Jes Bailey is the founder of Crowdfund 360 and helps organisations run successful crowdfunding campaigns so that they can bring their products to life and build their customer base with more ease.

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I’ve been asked to do an episode on crowdfunding for a while, as I know it is something many of you are interested in. Today I am pleased to welcome the perfect guest to share her expert knowledge about crowdfunding.

Jes Bailey is the founder of Crowdfund 360 and helps organisations run successful crowdfunding campaigns so that they can bring their products to life and build their customer base with more ease.

Jes explains the pros and cons of crowdfunding, what it is, how it works, which platforms to use and what you need to put together a successful crowdfunding campaign.

There is a lot to explore, and Jes kindly shares a huge amount of information, advice and examples of how to create a crowdfunding campaign that's super successful.

Listen in to hear Jes share:

• An introduction to herself and her business (02:10)
• What crowdfunding is (03:18)
• When you might consider crowdfunding as an option (04:27)
• The rewards you might offer when crowdfunding (13:25)
• Why the size of your crowd before you start matters so much (22:38)
• How to build your audience (30:57)
• Content to include on your crowdfunding page (36:53)
• How to choose which crowdfunding platform to use (42:16)
• Potential downsides of crowdfunding to be aware of (50:33)
• The highs of crowdfunding (56:26)
• Common misconceptions (58:15)
• How long the process takes (01:01:59)
• How Crowdfund 360 can help you (01:06:54)
• Her number one piece of advice for running a successful crowdfunding campaign (01:09:39)

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Crowdfund 360 Website

Crowdfund 360 Youtube

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Crowdfund 360 Twitter

Jes Bailey LinkedIn

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Welcome to the, Bring Your Product Ideas To Life podcast, practical advice,

and inspiration to help you create and sell your own physical products.

Here's your host Vicki Weinberg.

Hello.

So today I'm talking to Jes Bailey from Crowdfund 360.

So Jes helps organizations run successful crowdfunding campaigns.

They can bring their products to life, build their customer base with more ease.

Um, I've been asked to do an episode on crowdfunding previously.

Um, I know it's something that, um, some of you are interested in.

I personally was really fascinated by the whole thing.

It's something that you can think you know something about, but I think

until you've been in the shoes of someone who's actually had to run

a campaign, um, you, you know, you don't realize what you don't know.

I found this conversation.

So super helpful.

Um, I think it's a bit daunting.

Um, Jes does mention a few times in the conversation.

She hopes she doesn't put people off.

Um, but everything that I've learned from Jes, I do think it sounds like a

wonderful way of getting validation for your product idea, getting some early

feedback, um, and some early support.

Um, you know, I talk a lot about validating your ideas, um, and it's

Jes talks about a strategy for really early on crowdfunding campaign,

where you can do just that, just get some validation and some feedback

on your initial product idea.

And then of course you can also use crowdfunding campaigns to

get financial support, to help you actually create your product.

Um, there's so much more involved than I ever even considered.

Um, so this is quite a long conversation.

Um, but I think if crowdfunding is something you've even briefly just

thought oh I wonder if that could work, this is so worth at listen because

Jes really kind, each shares so much information and advice and examples

of how to create a crowdfunding campaign that's super successful.

So I really hope you enjoyed this conversation.

Say hi, Jess.

Thank you so much for being.

Thank you very much for having me.

So can we start with, you give an introduction to yourself,

to Crowdfund 360 and give us an overview of what you do please?

Yeah, sure.

So I founded Crowdfund 360 in the end of 2016.

And basically what we do is help organizations run successful

crowdfunding campaigns.

So I usually say it's like Netflix doesn't help filmmakers

make binge-worthy TV series.

They're just very happy to host them on their platform.

It's the same with crowdfunding platforms, crowdfunding platforms

themselves don't really help to make crowdfunding campaigns a success.

They go for quantity over quality.

So what we do is we help people running their crowdfunding campaigns

really work out what that story is, who their target market is, what is

the strategy and psychology behind it.

And then all the marketing that goes along with it.

That's amazing.

Thank you.

So we're going to start right from the very beginning, if that's okay.

And then can you please give us introduction?

