What Does Crowdfunding Success Mean For You

Speaker 1 0:03
This is the crush crowdfunding podcast, the number one place for people who want to launch on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. My name is Nalin. And I invite you to join me for tips, hacks and insights to get you launched and fully funded.

Speaker 1 0:20
Hey guys, welcome to another session of the crush crowdfunding podcast. I'm so glad you're here. And to any first time listeners out there, welcome. I'm so glad that you're gonna join our little crush crowdfunding family over here. And I'm so thankful to have you here because none of this would be, you know, would matter or none of this would be possible without you out there listening and tuning in and seeing where you want to take your crowdfunding campaign and your aspirations for launching. So thank you for being here and thank you for being with me. Today, I really want to talk to you about what crowdfunding success means for you. I'm not sure if it's something that a lot of people honestly think about. So on my website I have, like on crush crowdfunding.com, I have a contact tab where you actually click the contact button on the top bar, and it takes you to a little form that people can use to get in touch with me. And in that form, I get a ton of different types of responses. Actually, I get a lot of people messaging me and contacting me through that. And a lot of the time, people say things like, hey, Nalin, like I'm really glad to have met you, to have found you. You know, I really want to raise as much funds as possible. Or hey, Nalin, like, good to meet you here, when can we started? I want to raise a million dollars. Or hey, Nalin, I want to get as many backers as possible for my project. So honestly, with this forum that I have on my website, when you hit the contact button, I get a lot of these types of answers. And I get a lot of these types of people just like kind of coming to me with a really big, vague goal. I say big and vague because as much as possible, or as many backers as

Speaker 1 2:26
possible is not really

Speaker 1 2:29
a goal. And yes, it can be a defining factor for success because if you, you know, hit unlimited funds that's pretty cool. Right? If you hit unlimited backers, that's pretty cool. But when I talk to a lot of these people, I really really really encourage them to think and right now honestly, let's let's kind of like, kind of walk through this. Like, what is your goal for crowdfunding? What is, what does success mean for you? Why are you here? Why are you looking to launch something on Kickstarter? Why are you looking to launch something on Indiegogo? What is this goal? What does success mean for you? What are you looking for? Right? Every, every time someone comes to talk to me about crowdfunding, about wanting to launch, about wanting to bring an idea to life, about wanting to invent something, about wanting to put your product into the market, it's something I really talk about. I say, you know, like, what is your Why? What's the reason? What's your success? like? What does success mean for you? What does success look like? And what does it mean, at the end of the day, when you wake up at 6am to launch your project, and then you know, 30, 45 or 60 days later, you're at the end of the line and you've been funded? Like, what does it mean? What does success mean for you? Because they wanted to raise as much funds as possible and wanting to get as many backers as possible, although those are, you know, great things and she and she even those are great things to aim for. In order to be really truly successful, I would really encourage you and obviously anyone else who thinks as much as possible for funds, for backers to really be concrete with what you want to do, with what you want to raise with. What your actual goals are and what success means for you, right? Because that will really, really truly guide how you approach your campaign. It will guide, you know, you through the really tough times in the campaign because crowdfunding is really hard work. Crowdfunding is you know, blood, sweat and tears. Crowdfunding isn't really a walk in the park. You can't really just kind of put your page on Kickstarter, put your page on Indiegogo, press the launch button, and boom, thousands of people just come to your page, right? Literally, this past Friday, I was on a call with a client and they said, Wow Nalin,

