Crowdfunding 3.0: Your Complete Guide to Get Funds for Your Idea

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How to Instantly TAP on this Fastest Growing

Trend That Has Already Raised Over BILLION

FASTER than Any Other Fund Raising Option In

History “What Are The Most Important Elements That Make

Crowdfunding Works For You?”


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Copyright

All content including images published within this e-book is protected by copyright laws. You may not reproduce or republish this work or change it in any way shape or form without first acquiring permission in writing from the lawful author.

Disclaimer

The Publisher has strived to be as accurate and complete as possible in the creation of this e-book, notwithstanding the fact that he does not warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet.

While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, the Publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein. Any perceived slights of specific persons, peoples, or organizations are unintentional.

In practical advice books, like anything else in life, there are no guarantees of income made. Readers are cautioned to reply on their own judgment about their individual circumstances to act accordingly.

This book is not intended for use as a source of legal, business, accounting or financial advice. All readers are advised to seek services of competent professionals in legal, business, accounting, and finance field.

Material Connection Disclosure

You should assume that the publisher of this e-book has an affiliated relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this publication and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider.

Remember, you should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet, the same as you should buying offline.

You are encouraged to print this e-book for personal easy reading:)


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CONTENTS

1. Introduction: Putting Your Mind and Preparations on the Right Track ............................... 5 2. Campaign Management – Lead the Team and Be Accountable ........................................... 7 3. Why Need A Business Plan For Your Crowdfunding Campaign .......................................... 10 4. Integrating Your Business Plan to Crowdfunding Campaign ............................................. 12 5 Choosing the Best Crowdfunding Sites That Meets Your Start-Up Business Needs ...........15 6. The Six Most Versatile Crowdfunding Sites For Your Start-Up Business ..............................20 7. How to Create A Successful Crowdfunding Campaign – Quick Guides To Crowdfunding Campaign Solution………………………………………………………………………………………...................... 25 8. Increasing Effectiveness of Your Start-Up Business Crowdfunding Campaign ….............. 32 9. How Create An Impressive Crowdfunding Profile For Your Start-Up Business…............... 38

10. Implement Philosophy Behind A Successful Crowdfunding System. …........................... 45

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INTRODUCTION Putting Your Mind and Preparations on The Right Track

The key to make all this work is to first have a great understand of the real power of Crowdfunding had brought to many successful business owner and fund raiser. Doing business on the Internet is no difference from doing business in the real world. As an entrepreneur, you need to possess the right attitude from building your business framework straight up to managing your business processes. Attitude can make or break you. As a start-up business, your business plan and crowdfunding campaign represents your own character. As captioned by Stanford Research Institute Study: “Success is 88% attitude and 12% education”. This make the biggest difference failures and successes . If you are looking to crowdfunding for capital sourcing, below I've included few of the most important aspects you should really prep up . 1. Physical and Mental Fitness – Be READY!

When you are raising capital through crowdfunding campaign, the first criteria that confines you to a strict regime is the deadline itself. Have you set a deadline for the launching of your crowdfunding campaign? Have you set a deadline for the ultimate funding goal you want to achieve? See, if you aren't prepared for the deadline and writing it down, you are not ready, just yet. So, the first thing is to be prepare and write down the deadline of your goals and the launching date. Throughout the whole process, You will be expecting extra-long hours to attend to backers’ enquiries, providing updates on campaign progress, catching up on PR works to draw new pledges and coming up with plenty of marketing ideas to keep the ball rolling. With the demanding attention and hard work twenty four seven, your mind must be able to endure the stress in order to stay collected and not being veered off your campaign’s goal.

2. Positive Attitude – Be POSITIVE!


Resilience and Perseverance – When it comes to soliciting donations, money may or may not be flowing in the minute you launch your business plan. The competitions are stiff with new start-ups budding on the sites daily. BUT, never feel dejected when the pledging rate slows down. Resilience will raise your perseverance to catch up by improving and re-strategizing your campaign.

Passion and Pro-activeness – Believe in your business plan, your products or services. If you are not convinced with your business idea, chances are, the people will feel the distance as well. Therefore, business core should be built upon a strong belief to enable you to execute your plan with passion. Through confidence, you will then be able to deliver your business idea in a proactive manner and connecting to prospect donors with more confidence.

Stay Optimistic – The Internet is visited by people from all walks of life. Thus, it is common that not everyone has the same opinion towards your project. Take any challenges as building criticism and turn it into opportunity to improve your plan. 1. Compromised Interests – Be Committed!

Due to the high level of dedication required to strive for campaign achievement, most of your other jobs, assignments and commitments will take a back seat. Sometimes, you may also be required to sacrifice revenue by cutting back on taking new jobs. While you may squeeze out few hours to juggle between regular tasks of other jobs, the major milestones these assignments may be greatly compromised. Hence, scheduling ahead of time before the campaign kicks-in is essential to place enough buffers in between to protect all interests. Or better still, you may want to consider engaging the help from team members or third party to absorb some of the responsibilities.

2. Maximize Timeline – Count Every Move and Minute! As the crowdfunding campaign allocates a narrow timeline window for capital-raising, you will want to see your whole team running on full speed covering all branches of your campaign activities to increase community awareness and pushing the funding threshold. Hence, tasks delegation and coordination is extremely crucial when meeting deadline is the call to your mission success. Some of the noteworthy dos and don’ts are:

Ensure campaign milestones flows down smoothly (prioritize the processes)

Set up a guideline on replying comments and enquiries of existing and potential supporters

Keep templates of your replies, updates and comments format as this library will come in handy during campaigning errand

Create tracking checklist for all the data which your project success is measured on (funded amount, total backers, etc.)