I feel lots of people know what it is, but just to be ever so clear.

Can you tell us what crowdfunding is?

Yeah.

So crowdfunding is the process of funding, a particular project with a particular

funding goal from as many people as possible in a particular timeframe.

And again, that timeframe is so important because we all have that friend that's

like, I'll give you money next week.

I'll give you money next week.

And then next week never actually happens.

So having that defined time really makes sure that people give now it

brings the excitement to it over that campaign period and crowdfunding,

as I'm sure you know, is so intense.

And I'm sure we'll go into that a bit later on anyway, that really having

it in a time period means you focus all of your time on it right then.

And then that's it.

Amazing.

Thank you.

So, as you know, this podcast is about creating physical products

and that's what we focus on.

So I guess I, in, in with that lens, where might someone look to use crowdfunding?

Um, it, you know, perhaps if they, if they had run a products business, or

they've got an idea, when is, when is the time that they might think, okay,

crowdfunding could be an option for me.

So there's quite a few different times that you could think about

crowdfunding in the earliest point.

I'd say it's when you've really got that coherent idea, but you're looking

for market research and validation.

So the money therefore was kind of like less important, but it's actually looking

to see whether your target market is the right target market and whether or not

they actually want the product as it is.

And using crowdfunding to let them help you pivot so that you

create the best product possible.

That's really interesting what you've just said then.

Sorry to interrupt Jes about the money.

So it might be that if you are looking for validation for products, might

it be that you might not have as, you know, such a high monetary amount.

And you're looking for, if you will, if you are, you know, if you perhaps

of course you might need, you know, the investment is going to be helpful, but

if it was more about the validation, um, are there different ways to approach, I

guess is the question I'm trying to ask?

Yeah.

At this early stage, your target would be simple, low, and you'd be much more

along the lines of you know, smaller pledges, like one to five pounds or

something about, you know, would you be interested to buy this at some point

when it's, you know, later on in the future, you know, five pounds to have

a say in the colors that we create this product in something like that.

So that you're really giving people a voice in helping you shape the product.

That's the earliest stage that you'd want to crowdfund.

And yeah, like you said, it's not about the money.

That's really about kind of the number of backers and helping you shape

and create that product that you know, is therefore going to be more

successful when you actually come to sell it later down the line, because

it's essentially been co-created at that stage with your audience.

Thank you for that.

Because something I hadn't realized until we spoke before is that you

actually get lots of feedback when you've run a crowdfunding campaign.

So I found that really interesting as well, because I'm quite big on

people sharing their ideas and getting validation and input from as many

people as possible before we're actually going away and spending a lot of money.

So this sounds like a great way of actually actually reaching a lot of

people and getting a lot of inputs.

Um, sometimes you have products and, you know, we don't know what we don't know.

An example is there was this person who was running a crowdfunding

campaign for, uh, high-heeled shoes for women with larger feet.

And so it was kind of like your size nines and above in high heels.

And, uh, she was marketing it to the women with larger feet.

Turns out once the campaign had gone live, actually the majority of the

backers were men and she didn't realize that she had this, you know, cross

dressing men who liked to wear high heels demographic as a target market at all.

And in the end, halfway through the campaign, it was very clear she wasn't

going to meet her target, but she ended up, you know, scrapping that campaign.

And basically going back to the drawing board and thinking, I

got my target market like wrong.

Let me now see, can I remake the marketing materials, remake the video, remake the

story and everything with this new target market at hand so that I can actually

be more successful in the long run.

And that was a really interesting thing that she never

expected was going to happen.

So I challenged people to think about before they've launched.

Realistically, is there a target market that you haven't even thought of yet?

Who do you not think would be your target market?

And actually, can you work out how they might be?

Because there will be a lot of things that surprise you along the way.

Even countries backers come from things like that.

We had an air purification unit, it was mostly targeted to Londoners because

the air is not great there obviously expected some backers from India, China,

that sort of thing ended up getting loads of backers from south America.

The company like didn't even know that they had that bad air quality there.

Like obviously they knew, but they hadn't done much research in that area.

They hadn't spent a lot of time and money, um, researching those markets.

And then suddenly it was like, okay, you know, can we translate this into Spanish?