Speaker 1 4:46
this is hard work. Crowdfunding is hard work. And we were literally just setting up her landing page, right? Like, it was just in the first step of so many steps for success, and it's already really difficult. Especially if you haven't done it before? So kind of back to the main topic here, like what is, what does crowdfunding success mean for you? Okay, so let me talk through a few different, you know, things to keep in mind or a few different scenarios of what the crowdfunding success can mean, right? Because let I'm going to be honest, seeing as many backers as possible or as many, as much as possible is too vague, too vague to lead you to that point where you will feel fulfilled as a founder. Where you will feel fulfilled as a crowdfunder, where you will, you know, be able to take as much from crowdfunding as someone else who has a really concrete goal. So, when we talk about crowdfunding success, to some people, you know, crowdfunding success is, you know, raising a very concrete amount of money, raising a really concrete number of funds or dollar amount to fund an initial production, right? That's super simple right? They have this idea, they have this really cool way to solve the problem. They have this really cool idea they want to introduce the world and it will solve a problem for them. For their loved ones or some for people in their tribe, people in their community, right? And all they need to do for this last step is to really raise, you know, X dollars, whether it's $10,000, 15, 20, 30, 40 or $500,000 in order to fund the initial production, right? That is what crowdfunding success is, right? Getting to that minimum goal, and doing whatever it takes to get to that minimum goal to fund that initial production, in order to take this to market. Right? So that's what profit a success can mean, right? Getting to that minimum number. And again, this involves a lot of research, a lot of, you know, self knowledge of like, hey, what does it take for me to actually bring this to market? What does it take for me to actually do this research? What does it take for me to actually do shipping? What does it take for me to call all these different factories? All these different manufacturing plants? What does it take to actually get this thing into production and out to people? What does it actually take? How much do I actually have to raise? How much do I have to raise in order to get the word out there, right? In order for enough people to come in and support my idea so that we can all be successful with this project, right? So that's one way to kind of define success, right? Raising that dollar amount to fund that initial production, right? So that's one way. Another way some people approach crowdfunding success or being more concrete about crowdfunding success is say kind of along the lines of the first point I was making, you know, it's to meet the minimum required amount to actually produce the thing, right? With some, with some factories,

Speaker 1 7:53
with some manufacturing plants, you're going to work with. With some different suppliers or some different, you know, producers of things you're going to work with, you, there's going to be a minimum amount required for you to actually, for them to actually make the product for you. For them to actually put their production facility into gear and make your product. And that is what crowdfunding success is. Hitting that number, making sure to hit the number, whether it's 100 units, that they have to pre sell, that they have to get people through the door to really get. Whether it's 500 units, whether it's 1000 units in order to make the economies of making the product viable for a campaign like this, right? So a crowdfunding success metric is again like meeting that minimum required amount for actually just bringing this thing to life. Bringing this thing to the market, right? Getting to that number for the crowdfunding. No, it's not as many backers as possible, it's a very finite number of backers. Because when you have a finite number of backers, whether it's 100, whether it's 500, whether it's 5000, you're able to really work backwards and understand how much time, how much effort, how much funds, it is to actually get to that amount. If you're going to be needing 100 backers, versus 1000 backers, I assure you that the input you have to put in, no matter if it's time or money or anything else, is going to be drastically different. 100 versus 1000 backers. drastically different pre launch, you know, time period approach funding and everything. So again, what does that crowdfunding success mean to you? Is it really just meeting these minimum required amounts in order to get the product to market. Another way to kind of approach success is also really just being able to understand or master the process of crowdfunding. A lot of people see crowdfunding as a way to, you know, kind of launch different ideas as a creative outlet, right? People who are inventors at heart, and they love toying with new ideas, they love creating new products and creating new projects and coming up with new ideas and coming up with new solutions. A lot of inventors, like, they don't understand the process of crowdfunding and the process of actually getting whatever cool, cool, useful, helpful thing they invent, and getting it to market. And so the goal is literally just to master it, master the process. Master the understanding of the process, like hey, when you have a product, you have to make sure that the product is something people actually want. You have to make sure that the features are right, you have to make sure that the benefits are actually meeting exactly what people want. Right? So that's kind of the first step of the process right? You have to make sure that you understand you know, like having a digital storefront, what having a landing page looks like. What it takes to put up a landing page. What it takes to gather crowds, what a crowd even means, why people gather crowds. Why it's necessary to gain a crowd during the pre launch phase so that you actually succeed during the launch phase. So just being able to master the process of crowdfunding, just because you're excited about the prospect of inventing new things, creating new products, coming up with new ideas, and using crowdfunding as a channel to just launch these new ideas, of launching these new opportunities to the market. So maybe that's what kind of crowdfunding success is for you. Literally just knowing the process and being able to master it so that you can continue to take your ideas, can continue to take everything that you want to do, everything that you want to release out into the world and put it out there, right? Maybe that's what crowdfunding success is for you. Maybe crowdfunding success for you is getting that initial traction in the market. Some people come in crowdfunding and honestly, they already have enough funds to put this product to market. They already have enough funds to launch a product like this. Have enough funds to do the marketing, have enough funds to do the advertising. But crowdfunding success means getting those really early adopters, getting those really early beta testers, getting those really early super fans for the brand that will be brand ambassadors in the long run. That will be those brand loyalists that are advocates for the brand in the long run. And crowdfunding is the place to find that and maybe crowdfunding success for you, you know, if you're approaching crowdfunding this way, maybe crowdfunding success for you is to find, you know, 100 superfans. Is to find 1000 superfans. Is to find 10 extremely vocal beta testers