Ensure no overlapping agendas between team members

Do not procrastinate in returning answers to any enquiries


Campaign Management – Lead The Team and Be Accountable!

In general, your position at the higher level is to:

Oversee the entire crowdfunding campaign operation Pinpoint any changes necessary to ensure campaign is heading in the right direction Constantly cross-checking campaign activities’ effectiveness against the mission statement With the more cyclical tasks being taken care of, you are responsible in monitoring the campaign’s progress and development. Some of the focus will be on the following tasks:

In its earliest stage, a well-presented business plan explaining the goals, directions and how the funded money will be utilized should be drawn up. Do not underestimate the power of business plan as any working class supporters will definitely judge this information.

Give frequent updates on secured pledges up-to-date, new donors, remaining campaign timeline and project progress through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Do marketing and promotion on your business plan by rolling out periodic short videos on progress details and refresh pitching.

You may also want to get in touch with the supporters within your locality personally to share about your campaign and who knows if others outside the online community might have interest in your business plan.

Keep track and update donors’ list for reward-budgeting.

Filtering and attending to existing and potential supporters’ enquiries.

Just in case you have not realized your major role in maneuvering the campaign success, your job is to get the words of your business OUT. And that means every possible communication gateway. You may now move on to the next section to discover the secrets to creating an impressive business plan.




Why Need A Business Plan For Your Crowdfunding Campaign

If selling your start-up business idea to potential investors and customers in person requires lots of background research and homework, pitching your plan over the Internet is even trickier due to the barrier of interpersonal interaction. No matter how attractive your crowdfunding pitching videos and rolls of blogs are, people will need to see solid outline of what your business plan holds in future before heeding your campaign request, more so to those who go all out to support well-defined business plans. Hence, getting the right intention and direction behind the technicalities can help to send the cash to your doorstep. If you are new to business plan, this is the one document that speaks all about your dream start-up business. A business plan functions like the handbook for the business, partners and investors. It generally:

Reflects your commitment towards the business plan, an important impression for supporters and customers to feel your serious attention and intention to build up the business.

Keep the business planning and activities on track to ensure alignment to business vision and mission statements as well as avoiding side-tracked opportunities venture.

Acts as the performance yardstick by evaluating milestone achievement against the business strategic, financial and operational goal. The business feasibility may then be computed by factoring in reasons for exceeding or falling short from initial expectations.

Defragment the mission into several milestones for easy management. Meeting deadlines of each milestone will also ensure the effort is cascaded to the achievement of ultimate business goal.

Strategize your business endeavor to guide milestone conception to be in-sync with business goal. By outlining the above statements, you get a better insight to:


Understanding your business - the goal and financial position

Understanding your investors - their stakes and expectations on the business

Understanding your customers - their receptiveness of the products which reflects business feasibility

Understanding your competitor - the market share of your business, niche and brand positioning

What Should Be Included In The Business Plan? Most of the business plans are packaged in a very standard format that encompasses the key issues which are of interest to all parties involved in the venture.

GENERAL

Vision, mission and core competencies

SWOT ANALYSIS

MARKETING PLAN

Medium/Channel to promote business products or services Advertising and promotional budget

Branding strategy

FINANCIAL PLAN

Start-up expenses, crowdfunded seeds allocation, revenue forecast

STRENGTH

Find your niche within the specific consumer

demographics.

(Pricing, cost, quality, usability, consumer

benefits)

WEAKNESS

Find workaround

solutions to turn any disadvantages into

opportunity.

(Brand awareness, continuity)

OPPORTUNITY

Bring innovation by doing research to

overcome barriers of current market trend.

(Product/services

limitations)

THREAT

Minimize the business

vulnerabilities to social, ecomomy and environment threats.

(Exit strategy)


Integrating Your Business Plan To Crowdfunding Campaign

Having secured solid data to substantiate your business plan, your next step would be to incorporate it into crowdfunding platform to draw supporters. The Internet tends to see visitors browsing on the fast lane. Hence, your material must be able to capture their attention before they decided to navigate away from your content. And the key to out-rival other competitors is to give a lively presentation to the mundane nature of business plan. First, you capture the viewers’ attention, then, you captivate their focus with logical and impactful contents. By investing some time and effort on this section, you will make a huge difference in your crowdfunding campaign success. So, the key of attraction would be:

EXAMPLE OF INFOGRAPHICS Addressing issues relating to public‘s interest - Always emphasize on potential, benefits of supporting your

business plan, rewards and success rate.

Apply K.I.S.S concept - Keeping it short and simple will avoid waning viewers’ attention.


Back facts and calculations with citation from reliable sources - You may quote the facts or theory to support your business plan validity

Present the contents with creativity - As you will be presenting it online, stylizing important statistics with charts, maps and illustrations will be ideal. Assign colors to your presentation but use in moderation. Microsoft PowerPoint is one of the most versatile presentation tools around for decades. And in recent years, we have also seen the adaptation of infographics to lay out important points and statistical data as well. Hence, combining the two creative gadgets will certainly give an impactful impression towards the potential supporters.

If you find that your creative cells are limiting your inspirations, there are many third parties providing outsource services to render infographics from the data provided.

Infographic Courtesy of SAP, ThinkBigger & businesszone.co.uk

By outlining all the key aspects, it will define your start-up business feasibility and direction better. Perhaps you should get your hands wet on your start-up business plan today and then learn how to find the perfect crowdfunding site to match your needs in the next chapter.