Can we get this out there into that area for PR all of those things where

they didn't think that was really going to be a thing at that time.

That's amazing.

Thank you.

And you're right.

I guess you have to keep an open mind as to what you might find out once

you start putting your idea out there.

Yeah.

And I think, again, one of the key points of that as well is having that open mind.

You don't know what you're going to find out, and you've got to be

prepared that you might find out that people don't want your product

in the way that you've created it.

So again, the earlier that you do some sort of crowd funding or

crowd sourcing of ideas, the less.

I'm going to say, like the less precious you are about your product.

If you've spent all your time, money and effort for the last five years,

getting down a tunnel vision, that is your baby and everyone's businesses

and products are their babies to then have maybe 200 people come and say,

I think I actually prefer it in blue.

Well, something like that.

And you'll that like, it has been red for this many years.

You know, you want to find that out before you mass produce.

You want to find that out before you put, you know, your first order in and try

and then sell it all in, it's all just stuck in your living room and annoying

your partner for the next however long.

Yeah.

And I think it also wants to find that out before you get too I mean, invested

probably isn't the right word, because as you say, we all invest in our

businesses, but I think you're right in that, um, sometimes people can have

such a set vision of what the product looks like or who their customer is,

and you can't afford to get too wedded to that because just because you think,

you know, You think I'm okay it's for this group of people, actually, if

there's another group of people telling you that, you know, we want this, um,

you'd be crazy to just disregard that.

So I think it sounds like you, you can think about crowdfunding

fairly early on in that case.

Yeah.

And then the next stage that you'd think of crowdfunding, potentially, you've

done all of this stuff that we're talking about with focus groups or other market

research techniques that you're like, well, that's too early for me then

you'd think about crowdfunding for like, you know, your first production run.

Obviously you're making a product that's kind of a heavy

cost upfront, whatever it is.

So you would use crowdfunding then as like your presale.

So you would, you would know how many orders to be putting into

wherever is making it or something.

Um, by running a crowdfunding campaign.

And we see this a lot, this is probably the most common form of crowdfunding for

product, you know, for fashion products, even for electric bikes, even for,

uh, furniture items, things like that.

It's okay.

I ran the campaign for five weeks.

I sold 700, you know, of the, of that product.

So now I can put my order in to the factory and they can make more than

700 because you're always going to have sales afterwards as well.

And you can do it that way.

The really great thing about crowdfunding is that people

expect to wait for the product.

So, you know, like nowadays, especially post COVID everyone's like next day,

You know, sometimes even same day delivery, which is just ridiculous.

Crowdfunding gives someone a sense within them psychologically, I'm

going to have to wait, like at least three months for this product, you

know, sometimes you're waiting up to a year and people are okay with that.

Whereas if they bought it direct from your website or direct from a, another

retailer, think how annoyed they'd be.

They didn't get it for a year.

Now, the key thing is to keep them updated over those months

or year that they're waiting.

So every couple of months, just give them an update.

You know, it's now at the factory, we've done the final designs.

You know, we've just arrived in our shipping warehouse over here.

Those sorts of things keep people updated so that they're, they still remember

they bought it that long ago, but don't fret over the, you know, instantaneous

delivery that you don't need to.

That's really helpful.

Thank you.

And when we're talking about pre-order something, I guess it might be useful

to touch on at this stage, if it's okay.

Before we move on, is the rewards aspect of crowdfunding?

Um, because I hadn't thought, first of all, I hadn't thought when you were

talking about the first stage and getting validation that the reward, and I said

it in air quotes might be that somebody gets a say in the design or the colors

or whatever, but then of course I've certainly seen campaigns where perhaps you

get a free product or you get the discount or you get there seems to be quite a

variety of what you actually offer.

Can we talk a little bit more about that aspect of it before we move on, please?

Yeah, sure.

So the, you know, the best pledge that you want to be giving the best reward

you want to be giving is your product.

You also want to be giving that at some like good discount level,

because again, crowdfunding is not like a legal transaction.

It's not like a legal obligation for you to deliver.

And there have been enough campaigns where.