Speaker 1 12:53
for your project, for your brand for your products so that when you do release this to the market when this thing does come In the market, you have these people posting on social media, share with their friends, tagging you and everything, making sure that your brand your product is visible to the world, right? Maybe that's what success means to you. Maybe success really just means like, Hey, you have that initial base of people when you do go into the e commerce market, when you go into the quote unquote, real world after the crowdfunding launch, after the Kickstarter launch, after the Indiegogo launch, maybe that's what this means right? Getting those initial fan bases so that you're, you know, going out into the real world, graduating into the real world. With that group of fans who's ready for you, ready for, you know, cheering you on when you do go into the commerce market, when you're on Amazon and you have those first reviewers, your first hundred reviews, all from crowdfunding, right? So maybe that's what crowdfunding success means for you. Again, it's, everyone has a different crowdfunding success, like a meaning for crowdfunding success. So don't let what other people defined as crowdfunding success, make sure that you're able to separate what other people define as crowdfunding success and what you define as crowdfunding success. Because as we all know, success is really different for everybody. Success means a lot of different things. And if the person on your left says success is one thing, it doesn't mean that you have to take up their definition of success. If the person on your right says their project $1 million is success or $5 million success, honestly doesn't mean that your project needs $5 million and you need $5 million raised to get that sense of fulfillment, to get that sense of crowdfunding success. Because success is really different for everybody and the way you define it, is the way you define it. So I really encourage you to really think about this before you actually start your crowdfunding journey, before you actually go deeper into your crowdfunding launch. What does crowdfunding success mean for you? Is it to test the initial market to get that, to get that initial traction in the, in the market. To get those initial 50 reviews on Amazon when you actually go into Amazon and you're going to funnel your Kickstarter backers into Amazon reviewers? Is it to get to 100 people so that you can meet the minimum requirement for producing the actual product and actually making this thing go to, you know, come to life? Is it you know, reaching $50,000 so you can actually make those molds to actually produce this thing, to actually take this thing to market? What is success for you? You know, I've only outlined four different, you know, meanings for success for you today. But there's so many out there, right? There's so many different things out there. And the only way to really think about, the only way to really define what success is, is to really sit down, think about it. You know, like, sure you're probably saving as much funds as possible or as many backers as possible. But I really encourage you to think about this, like, do you, you know, what does it mean to be successful? For, to be a crowdfunding success? Is it really to be able to get this product off the ground? You know, if it's to get this project off the ground, then, you know, check how many products you actually have to make to get this off the ground. If it's 100 products, then boom, your crowdfunding success is 100 products and from there, you can actually have this product to market and then actually build a company off of your first product launch, right? So if that's your crowdfunding success, that is one way to go. If you already have all the funds, then your profiting success is to find 50 superfans, right? 50 super vocal people who you're going to tag and you're going to tap and you're going to be able to talk to, converse with whenever you're launching new products. Whenever you have questions. Whenever you have ideas, whenever you need validation, you're going to go to them. So again, what does crowdfunding success mean to you? Before you start your crowdfunding journey, I encourage you to sit down and really think through that, so that you are able to get out of crowdfunding as much as crowdfunding can honestly give you. Because when we've had a real goal, you don't really know where you're gonna go, right? Like, it's kind of like sailing a boat with no end in mind, right? You're kind of gonna steer in different directions, the winds gonna blow you left and right. But where are you trying to go to? Where are you trying to reach? And that I would really encourage you to define before you actually get into the crowdfunding campaign itself.

Speaker 1 17:34
So thank you for listening to another session here on the crush crowdfunding podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, I would be eternally grateful if you would hit the subscribe button. And if you could also leave a review. I would love that too, because I love to hear people's feedback. I love to hear what people liked and what people didn't like, and make this as best as I can for what you want to hear, what you want to learn. Thank you again for being here with me today with the crush crowdfunding podcast
and I will see you next time.

Speaker 1 18:09
Thanks for listening to the crush crowdfunding podcast at crush crowdfunding.com. Tune in at the same time next week for more ways to crush your launch.