BUILD YOUR START-UP BUSINESS ON A SOLID

FOUNDATION:

“How To Choose the Best and Most Suitable Crowdfunding Site For Your Business”


Choosing The Best Crowdfunding Sites That Meets Your Start-Up Business Needs

With the increasing popularity and usage of crowdfunding for start-up businesses all over the world, hundreds of websites are built to serve this purpose. As each of this crowdfunding sites are designed with their own special niche and functionalities, smart start-up entrepreneurs will know better that comparing them with a good checklist on hand will simplify the tormenting process significantly. In this section, we will take a look at the fundamental assessment criteria for crowdfunding sites to better gauge their suitability to your business needs.

MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS To an entrepreneur, capital sourcing through crowdfunding embodies two benefits. Aside from acquiring financing for their start-ups, receiving funds from backers also gives moral support to their dream venture. Hence, driving maximum supporters from the right crowdfunding sites should be your priority. Among the characteristics that determine the website’s practicality are as explained below.

Main Characteristics For Comparisons

1.) By Business Profile Orientation Depending on the nature of your business, different ideas conveyed effectively via different orientation. You Need To Choose...

Visual-oriented site if your business caters for creative or artistic products or services because you will require more images and videos capacity as well as functionalities.

Text-oriented site if your business is related to trading, economy or finance because you may require sites that provide layout for full-page of facts and figures, theory and calculations with comprehensive facts presentation tools.


2.) By Business Campaign Profile Design The lay-out of your business profile is very much influence by your crowdfunding objective. When researching this aspect, also pay attention to sites that provide easy linking to social networking sites for convenient status updates. You May Go for:

Statistic-based layout if you intend to raise money within a stipulated timeline which will show funding goal and funding progress, rewards, contributors’ details and etc.

Product/Service-description layout if your campaign is a continuous crowdfunding effort via product pre-sales to support your ongoing designs.


3.) By YOUR Fundraising Approach Depending on how you want your capital to be raised, you can consider one of the following: Keep However-Much-You-Raise if you have some financial backups for initiating your start-up business but

emphasize on recruiting market support on your products while earning some cash along the side. This approach will release whatever the raised amount to your account upon the deadline. The campaign runs based on supporters’ trust as the money will not be returned regardless of the success or failure of the funded plan.

All-of-nothing if you need the targeted amount to jump-start your business plan. This approach will keep the fund in escrow account, where the release will only be commissioned upon project success or else full refund will be made to the backers. Most sites engaged this method to protect supporters’ interest as well as an indirect motivator to drive entrepreneurs’ responsibility and determination for success.

4.) By Crowdfunding Concept While most general crowdfunding sites manage reward-based fundraising campaigns, some do offer equity-based platforms.

Reward-based – Entrepreneurs are expected to offer perks in return for the money donated in support of their business plan. This reward comes in the forms of product pre-sales offer, discounts or revenue cut. One of the site models is ProFounder.

Equity-based – Entrepreneurs are basically trading the business stakes in exchange for monetary support on the business. An instance of this site model is Mymicroinvest.

5.) By Demographic Restrictions

Infographics courtesy of pleasefund.us,sandfishdesign.co.uk & crowdsourcing.org

http://sandfishdesign.co.uk/


The boom of the crowdfunding community has driven many countries to develop similar sites to expand local

entrepreneurs’ market. Although the origin of crowdfunding sites do not affect the success of a crowdfunding campaign given that most of them reach for global audience, however, some of these sites have constraints which may indirectly influence their traffic’s demographic. For instance:

Business Locality – CapAngel restricts fund-raising to business based in France only. Language Barrier – Fandyu communicates its contents in Spanish only.

6.) By Crowdfunding Niche While some crowdfunding sites cater for all fundraising purpose, many websites streamline their niche to better define their directions. By identifying your business mission, you will be able to tell which of these sites give your business a suitable start.

Strictly Business Caters for entrepreneurial ventures and research projects

Mymicroinvest

Creative Business Caters for creative and innovative endeavors

IndieGoGo ProFounder RocketHub

Charity-By-Business Caters for businesses which are willing to share a small percentage of their funding to a choice charity

HelpersUnite

For the best outcome to your capital-raising effort, many crowdfunding sites allow entrepreneurs to test the water with offline projects. This is a good opportunity for your business to familiarize with crowdfunding system and finding the perfect match when you go live with your business campaign later.

Tips and Precautions Before You Choose Your Crowdfunding Platform

Whatever your choice is for your start-up business, there are some important tips that you should keep in mind though.

If your start-up business plan can do well merely by crowdfunding through offering of perks, it will be advisable to put investment-based crowdfunding aside in order to maintain the stakes and authority of your business.

In the event that your start-up business finds it deem probable to embark on equity-based crowdfunding, it will be advisable to get yourself acquainted with The Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act clauses to give your business maximum protection.

Always go through the Terms and Conditions stipulated in crowdfunding site of your choice to avoid future

disputes.


Choose a reputable crowdfunding site which has strong technical support to offer assistance when your campaign faces any glitches and have reliability in handing funding account as well.

After You have decided your approach, and which characteristics you are more after, it's going to be the MOST exciting time to choose the list in the next chapter, which we've filtered a list of over 72 differnet Crowdfunding sites over the internet and shortlisted the BEST of them (Top 6) for you so you could save most of your time focusing on which one you would want to start your crowdfunding project with now.


The Six Most Versatile Crowdfunding Sites For Your Start-Up Business

After going through the crowdfunding sites selection criteria, you probably should have shortlisted some of the sites you deem appeal to your business. In this section, we have filtered andcompiled some of the most popular and versatile websites (not in priority order) for your further analysis to make an informed decision.