The owner of the campaign has taken the money never delivered and then

gone on a really nice yachting holiday in the Caribbean or something.

So it's more of a gamble than just buying it from your website.

So because of that, we need to like reward our backers by giving

them a good amount of discount.

So that straight up number one, number two, again,

because it is more of a gamble.

The average pledge is more between like 20 and 70 pounds.

Again, depending on your target market.

If your target market is super rich, then it's going to be higher.

But for us general folks, it's going to be about that much.

I kind of want the product, but also be a little bit okay.

If I lost all that money between that amount, I would not be

okay if it was in the hundreds.

So when you've got a more expensive product, you've really got to

think more cleverly about how you can really hope that people

can trust you to give you that.

Obviously we want people to still be giving, still be joining our community

and backing, even if they've only got five pounds, anything less than 20 pounds.

In my opinion, you really don't want to be posting anything because

that's a lot of effort for you and obviously a bit more money.

So thinking about for those ones, what kind of digital PDF, digital download

digital resources that are related to your product that you could give?

So for example, if it's like, if it was a sustainable fashion company, then it could

be just like a PDF of, you know, different swimsuits to, you know, um, support

different body shapes or different sport activities, or if it's a, an electric bike

or something, then the PDF could be like my top 10, um, cycle routes in the UK.

If I was based in the UK, for example, something like that,

that's just a nicety, but it's not really, I'm not really buying it.

What we do need to remember always is as a rewards campaign and as a

product designer, business owner, they are buying our product.

So it's not like we're giving them the product for free and

they're giving a donation.

It's, it's a transaction.

And this is really important when it comes to the psychology

of like asking for money.

People are often like, oh, I don't want to go and ask people

for money and stuff like that.

Like, do you think that Tescos feels that way when they're selling you

some like bananas or do you think Waterstones are like, you know, oh, I

don't want to, um, ask you to donate any money, but here's a really great

book that you might like, it's all in the way that we present ourselves.

It's no we're selling a product and the product is going to help you.

So we need to use that language.

When we look at the stages of rewards.

We need to then think a bit more outside the box.

No one probably wants like six of our product.

We're not really going to get retailers buying the crowd funding campaign

rewards again, just because there's not really that contractual agreement.

So we need to think of more like money can't buy experiences.

If it, again, if it is a fashion item, could they come to for photo shoot?

Could you get your photographer to like set up a photo shoot for them and some

friends with your fashion product or, um, if it's a product that's more like

made in a different country, could you, you know, for, for a few thousand pounds,

could you fly them out to go and see where it's made and, you know, give them a tour

of the area or something like that, or is there some level of personalization

or gift giving or experience or workshop or things like that that you can give

for those larger amounts of money?

Um, which either are going to be great for some people, but again, no one

gives these larger amounts of money.

If they don't already kind of know the brand.

So thinking of your own target market and who, you know, think is there someone

I think would give me 5,000 pounds and what would that person want in return

because that person, or whoever's going to be giving you these larger amounts of

money, they're going to be having emails back and forth with you to make sure

it's legit, rather than just a one-time payment, never see my money again.

So thinking what they would like.

And then if you don't have anyone in that income bracket that you think would be

giving that much money, think more abou.

What type of reward could I put that here would be a bit of a PR angle that

some journalist would like to hook on to you to then talk about the business

and thus, obviously side benefit be promoting the crowdfunding campaign.

Oh, that's really good.

Thank you.

And thank you for explaining the rewards element, because I think that's

something that I don't know if you find this, I feel like that's somewhere

where people could get a bit hung up on how much should it be and what

should I offer for each price point?

Um, I imagine that quite a lot of thought has to go into that.

Yeah.

So much, but also it's not, it's really not the be all and end all.

It's not the most important thing.

What I would say is like, stay away from boring things.

Okay.

No one wants another mug.

No one wants another tote bag.

No one.

A hoodie with your brand name on it.

If your brand name is not recognizable, if you wanted to do something like

that instead of your brand name on it, it would need to be some kind of like

quirky slogan or nice illustration.

That actually is not so connected with your unknown brand at this stage.

But again, if you think it's boring and I don't think anyone wants

this, then don't bother with it.

