegogo is going to help you out and put you in newsletters and that could be 60 days, 90 days. We've worked with some of our projects for more than a year depending on the love that Indiegogo is give you, and how well it's converting, and that is to prepare you for your Amazon, eventually, you're going to want to move to Amazon and by getting all of this funding upfront, and delivering a successful product, they’re going to have a huge head start on Amazon, because all of your backers are going to love you, and they're going to five star reviews on Amazon, and that gives you the catapult you need to start your Amazon success, and that's where the real business begins. And then finally finish your product between Wednesdays and Fridays, before it becomes evening in the USA that matters as well, because you're going get that last 48 hour push those last final hours are powerful, and you can time all that stuff down to a science, it does lead the thousands of more dollars and pledges that we have tracked, and so all these things adding up or tens of thousands of dollars have done right. So make sure you do each of these things, even though perhaps individually they might not be as powerful collectively they could make all the difference.

Thomas Alvord: (34:32) Yes, at the end of a campaign, you might have $1,000 or $2,000 coming in and pledges every hour or every half hour, if it's a larger campaign, and you don't want those to be the sleeping hours at 2:00 A.M here in the United States. Again, crowdfunding is international but like Zach mentioned the majority of crowdfunding backers are based in the US and they tend to back more, and have bigger wallets to spend more on this type of thing. So that is really something to focus on but even the timing well that's important this perhaps maybe one of the most important things which is the presentation.

Zach Smith: (35:17) And we get asked all the time, “hey make my project a million dollars” and what’s the most important thing like Thomas said, definitively, we can tell you that presentation is more important than marketing. We can market the exact same product, the exact same way but simply just to change the presentation and it makes all the difference. We talk often about Shotbox 2.0 an Aaron Johnson's product literally the only thing we did is make the presentation better. Exact same marketing led the hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales once we got things right, the product of the week that we're talking about in just a little bit, same types of story we could probably even call that a new Shotbox 2.0 success story. Absolutely terrible presentation, cleaned everything up, and it made all the difference because the product was great, so how do you have a good presentation? Well, number one you practice your sales pitch on real people until you understand how to sell your product best. Even if you're going hire somebody else to sell your project, you need to know why your project is great. You need to be able to talk about those features, and translate those features into benefits for your backers, for your customers. If you can't do that yourself, nobody is going to be able to do it, it's important for you to take ownership of that and then translate that ownership so the person who's going to be marketing your project.

Thomas Alvord: (36:27) And there's something so valuable about that process right to figure out what resonates with people and what doesn't resonate, and what are the hot buttons, and to really understand the psychographic and demographic of your ideal customer, and you don't get that unless you talk to people you pitch your product and see how they respond and there's a corollary to this for those of you who like Tim Ferriss, and the ideas he put out in the four hour work week, he talks about, look, you launch a business, you need to be the customer support person at first before you hire anyone. So you know what questions people have, so, you know, how to answer the questions, and then after that, you can start to outsource it and give it to other people or give it to other team members, but you have to do the legwork first yourself, and then from there you can have an effective operation across the board.

Zach Smith: (37:34) One thing I like about this particular subset of our checklist is the idea of using plain conversational language and here is the kicker that is friendly to a global audience, you're selling to everybody yes, most of your people are probably going to be English speaking, but it doesn't mean it's their first language, and it doesn't mean they understand the jargon that you might use. So be careful with technical jargon, speak clearly, speak honestly, speak openly about your project, but try to describe your benefits in a way that can be aided through explaining and showing, selling with that emotional element and kind of having reason as a subset of that, and the reason why this is so important I guess I would say is the elevator pitch right? If you can't quickly describe your product in 30 seconds, which is probably even more time than you're going to have when somebody scrolling through Kickstarter, then you're going to struggle selling your project. So, for the most part, conversational language that is able to be understood by as many people as possible in a way that quickly gets to the point about your project, selling those benefits while showing the features. As we breakdown presentation a little bit, we kind of break it down by video and page and again, there are a lot of things to check-off here -- we again, we said this is a very, very thorough checklist.

Thomas Alvord: (38:50) I would say one of the most important element is that your page is visually appealing and graphic heavy. It shouldn't have a lot of text, if you go and you look at the top crowdfunding campaigns, they have a more is like an infographic, not quite an infographic but like an infographic, that it's easy for the eyes to scroll there's bigger text, and you really have little to no texts that would be one of my biggest recommendations, and to do that requires you to have graphic skills, photography skills, etcetera, so again, whether it's in house or whether you're hiring an agency like Funded Today, you want that presentation to be visually appealing. It's no different than you or I going to a website, and the website looks like it was built in the early 2000s and immediately loses credibility, whereas you go to another site and you're like oh, this this looks like you don't even know anything about them, but you're like this looks, this design looks really clean I bet they have a good product. Just because of how the design looks, and again whether it's conscious or subconscious we’re making those judgments. It's going to have the impact on whether it looks legitimate, but then it also makes it easier to just scroll through and look, and see the benefits of the product, that would be my number one recommendation, and again there are so many points on my presentation, and there's not enough time to go through a mall But again, that's my number one recommendation.