Process Overview

1. Fundraisers must register with the website with an online business profile (owner particulars, business goals and funding needs).

2. For start-up business, you may choose to crowdfund via Gifts/Donations or Direct Loan. 3. Funders are solicited by inviting friends and family in your social network. 4. 40Billion will then generate custom promissory note on the successful transaction for both parties’

monitoring and avoid disputes. Funding guideline

1. Raiser target range: $1,000-$99,000 (gifts and donations included). 2. Funders offer range: $25-$10,000. 3. Direct Loan repayment deadline: 1-3 years (Gifts/Donations exempted). 4. 40Billion currently do not offer equity-based investment. Charges

1. Initial campaign setup is free. 2. Extensions charges: $9.99/month (maximum 6 months). 3. Interest On Funded Amount: 0%-5% (Gifts/Donations exempted).

40Billion

Origin: USA Founded: 2008 URL: www.40billion.com


Payment Procedure 1. Online payments through PayPal. 2. Checks by mail to business address.

Special Features

1. May set your crowdfunding campaign private or public. 2. Provides comprehensive startup guides at very minimal charges.

Assessment Method

1. Uses Business Rating System score to rate business-success measures, entrepreneur profile, peer ratings and reviews for gauging popularity.

T&C

Ideas must cater for US-based business. Raiser must be minimum 18 years-old with valid US address. Funders must be minimum 18 years-old.

Process Overview

1. Register and pitch your business plan. 2. Invite friends into the community who assess and support your idea.

3. If business pitch reaches maximum popularity, MMi’s partner, SEMCAP will analyze its viability before releasing to public for equity-based crowdfunding who becomes your shareholders.

4. Shareholders will be entitled to remuneration upon business exit. Funding Guideline

1. Beginning March 2012, funders may invest in SEMCAP-approved business pitches with minimum €100. Charges

1. Registration is free. 2. Investor pays: 5% of funded amount. 3. Start-up pays: 10% of amount raised.

Special Features 1. Specifically caters for high potential start-up businesses. 2. Opens globally to early stage entrepreneurs.

Mymicroinvest

Origin: Belgium Founded: 2010 URL: www. profounder.com


Assessment Method 1. Business plan popularity is based on community voting that promises maximum visibility to professional and

angel investors. T&C Funders must be minimum 18 years-old.

Process Overview

1. Make crowdfunding campaign preparation according to checklist provided. 2. Choose whether to engage in Public/Private raise (difference in revenue payout). 3. Campaign duration: 30 days/round. May immediately start new round if fail to raise targeted amount.

Funding Guideline

- ProFounder offers two types of fundraising term options: (a) Revenue Sharing: Agreement to share percentage of profit with backers over specified period.

This approach is divided into PUBLIC & PRIVATE round.

PUBLIC – Investors can receive unlimited revenue in return over a period of 5 years. PRIVATE – Investors receive revenue capped at initial investment amount. (a) Stock Equity: Offering of business stakes to investors.

- Investor minimum pledge: $100 Charges

1. Registration and tools: free. 2. Campaign initiation fees: $100. 3. Private Round Campaign fee: $1,000 flat.

4. Interest on Funded Amount: 5%. Special Features Crowdfunding tools - pitch creator, term sheet generator and compliance calculator.

“Swap+Meet” event to get entrepreneurs acquainted and share resources. Conduct fundraising with compliance tools to the latest Regulations governing securities offer. Opportunity for third party financial support via “Hello Etsy” fund.

T&C

Opens globally to all start-up entrepreneurs but MUST be US-based business.

Funding are sourced ONLY from supporters within own social network.

ProFounder

Origin: USA Founded: 2009 URL: www.profounder.com


Businesses based outside US are required to consult respective local laws regarding fundraising terms.

Process Overview

1. Register for campaign. 2. Create campaign profile with impressive overview of business goal. 3. Prepare pitching image/video. 4. Set funding goal and decide on rewards.

Funding Guideline

1. All campaigns on IndieGoGo are contribution-based (No equity-exchange allowed). 2. Funder minimum pledge: $10. 3. Campaign duration: 120 days or fewer. 4. Rewards: Perks/Tax Deduction for funders.

Charges

1. Registration is free. 2. Raiser pays:

4% fee on fully funded amount. 9% if goal not achieved but may keep the funding. $25 flat for Credit Card fund disbursement to non US-based campaign. 3% for third party payment processing fees.

Payment Procedure

PayPal: May withdraw funds during campaign run but IndieGoGo retains 9%. Upon achieving targeted amount, another 5% will be released to valid Bank Account via ACH or International Wire Transfer (IWT).

Credit_Card: Payment is disbursed within 5-7 days upon completion of campaign through Credit Card of valid Bank Account via ACH or IWT, after deducting 4% or 9% depending on funding success.

Special Features

Integrated social media tools and campaign showcase widgets for incorporation in personal site or blog.

Business campaign gets opportunity to feature on IndieGoGo homepage, the press, newsletter, blog or social media.

Good Customer service, educational tips and campaign-tracking facilities. Offer professional service to provide compliance guideline in enabling raisers to offer fiscal deductions to

funders.

IndieGoGo

Origin: USA Founded: 2008 URL: www. indiegogo.com


Assessment Method

Based on GoGoFactor, score is increased by frequent campaign status updates, traction and share tools usage, whereupon achieving the set score will entitle business campaign for various social media coverage.

T&C

Open for entrepreneurs across the globe.

Process Overview

1. Register for campaign. 2. Gather as much support from social network, email campaign, etc. to increase awareness of your business

participation.