It's better to have less than more, but then you not want to fulfill on

them and people not want to buy them.

In general.

You want to have about seven of the different rewards at different price

points, because any more really gives people decision fatigue.

And they're like, oh, there's too many.

I can't choose.

So I'm just not going to bother.

And then if there's less than seven, then it's usually too big a jump from each

of the price points, which means people would just choose the earlier price point.

So you wouldn't make as much money.

And also there's not enough choice for people to actually

find something that they like.

Thank you.

It definitely sounds like a lot of thought needs to go into that aspect of it.

Yeah.

But always keeping your target market in mind.

Never.

The one thing that I find most people, the mistake most people make is

always just thinking about themselves.

Like, what do I want to sell?

What do I think people want?

What do I want to spend my time creating?

And it's not actually, what would the audience like, what

would benefit their lives?

You know, if you think about parents they're time poor.

So if give them, like, if you're selling a rucksack for kids or something, then

for that five pounds, you could just give them a list of like kid-friendly

lunchtime snacks or, you know, you could.

You could put the product in a box that can that doubles up as some kind of game

for the children, like, um, you know, snakes and ladders or something like that.

You probably don't want to create that, but actually your audience is going

to see that and be like, oh my gosh, like, you've just given me an hours

peace whilst I can have a cup of tea on my own whilst my kids go and play

with this box that you've made fun.

Like, thank you.

And then they're going to have such a better feeling about your brand.

They're going to write better reviews.

They're going to tell their friends about it more.

And at the end of the day, it's that word of mouth marketing that extra,

like, added value that you've given them.

That's going to make your life easier in the long run, because you're not

going to have to do all of that work.

Yes.

Because presumably the people that back you and receive their rewards if they

have a good experience, they'll tell people and then you'll product will be on

sale and it'll be on sale at full price.

And then it's just a way of getting the words out there.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you.

Sorry to get us off track a little bit, but I thought that was quite,

just helpful to talk about that because we touched on it, but haven't

really gone into what it meant.

Um, so what are the other stages of, are there any other stages when

someone might look to use crowdfunding in their products business?

So the biggest thing that you want to think about and the thing

that everyone hates the most is how big is your actual crowd?

So, you know, money, money doesn't come out of nowhere, right?

And if you go and stand on the street, outside your house and you just say, Hey,

this is my product, little bit about it.

Do you want to buy it?

The person's probably gonna walk straight past you, worst case scenario.

They might even like punch you or something, but generally

they're not going to be buying it.

And so what we need to remember is crowdfunding is exactly the same as

going and asking random people to buy our products that we know nothing about.

And we need to really take them on the journey.

To get them from random person to like best friend so that they,

they are ready to buy the product.

Crowdfunding is a lot about psychology as well.

So if there were two restaurants, both serving Italian food,

one's completely empty.

And one's about like 60% full chances are you're going to go into

the 60% for one, you trust it more.

The people in there look like they're enjoying it.

The empty one, you were a bit cautious and ary like, why is no one in here?

It's exactly the same when people see a crowdfunding campaign.

So for that reason, we need to hit 40% funded as fast as possible,

because any less than 40% funded.

And it's the empty restaurant situation and people are like, this

is kind of good, but I'm going to wait and see if other people give money

first, because I don't trust it yet.

But if everyone thinks that no one gives money, so it never goes up.

So when we think about getting that first 40%, that is really coming from

our friends, our family, our most loyal supporters, anyone who's bought from us

before, anyone who really trusts you and actually like, you know, Vicky's done

something before and it was amazing.

So of course, I'm going to just believe that the next thing she

does is going to be amazing.

Not like I've never met Vicki before.

I don't know whether she's amazing.

Well, she just talks a lot of talk and doesn't do anything.

So when we're working out that first 40%, we need to think about,

well, how much do we want to raise?

And then how much is 40% of that?

And then from that amount that we need to think, what is the price of our

product, the one that we're selling as the best reward, and then how

many people do we need to buy that?

So.

If we, if 10%, if 40% of our aim is 10,000 pounds and we need 400 people

to pay 25 pounds to hit 10,000 pounds.

And that would be our 40% funded.