Zach Smith: (40:19) Yes, we've really kind of itemized these as best we can, so just quickly kind of shot gunning through these proof read your page, come on, don't have bad spelling, grammar, punctuation we see this all the time it's crazy it just kind of turns people off, and it makes it seem like you're not confident. If you can't use proper English you can't spell your words right, if you can't do what's necessary at such a simple level how do they expect you to be able to deliver your product? You don't want to convey that type of psychological confusion to your backer so be careful with that. And then finally, I think you want to make sure that your project page is focusing on getting people to pledge so, as much as possible don't link out to other websites this is the -- we always say the job of the ad is to get the click, the click to come to your page, the job of your page in your video is to get the click to go to the shopping cart, to go to the order form, and if your page is telling people to go other places, well that hurts your conversion right. So make sure that for the most part, as you build your page and as you talk about your video, you're directing people to take that next action which is to click the green, pledge or back now button so that they can back your project. Like Thomas said there is a lot of stuff in presentation, and we want you to go through the checklist, this is just a no overview of everything So if you have any questions that we didn't cover in this podcast, definitely let us know we'd be happy to give you a little more detail. But moving on to marketing now, what needs to happen in marketing Thomas at the highest level to kind of bring your project of life?

Thomas Alvord: (41:48) You well, first off you need a marketing plan right? 

Zach Smith: (41:51) Very true.

Thomas Alvord: (41:52) And literally back in the day, you know, the notion, was you build a better mousetrap in the people will come right? But that's not how it works you have to bring your community, and we have a whole episode on this called the “Triple F” “The Friends, Family, Fools” that would be the number one most important thing that anyone could do to launch a new product. Unless you have an existing business and you already have an email list of however many thousands or tens of thousands of people, then you might be able to forego doing the “Triple F” but go listen to that episode, but the “Triple F” on launch day You want hundreds of pledges for thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars to show that social proof that, you know, guaranteed are going happen on day one. So that, I would say is the most important thing and then, of course, there's other things right? Make sure you have your Google Analytics setup, again the checklist is going to make sure you don't forget to cross any T’s or dot your I’s, but you need Google analytics set up Otherwise, you launch, and then you have $50,000 and pledges on your first day and you think, oh, man, I don't know where these came from, I don't know if they were my friends or what where they came from, and you're going to want to run Facebook ads You might want to run some Google ads, depending on how successful your campaign takes off and you're going to like Zach said you know, make sure your marketing funnel is set up for your ads to your landing page to then encouraging people to click on the button to go make a pledge.

Zach Smith: (43:26) And, then once you have all of that stuff going on, you better have some press you better have somebody, whether that's you or an agency that is reaching out to people, telling people how amazing your project is, so that you could get featured in the news so that you can raise money A lot of these places have paid to play options you might want to consider what your budget is so that you can pay to be featured in Gizmodo or TechCrunch for Mashable or wherever you want to be featured you need to look for options there because that can lead to pledges and sometimes spending a couple $1,000 those require can lead to tens of thousands of dollars and pledges, so you want it look into that we call it public relations or earned media, you want to be doing cross collaborations, you want to be doing promotions that way. Again we have podcast episodes on every single one of these you want to hear about public relations, you can listen to the episode with Samantha and Pascal, If you want to learn about cross collaborations, you can listen to the episode with Colton. Again, go through every one of these things like Thomas said marketing is its own animal we've got probably seven episodes of this podcast dedicated to that, but we want you to be able to have a checklist to summarize that you're doing all these things we've been talking about in these episodes so that is marketing. Now, finally the last one and we save this for last for a reason, this is your service, what you need to do to kind of wrap it all up, tie it all together Thomas.

Thomas Alvord: (44:40) Your service doesn't make you money, but it builds your brand. It builds the reputation of what people think of when they think of your product when they think of your business and it's how are you responding to people when people have questions? When backers have questions or comments, are you responding promptly? Are you responding in a professional manner? Are you being empathetic? Do you have a thorough frequently asked questions section at the bottom of your Kickstarter? And are you preparing to thank new backers to recruit them to be affiliates to promote your product in your brand? And so your service is really your human touch, and your interactions that you have with other people and when your campaign is live, that can often be the most draining part of everything you're doing.