3. Set realistic funding goal. 4. Prepare pitching video to back campaign.

Funding Guideline

Raiser’s goal is advisable to stay below $25,000. Funder minimum pledge: $5. Funding can only be made through PayPal or valid Credit Card. Rewards can be anything OTHER THAN financial return and limit of $10,000 on any one type of reward.

Charges

1. No posting fee. 2. Interest on funded amount: 5%. 3. PayPal processing fee: 2.9%.

4. Cross-border payment and currency conversion rates apply. Payment Procedure

Via PayPal only. Cash and checks transaction not available.

Special Features

1. Entrepreneurs get to keep funds despite not meeting goal PROVIDED they are able to fulfill promised rewards to funders.

PeerBackers

Origin: Florida Founded: 2010 URL: http://peerbackers.com


Assessment Method

1. Staffs only review content suitability and campaign’s direction to ensure alignment to their platform concept, BUT NOT viability of business plan.

T&C 1. Open to entrepreneurs globally. 2. Participants are refrained from campaigning same project elsewhere.

3. Do not share your business venture with other users via comments in PeerBackers site. 4. Rewards in the form of sweepstakes, lotteries or raffles are prohibited.

Process Overview Register for campaign.

Select a charity that will share a small portion of your raised fund. Connect to social network and offer prizes for support.

May post multimedia elements (Maximum 5 photos/images up to 2MB and 1 video EMBEDED from video hosting provider).

Funding Guideline 1. Campaigns duration: 120 days or less. 2. No limit even when amount of funding goals exceeded. 3. Fundraising can only adopt reward-based offer to contributors. Charges

1. Campaign posting is free. 2. Interest on Funded amount: 9% (inclusive Credit Card processing, charity disbursement and admin fees). 3. $35 flat for Credit Card fund disbursement to non US-based campaign. 4. 3% for third party payment processing fees. 5. Cross-border payment and currency conversion rates apply.

Payment Procedure

Payments are disbursed through ACH or IWT within 4-5 days upon campaign completion. Special Features

1. Adopt “Pay-It-Forward” concept by allocating small percentage of fund raised to charity of Raiser’s choice. 2. This approach will appeal to community that is passionate about charitable causes which indirectly create a niche audience for the supported business plan.

HelpersUnite

Origin: USA Founded:2008 URL: www. helpersunite.com


3. Entrepreneur’s contribution will be mentioned to the receiving charity. Assessment Method

1. Business plans are subjected to review on guideline conformance and identification of improvement rooms before being approved for posting. 2. HelpersUnite also review all business plans to shortlist ideas that are worth featuring in their platform homepage. 3. You may also make request for review through [email protected]. T&C Open to entrepreneurs globally.

Required to submit business and campaign materials in English. With all the crowdfunding sites details enlisted, get ready to track down your ideal platform and proceed to sharpen your campaigning skills in the next chapter on what your crowdfunding campaign speaks about your business.


HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL

CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN:

“The Key To Your Funding Success”


Quick Guide To Crowdfunding Campaign Solution If you have been relenting on your lack of marketing skills that is holding back your crowdfunding intention, chances are you have underestimated your ability. In fact, most of the “X-Factors” that drive many campaigns to excel is merely everyday elements that simply fell under your radar due to infrequent access to them. In this chapter, we will bring back the forgotten elements to your attention and incorporate them to the principle of crowdfunding solution. The first section will guide you on strategizing and implementing your crowdfunding campaign, succeeded by the next section elaborating on polishing and actualization skills.

If you perceive crowdfunding campaign in Project Management taxonomy, quality of the outcome is derived by addressing the three most essential deliverables in the Triple Constraint, which are Schedule/Timing, Cost/Fund and Scope/Approach. Just as their nature to equally complement each other, compromising on any one of these factor will require compensation from another. In crowdfunding your start-up business, your biggest constraint will be the COST itself. Hence, the only factors you may leverage on are TIMING and APPROACH. This concept has been adopted successfully by an IndieGoGo participant, Gregor Schmidinger in his “Project Homophobia”. (A) Timing

Plan your strategy way ahead of your campaign’s kick-off date to avoid last minute rash decision-making. Based on IndieGoGo observation, limiting crowdfunding campaign between 50-70 days will yield higher success rate before the “heat” wanes off. Launch your campaign during the highest online activity period to increase funding opportunity. For instance, launching your campaign during Christmas Shopping season will drastically reduce your effectiveness due to the holiday rush-hit.

Image Source: IndieGoGo.com (B) Cost

Identify which milestone and amount that needs funding based on your Business Plan costing. Determine funding goal by quantifying your network worth (number of potential supporters and average donation willing to be funded each). Keep figure realistic by soliciting only sufficient amount to aggregate to your alternative financial sources. Gluttony will defeat your purpose! Add a margin to your funding goal to cater for percentage cut if you engage crowdfunding site support.

Approach

STRATEGY


In the previous chapter, much has been covered on pinning the ideal crowdfunding site to launch your start-up campaign. Although crowdfunding sites gives your start-up campaign a one-stop solution and automation for your capital-sourcing, building an independent personal website for your business venture may give you a different sense of flexibility. There are generally three different ways to implement your crowdfunding campaign which are elaborated as below.

Ready-to-Serve Platform If you intend to invest your entire time and resources in strategizing and building contents, opting for existing crowdfunding platform saves you the time and energy from reinventing the wheels. Despite the different features provided by each sites, most of the account creation procedure do not differ much. Standard information required would be: Main account details (Name, Email, Login Password). Campaign Details (Name, Main & Donation Page URLs, Fund Goal and Duration). Payment solution and related details (to disburse fund via PayPal, Credit Card or International Wire Transfer).