But if our mailing list, if our social media phone networks are less than

400 people big then obviously, and, and our, and our product is 25 pounds.

We're not going to be hitting that 10,000 pounds.

So we need to think, where is the rest of that money coming from?

Do we know people who could put in 2000 pounds, do we know people who could put in

more that sort of thing, or do we actually need to be realistic and lower our target?

Because you can lower the target and you can go over funding.

And that psychologically looks like you're doing amazing.

You can keep the target high and you can not raise as much.

And that doesn't have the same psychological effect of success and

crowdfunding people want to back something that's going to be successful.

So it's really looking like, honestly, into yourself, like, is

your mom going to give you money?

Probably.

Yeah.

She's your mum is your partner is your second cousin that you've

put down to buy your product.

Are they actually likely?

And this is what people really don't like doing because it really makes them look

inwards to themselves and think things about their friends, family, et cetera.

And again, we say 400 people to give you money.

So that's assuming if your mailing list was 400, you've got an open rate of a

hundred percent and a hundred percent of sales like that doesn't happen.

Most opening rates are less than 50%, obviously like sales coming through

are going to be even less than that.

So that audience needs to be large.

Thank you.

So I think in that case, it sounds like the target that you set for yourself

is also something to put a lot of thought into, because I mean, if you,

uh, I guess that would be different depending wherever you are, you know,

you're looking to launch your first product and you're at the, okay, we've

validated, it's going into production versus you're an established business with

customers and sales and you're looking to add something new to your range.

For example, I suppose, in those different scenarios, you would, you could reasonably

expect to raise a different amount.

Yeah, for sure.

Because if you were looking to put a different product into your range,

but already like you've sold, sold a thousand of the other product, why

would they not want your second product?

Really?

If it was complimenting the first one, so actually you've already got a customer

base they're ready and waiting while also say is your first crowdfunding

campaign is always the hardest.

'cause you don't like, you know, as much as maybe I could help you with

the crowdfunding campaign, or you can look at all the statistics and examples

and stuff online, you don't know it perfectly with your audience yet.

Whereas the second one, you know it perfectly with your audience

and you know, that those backers had a great experience, hopefully.

Um, and will likely back you again.

So the first campaign you might raise like 10,000, but our, our goal at

Crowdfund 360 is that 70% of your backers will give again in the future.

So this means that already in your second campaign, you're basically guaranteed

7,000 pounds from those backers plus.

In the six months or a year that's passed since that first campaign you'll

obviously have grown your mailing lists, growing your social media, got

PR have more brand awareness, learn so much more things, which will only then

benefit that campaign as a whole as well.

And having run my business now since the end of 2016, we're really seeing people

come back again and again, to run second, third, fourth crowdfunding campaigns,

because they can see that it works.

It brings them in money.

It brings them in customers.

And obviously all the side benefits of the marketing, the brand awareness,

the reputation building that the crowdfunding campaign gives them as well.

That's great.

Thank you.

I think it does make sense that if you've run a successful campaign or

even if it hasn't been a successful, there'll be things you can take forwards.

Yeah, even if you fail on a first campaign.

Like it doesn't matter, you learn from it and you figure out why, and

it might be that your product needs to be tweaked, but then you're only

making a better product anyway.

Or it might be that your top you've got your target market wrong, or it

might even be something as silly as like you just launched a really bad

time of the year, you know, never launch a campaign in the summer or

never launch it December, January.

You could have a great campaign that does really well in March, but you've

launched it in January when everyone is broke, you're not going to do as well.

And that's not your fault, therefore anyone's fault.

So if your campaign doesn't do well, like it doesn't mean go shut up, shop

and go and give up on everything.

It actually means sit down and have a look at what didn't work

well and tweak it for the next.

Yes.

I've got so many questions in my head at the moment Jes.

The more we talk, the more I realize there's more to it.

Um, and don't get me by my certainty, always for that, it would be, you

know, there's a lot to think about.

There's even more than I had considered.

That's a great tip on timing.

Um, what I'm thinking about now is audience and how the

importance of an audience.