Zach Smith: (45:31) So often we have people say, “oh man, I am so excited for this project to be over, it's been amazing how much work and effort I put in”, but that work and effort you put in for your service will as Thomas said make all the difference down the road, because you'll have your frequently asked questions you'll know the answers. You know, how to handle the people that might troll you as crazy as it is, it could happen to you, and you've got to be ready to have a defense for people who may have questions about your project, and whether it's going to be as good as you say it is And it's important for you to respond proactively to those so that people understand that you believe in this thing and you're going to stand behind it, and that is our Ultimate Crowdfunding Prelaunch Checklist, it's beautiful you're going to be able to download it, and that is going to be at funded.today/checklist or fundedtoday.com/checklist its very simple, you should be able to download for free right of that link. Take a look at it Ideally, we want you to print this off, put it on your vision board, PUT on your whiteboard, have it hanging on one of your computer screen monitors or just right there on your desk, so that you could go through each of these until you have every single one of them checked off so that you can have a successful launch to bring that next big project to life, so thanks for listening. Thomas it's our favorite time of the episode products of the week, what do you got for us?

Thomas Alvord: (46:49) Oh boy, do I got a doozy for you. So my product of the week is called “LobsterBag” kind of an interesting name, but it's a little ball, maybe like the size of a small lemon, and it's a plastic case, they call it the world's most compact key fob bag gadget. Within this little gadget, there's actually a bag that allows you to carry stuff so you can carry a bag around with you pretty much all the time, but you don't even really notice it, and the story behind this you're going have to go check this out, because this has a backstory that's so interesting. So the guy who created this, he's out at the UK launches his campaign and hardly raises a few $1,000, so he comes to Funded Today and he says “Hey, I like help and he decides to hire Funded Today, we launched his campaign, and it is just cruising, and we followed all this stuff in the Prelaunch Checklist that we've discussed with you as well as some other things that we add that aren't part of the prelaunch, and he's actually killing it and on track to raise about $300,000 US Dollars for his campaign. When Lo and Behold, Kickstarter suspends his campaign and we're thinking, oh, man what's going on and we've worked literally with over 3,000 campaigns and there's hardly a situation we’ve not run into, although this one is new. But at the time, what had happened, as we thought okay he must have ripped this product off from Alibaba he didn't really create it, he did something he shouldn't have and so that's typically what Kickstarter why they're going to suspend a campaign. This creator is totally beside himself so upset and we tell him, “Hey, you got to push Kickstarter get information why did you suspend my campaign, can you provide any insight” So I want to read you an email that Kickstarter sent back to this creator of the LobsterBag. Kickstarter said “Hi there, thank you for being in touch and apologies for our error, based on your presell website we miss understood whether or not LobsterBag is currently available for sale. We are not able to unsuspend your project however we would invite you to resubmit and re-launch your campaign if you would like to. We know this isn't an ideal outcome for anyone, please let us know if you have more questions best Kickstarter trust and safety. So Kickstarter has a rule that if you launch a product, you are not allowed to be selling it during the duration of your Kickstarter campaign at that time anywhere else and that if you ever previously sold it anywhere else, you're not allowed to launch a Kickstarter, because the idea of a Kickstarter is you're bringing a product to life. Well, if you've already sold it somewhere else you're not bringing it to life It already is alive. So basically Kickstarter here admits apologies for our error based on your pre sell website, we misunderstood whether or not LobsterBag is currently available for sale. So, literally Kickstarter for whatever reason went to LobsterBag’s website and someone or some group of people at Kickstarter misunderstood their website and thought “oh they're selling it and literally just went and suspended the campaign without talking with the creator, without asking any clarifying questions just straight up suspended the campaign”. All of the funds were lost, and then all of the backers got a message saying it was suspended and Kickstarter has a rule that they will not reveal why they suspend a campaign. So then, in a way it tarnishes his reputation, and then he's left to re-launch Kickstarter gives no clarifying message to any of the backers what had happened doesn't put him in an email, doesn't promote him on their website, it does jack nothing and just says sorry for our mistake. Sorry you are launching your campaign and you've put your blood, sweat and tears into this, and probably countless hours, and you've probably slaved over this and put in maybe thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and we freaking screw you over, and I'm sorry, just re-launch that's why we freaking hate Kickstarter, and I hope they listen to this message and realize holy frick, we have a serious problem here we don't care at all about our creators and the time, and the effort, and the energy they put into it, like literally absolute shame on Kickstarter, absolute shame like it is so pathetic what they do, And with that, I would say yes Indiegogo is a 100 times better than Kickstarter. So with that little rant, end of rant I would say if there's any attorneys who want to go and get an injunction against KICKSTARTER for what they've done, because this new campaign, the LobsterBag, it's only going to raise probably 100,000 right, because they have tarnished his reputation, they totally killed his momentum, and there's about $200,000 in lost pledges he's not going to be able to capture. And Kickstarter is notorious for not giving a frick about anybody, and just canceling or I should say suspending a campaign, not even having a provision to reinstate it, and so if there's others out there who are sick of this, which we are this creator doesn't have the funds to do it right he's just some guy in the UK, but if there's some attorney who wants to go file a case against Kickstarter and take it pro bono, I don't see how you won't get attorney's fees and get an injunction against Kickstarter, that they can't willy-nilly suspend campaigns like please reach out to us, send an email to thomas@funded.today or zach@funded.today, and you know we can get you in touch with this creator. But anyway, with that rant over, go check out the LobsterBag, it is a cool bag.