Page layout customization (Logo, Title, Headline, Color Palette and etc.). Embed/Upload contents (Video, Photos/Images and Business Venture Description).

IMPLEMENTATION


Start-From-Scratch Some of you may prefer to break out of the norm and give personal touch to make your crowdfunding campaign. If you do not mind the hassles of handling the bricks and mortar of your personalized crowdfunding website, you may try to develop one via your web hosting provider. Alternatively, you may get this site up to complement your existing campaign which you have created on one of those existing platforms. By building a personalized website, you give a room dedicated specifically for your business contents where interested supporters can navigate from the crowdfunding platform’s page to your personal website to understand your business venture further. In fact, many crowdfunding sites also provide widgets that can be embedded to your own website to automate donations or view campaign progress. In the next section, we will cover in detail on how to create a comprehensive crowdfunding profile to increase your campaign effectiveness.

Images Source: Donation widget by gofundme.com

Private Hosting-Plugin


For those who want the best of both worlds in terms of freedom and convenience, start-up owners may go for plugins offered by web hosting providers which absorb the legwork while simultaneously lets you run campaign without binding to crowdfunding sites just for the purpose of utilizing their widgets. This also gives you maximum freedom in customization and keeps you out of the rigidity on campaign deadline and interest charges which may incur from existing crowdfunding platforms. One model website that adopts this approach is onecitypersecond.com who builds their crowdfunding campaign on Wordpress platform using IgnitionDeck plugin.

Conclusion While crowdfunding sites helps your start-up campaign by integrating social infrastructure and pooling audiences to their centralized “marketplace”, putting up a website specifically delivering contents related to your start-up business will reflect your determination in going all out to launch your business endeavor and help you coast through the campaign effectively. Stick with us on the next section for ways to strategize your crowdfunding campaign.

Increasing Effectiveness of Your Start-Up Business Crowdfunding Campaign


When it comes to crowdfunding, the number of donors and funding statistics resonates about your business’ market traction more than anything else in your campaign. You may not be a persuasive type in nature, but do not be dismayed just yet. The following guidelines will steer you through the methods for improving your business plan’s visibility, enabling your crowdfunding campaign to run on the most optimum gear.

Although many acknowledge that crowdfunding sites are the crowd-puller, this attribute will not work to your campaign advantage if you do acquire the correct pitching and promotion strategies. Therefore, it is vital for entrepreneurs to tune their pitch to the crowd’s rhythm in order to outrival the others. So, how can you get the most out of the throng of potential backers? Identify Your Target Audience

If you think that you have a limited network of friends, you will be surprised when you lost count on the number of people whom you may solicit from the following channels: 1. Closest friend and family members. 2. Members of forums or discussion board related to your business subject. 3. Friends from your social network sites and community groups. 4. Followers of your blog/site and vice versa.

First, compile a listing of “potential candidates” details. Then, prioritize on which group of audience you plan to approach first, beginning with the most potential group that will make contribution, thus increasing others’ confidence in your campaign.

POLISHING


Present a Convincing Pitch In the online realm where words and symbols shape your tone and intention, devoting extra effort to avoid harshness is worthwhile. Hence, if you want to break the hostile barrier of Internet in crowdfunding campaign, always follow these rules when pitching.

Clarity – State your business scope, idea objective and campaign goal clearly.

Connectivity – Present relevant business niche to the group you are pitching while highlighting the advantages for funding your business. Engage them as BUSINESS PARTNERS to make a change to the community rather than sheer donors.

Affordability – You are campaigning after micro-contributors. So, set your pledge tiers at low and comfortable amounts.

Creativity – Support your pitch with videos, images and slides to enhance interpersonal relationship. Participating personally in your video will help you gain more trust from the audience.

Modesty – Don’t just do the talking. Learn to appreciate when audience gives you feedback. Be positive and proactive when handling discouraging comments too.

Transparency – Be honest with how the funds will be utilized.

Interactivity – Engage the crowd in suggestions-offering and thoughts-

sharing. Project your sincerity by providing useful information to spark their interest.

Convincing – Gain thorough understanding on your business to convey a convincing pitch.

Image Courtesy of Brian Wilkins and entrepreneur.com Rewards Structure


Although it is not obligatory to reward contributors, giving some presents in appreciation to their goodwill certainly reflects your genuine determination towards start-up success. You may enlist the contributors for respective perks corresponding to their funded amount. Try to offer items relevant to your campaign or immortalize their names in “Hall-of-Samaritan”. Even when you fail to secure raisings that fell-short, giving smaller gifts may touch your contributors’ heart to return for support, shall you campaign in future.

Preparing the pitch is one whole lot of effort that requires brain works. Promoting campaign, on the other hand, will require your legwork to sustain the traffic by turning visitors to your supporters. - Create Crowdfunding Profile

Lay out an informative and solid content pertaining to project details (Goals, Milestone, Forecast and Advantage)

Optimized your content for public searches by using related keywords in text and photo tags.

- Promote It via:

Online

(b) Social Network – Linking these sites to your crowdfunding campaign accompanied by updates/promo teasers is one of the most popular approaches in trend. Most campaigners go with the most popular Facebook (35% of all small business entrepreneurs) followed by LinkedIn (15%) and Twitter (10%). YouTube (8%) is also another alternative for maximum campaign exposure.

(c) Mass/Private Email – Used for campaign promotional updates. Some people even append campaign tagline to their email signature.

(d) Newsletter – Caters for news and updates on campaign progress.

(e) Blog/Website – By embedding widgets linking to your crowdfunding sites, your followers will likely be directed to your crowdfunding campaign.

Offline

5. Personal visit – This personal approach will extend your campaign to gaining funds from potential community who may not be comfortable with funding online.

6. Phone Call – Follow-up with potential supporters via calls. This method must be used in moderation.

- Spread The Words – Maximize your campaign exposure by seeking help from your fellow social network community to report or re-tweet your campaign updates. Twitter users are also popularizing the trend of captioning similar Tweet subjects with Hashtags (#) to enable all related posts to be extracted when search is run on a particular subject.

- Noteworthy Advice

ACTUALIZATION


Despite the concerted efforts to push up the funding threshold, over-saturating the audience with updates will lose its value overtime. It should therefore be advisable to send updates: 2. Sparingly, at least 2-weeks gap.

3. On weekdays, avoid weekends where

news readership is lower.

4. With more detailed and persuasive contents at the beginning, middle and end of campaign.

5. Unrelated to campaign during and beyond campaign completion to foster good ties and leverage on the relationship for future campaigns.

By putting this theory into practice for your smaller projects, you can continuously improve your crowdfunding skill in preparation for the bigger scopes later. A summary of the web presence in small business is depicted in the following infograph.

Image Courtesy of smokinggunpr.co.uk & Eng@ge marketing design


Image Courtesy of Intuit, Inc.


To get a more in-dept knowledge on how human psychology affects crowdfunding success, stay tuned to the rest of the sections.


How Create An Impressive Crowdfunding Profile For Your Start-Up Business

Your Crowdfunding campaign profile is just as essential as the attire you choose to an important function. Be it the profile on an existing crowdfunding site or one crafted out from your own website, the following attributes should acquire your highest attention and getting it right will put your campaign visible ahead of others. The Layout

Even when you are in one of those “creative mood”, maintaining a searchable structure in your webpage design will keep your visitors’ frustration at bay. Always apportion the space for:

Header – To place your Logo and Menu Bar. Sub Header –To place your campaign’s progress and funding status. Side Bar – To place Latest Comments Summary wall, Funding Rewards Structure and Highlights of other Features within your site. Content Area – To display the detailed write-up of each section displayed in your Menu (Background, Campaign Details, Showcases or whatever you deemed necessary to support your campaign) Footer – Links to your Site Map, Copyright Information, Terms and Conditions and etc.

Image Courtesy of © The Clatty Lads 2010

Header

Sub-Header

Content Area

Side bar

Footer


Payment Facility The ability of your website to entice audience speaks a lot about the viability of your business venture. By merely embedding the payment buttons or links, you make a big leap from just engaging the audience in your venture progress coverage to committing the support action via donation. Just copy the embed code provided by the major payment facilitator website to your webpage and you are ready to go!

Reward level

People are easily attracted to giveaways and free-stuffs no matter how insignificant these treats are. Always come up with rewards that are relevant to your business or industry and thoughtful to the needs or interests of the audience, the attraction to respond to your call for action will be increased as it gives an impression of getting something useful for a small price. Try to expand your reward structure because it leads the crowd to feel more “beneficial” when they pledge a higher amount to get additional perk, in which the amount difference between the tiers are trivial.

Image Courtesy of Onecitypersecond

Branding


Branding campaign has been one of the marketing activities that take up a considerable portion of marketing cost. Even in your infancy stage, building a good Logo, Motto or Tagline will bring your business to the crowd’s attention. Branding should strictly be consistent. The color tone, position, font and aspect ratio should be preserved for standard. Your websites, campaigns, fan page and avatar should carry your Logo to establish your recognition in your industry, or at least community.

Funding Progress When you are running a campaign, you would want your supporters and other audiences to follow your funding progress. Publishing the facts will enable the crowd to gauge your campaign performance and it will amplify the crowd confidence when they see your “fundometer” climbing up. The four most fundamental piece of information to be included are the Funding Goal, Total Pledged To-Date, Number of Backers and Remaining Days to Your Campaign Deadline. Another feature that you may consider incorporating is the funding total progress graph.

Campaign Updates


Although you may have prepared a list of promotional activities, interesting prizes and free contents to be shared to the public over the course of your campaign, having them rolled out silently will not create the magnitude of impact that your sweet effort deserves. You should shout it out through placing comments in social media such as Facebook and Twitter and simultaneously embed it to your personal website to increase your page activity.

Image Courtesy of © The Clatty Lads 2010

Multimedia contents


As the saying goes “A Picture Paints A thousand Words”, multimedia elements are inseparable with many marketing activities today. Pitching without videos and images are nearly as futile as performing an orchestra without tunes and rhythm. Photos or Images can give a more tangible presentation of your products or services. Videos, on the other hand, can explain the functions or mechanism of your products in a more comprehensible manner. To draw yourself closer to audience, you may consider appearing in your pitching video to give a more realistic and convincing message to them.

Business Description A well-defined and easy-to-understand business profile is very beneficial to your crowdfunding campaign. A good breakdown structure of business profile is as follows:

Business Objective – What is your business trying to achieve. Background History – A personal story on past experience that inspires your venture. How It Benefits Your Targeted Group – How your product can improve life quality or convenience. Product Attributes – The dimension, weight and other measureable aspects. Product Design – Illustration of your products or services process flow. FAQ Section – Answer enquiries which are not covered in your scope.

Comments Section Turn up your activity in this section to encourage interactivity with your contributors and supporters.