Zach Smith: (53:14) Help him out seriously I mean, he's gone through hell and back and we feel terrible for him, and I can't add anything to it what Thomas has said, But it's a terrible, terrible situation, and it's honestly as annoying that Kickstarter even has the ability to do what they did, they're so. In that light My product of the week this is a really good project it was one of the most popular projects on Kickstarter, but we have reason to believe that Kickstarter is playing games with this one to believe it or not, they were one of the most popular projects, they were one of the most magical projects in terms of Kickstarter’s rankings and for whatever reason, Kickstarter has not yet revealed the creator is extremely frustrated, another really good creator, and their project is not being ranked or listed as hiring nobody really knows, so we have some emails into Kickstarter perhaps by next episode will have some more details on this one, but the project is called Pale Blue and these are lithium polymer USB rechargeable smart batteries, and -- no this has never been done on Kickstarter before, and I think that's why it's raised over $200,000 and counting from over 3,000 backers huge success story, these guys are based out of Hong Kong, and the part I like most about this battery is number one it's green 10 million batteries are thrown away every single day. One pack of these they can replace 4,000 general alkaline, I’m huge into replaceable batteries or nonreplicable rechargeable batteries I use them all over my house as much as I can, and I'm definitely going to be using Pale Blue now as my rechargeable battery of choice. The part I love most about Pale Blue, though, that perhaps no other batteries ever done, these guys have a micro USB port right in the battery so when you charge him, you literally just took him into your phone or a typical charging station. So you don't have to buy an extra accessory you know, normally have to kind of put the batteries into the little chargers and then put him into the wall, not these, the little batteries themselves have a little micro USB slot, and they charge right up. So amazing, amazing, product obviously, thousands of people love them.

Thomas Alvord: (55:15) You know its crazy Zach that that nobody else has created this sooner right.

Zach Smith: (55:20) Yes, really is.

Thomas Alvord: (55:19) Because it's seems so obvious and with so much waste of batteries right and pollution, it's like why did no one think about this? And again it's such a small tweak but then it makes it so usable.

Zach Smith: (55:34) You know, I mean they did exactly what we say, look at everything that’s out there and say well what else can we do to make it better, and that’s what Pale Blue did. And you know, what I love most about Pale Blue, our very own Devon and his team designed the video, we we've done this one start to finish. So this is Funded Today's work, and it is extremely successful across the board, we love this product, and even despite Kickstarter absolutely hurting this product for - who knows why I mean 3,000 of their backers love this product, their community. If I go to the community tab on Pale Blue get this which is this is absolutely fascinating. The community on Kickstarter loves this product, meaning people who have back hundreds of other Kickstarter projects are also backing this project. You've got backers from Singapore, London, Sydney, 1,500 backers from United States, 180 from United Kingdom guess how many new backers? Only 390 new backers 2,906 or returning Kickstarter backers, so why is Kickstarter punishing this project, you tell me I don't know, and it still raising funds of money despite the punishment, because that's what a good product will do. We love Kickstarter, we wish they get their act together, and hopefully this podcast episode serves as a reminder to who Kickstarter truly serves and it's the creators that are bringing wonderful projects to life that actually make their platform amazing, and they got they've got it all backwards so, that's our episode that's our project of the week checkout Pale Blue, checkout LobsterBag support them, help them out and again what do you like about this episode? What you want us to rant about next? Who do you want us to bring on as a guest? And what's been your favorite episode so far? I really want to hear from you. We're like 33 episodes deep now, so let us know what you love, what you hate we'd love to hear from you. Please email us support@funded.today, or leave a comment on our website funded.today.podcast Give us a review We read every one of them, those kind of make my day It doesn't matter that we already have hundreds of five star reviews, we love to hear and read each new review, I read every one of them they really keep me motivated, and I'm sure they do the same for Thomas. And until next time remember, don't wait until tomorrow get Funded Today.

Announcer: (57:49) Funded Today is the worldwide leader in Rewards Based Crowdfunding on Kickstarter and Indiegogo combined they have raised over $200 million and counting for thousands of new ideas and inventions worldwide. If you got an idea for a new product or invention visits fundedtoday.com to speak with one of their experts.