Sample Extraction from Loomi Crafty Little Light


Business Objective Benefits To Target Group

Product Description Product Design

Quotes of Social Proof (Customer’s Feedback)

FAQ Section

Sample Extractions from The Backcountry Boiler


Social Network Links Although crowdfunding sites come with this feature, you may need to embed this function manually if you build your own website. Link as many social media that you think can connect to your potential contributors as possible. Making sure that your campaign and social network works hand-in-hand will ensure your campaign news gets around all corners of the virtual world.


Contribution Page Besides showing your acknowledgment of your campaign’s contributors, you are actually compiling a list of future supporters whom you can keep in touch with by sharing opinions and information related to your business.


Blog Rolls/Newsletters Make a section or page dedicated to publishing all articles related to your business industry and campaign progress to keep the audience abreast with your latest activities.

The main objective in integrating a diversity of features into your crowdfunding profile is to maximize your reach to different levels of audiences who may have preference over different media type to absorb information. By sharpening your skills and putting equal effort in all areas, a good business idea should be able to coast through the campaign in grace.


Implement Philosophy Behind A Successful Crowdfunding System The beauty of crowdfunding lies in how a group of people with the same preference over a particular subject can influence their collective action to bring sudden and dramatic uniformed changes, either for better or for worse. The “Law of Reciprocity” and “Criterion of Believe” has been the two prevalent determinants of crowdfunding success. So, how do you manipulate theses gems to your campaign? The Law of Reciprocity If you have been paying much attention on the Basics and Strategy of Crowdfunding Campaign earlier, all the tactics stated fundamentally revolve around The Law of Reciprocity. In the virtual community, the “Give-and-Take” attitude is one of the yardsticks which people measure upon your virtue, more so when it comes to crowdfunding campaign. You might say, “Yeah, promise a reward and secure a support, right?” Partially, yes. This may work to your family and avid fans. But remember that other people in the community may not be enticed by your perks after all. Hence, to achieve that kind of receptiveness, you should bridge the interpersonal gap through:

3. Building Trust via Crowdsharing Although your campaign is counting down the deadline, you would still need to gain the trust of the potential contributors to fund your venture.

5. Tap into the subject of their interests related to your pitching niche. 6. Provide valuable information, tips, tricks and precautions to help increase their exposure in the subject through various channels (Forums, Discussion Boards and Blogs). 7. Give inspirational insights on your valuable campaign experience to those passionate about your niche and would like to follow your footstep in crowdfunding.

When people start letting down their guts to communicate with you, it will then be your opportunity to mention about your campaign during your interaction. Image Courtesy of trustedadvisor.com and FFunction


4. Increasing Healthy Links

In social networking, sharing mutual interest over a subject is the force that binds a group together. Regardless of the social channels, links are seen casted everywhere, linking either to another or their own site, to share opinions on the similar subject. To leverage on this concept, you should:

First provide links in your blogs or sites to other quality information sites.

Give supportive and constructive comments on their site with your signature carrying links to your personal dedicated website to indirectly divert them to your crowdfunding site.

This reciprocal action will eventually build your web presence and receive natural links from others who sees your credibility, reliability and self-orientation on your niche within the community.

5. Take A Step Forward

Leveraging on your existing network is also essential and saves you some bridging works. Community networks such as Facebook and Twitter are examples of great ways to promote your campaign through status postings. You may:

Post teasers about your collection of campaign perks or provide pictures on your product prototypes or share your campaign videos and request their show of support.

Do something nice or give sincere wall comments on their activities which may engage them to visit your recent profile or drop you a greeting line where you can introduce your campaign in a less pushy way.

Make interesting highlights on hot topics within your community that you see have the opportunity to relate to your campaign. Who knows if you might earn some “LIKES” or chances of them reposting or re-tweeting your comments?

Image Courtesy of crowdscience.com


The Crowd Psychology

Earlier in this chapter, we put forward a tip to begin your pitching to the group that would most likely buy your business idea and more importantly pledge their funds. The reason behind this strategy lies in the power of The Criterion of Belief. However, this theory does not come into effect immediately but rather a reiterative process which escalates from the initial point of social-proving yourself. Social Proof

By beginning your pitching to the audience prone in funding your business, you create a stronger pillar to attest your campaign’s practicality to other audiences.

Crowd Presence You can establish your presence in a number of ways:

3. Publishing valuable guides and information related to your campaign niche on various social media channels. Twitter, for instance, reveals that 61% of their users follow a focused Twitter account which shares their interests and 32% of the users are likely to stumble upon your account through related searches.

4. Share information by following other people’s account/blogs to make yourself known.

5. Try to put forward your campaign’s progress and explain how previous contributors have come together to make a difference to the community that will benefit from your venture through crowdfunding your campaign. Help them to visualize how the new contributions can help to bring the business to live via collective action. Make them aware that PASSIONATE AUDIENCES have just the same power to change the course of things as other authority figure.

Crowd Engagement

Although there may only be a handful of them responding to your funding request, others who are more reserved might forward or repost your contents in their network. As more people get to know your campaign, the pledges for your campaign will likely to increase, although not in proportion to the crowd size.


Crowd Belief As your credibility and exposure increase, your crowdfunding statistics will put more confidence in public audiences who wishes to invest in a viable venture to offer their support and pledges in your campaign.

A precious piece of advice

to you: The concepts above

will only yield the best results when you start your effort earlier on, way before your campaign commences.

Relationship-building cannot be achieved overnight and progressing too hastily will render your attempt counter-effective.

Keep the flow as

natural as possible.

Image Courtesy of WhiteFireSEO and anshulmalhan.com

Documents

Crowdfunding 3.0: Your Complete Guide to Get Funds for Your Idea