Um, and I guess what might be good to cover is how to get, uh, but apart

from that, you know, your friends, your family, your partner, what are

the things you can do, sort of get word out about your campaign, because

hopefully you've done some work in advance and you've queued up your mom

and some friends and people who can, who can, you know, get the ball rolling.

But beyond that, What can people do to get the words out about their campaigns?

Because I'm assuming you, you just want it in front of us in front

of as many people as possible.

Um, but particularly if you're in the very early stages of your business,

what are some ways you can do that?

Yeah.

I think the key things are like figuring this out as early as possible, but

throughout the whole thing is really knowing who your target audience are,

where do they hang out online, offline?

What content do they consume and what time of day or the week are

they available to be seeing it?

And the reason I say this is because yes, you want as many people as possible

to be seeing it, but you want as many people as possible in your demographic.

Like when a crowdfunding campaign comes, you've got five weeks to make money.

So five weeks is the best length for a crowdfunding campaign.

Now you don't want to be doing anything in that five weeks that doesn't bring you

in money that you know is going to work.

So before the campaign launches, we want to do all of the preparation things

like, okay, let's test, like does my target audience respond well to video?

Does my target audience respond well to a podcast?

Does my target audience respond well to a blog article?

I want to be doing that before launching the campaign so that when, when I look at

the data and the analytics of it, I can be like, okay, that video did not do well.

I'm not going to go and spend 10 hours making videos during my campaign because

that's 10 hours that I could be spending, you know, talking on podcasts because

they did really well or writing blog articles because they did really well.

So what we have to think as early as possible, Realistically, honing

it down as much as possible.

Who is this person I'm selling to?

You know, if I was selling some crystals, you know, you have to be

very stereotypical stereotypically.

If I'm selling crystals, am I selling it to men?

No.

Am I selling it to, you know, let's say like women in high-powered

corporate jobs that are really busy.

Probably not.

So who am I selling it to if I'm selling something to parents?

Because it's the kids I'm not posting during like school drop off and pickup

times, or I'm not posting during like meal or bath times I'm posting when

I probably am aware that that parent has sat down and is on their phone

and is not going to be interrupted for awhile, but I'm also probably

not posting like long form content.

Because that that parent doesn't have the time to be, you know,

receiving it or unless maybe it's a podcast they're listening to it on

a run or dog or something like that.

If it's for dog owners, then a podcast would be really good.

Cause you can listen to that whilst you take the dog for a walk, but a

video probably wouldn't be as good because I can't watch that whilst I'm

watching a dog on a walk kind of thing.

So it's really looking at who your target market is.

And to be honest, some people's target markets might not even be online.

So then it's looking at well, what coffee shops, you know, if it's a localized

campaign for maybe a new book shop in an area, maybe their target market

are frequenting certain coffee shops.

And then can I leave my, um, you know, flyers in those coffees?

But I think there's a difference in terms of like independent coffee shops

and high street chain coffee shops, as terms like who is going there more

regularly, that sort of thing, which one would my target market be going to?

If I'm, you know, making something that is like not coffee shop

related in a way my target market would never go to a coffee shop.

I wouldn't spend my time putting it in the coffee shop.

What you've got to think about is using your time and your resources

as efficiently as possible.

So, and especially during the middle of the campaign, a lot of people

get a bit panicked and they're like, ah, scatter gun approach.

I'm just going to be telling everyone.

But if we tell everyone, essentially we tell no one.

So it's the same with like a social media post, a social media post on Facebook has

a 4% chance of converting into a pledge.

And the other social media channels are even less than 4%.

And I tell people it's like going and standing on a crowded London

tube and just saying, this is my product who wants to buy it.

No one is really going to be buying it on the tube.

They will just going to think someone else can deal with that.

Someone else can deal with that.

But if everyone thinks that no one does it.

So what we really want to do is kind of get into the personal mailboxes

of the people that are our target market to be asking them directly.

Do you want to join our community?

Do you want to, you know, go and watch better sunsets and sunrises by buying our

hiking boots, because it means that you can walk longer without breath blisters.

I'm asking you personally, cause I know that you're interested in these

things rather than standing on the street and just asking people plural.

That's really helpful.

Thank you.

It sounds like there's a lot you need to think about and a lot to do.

So I think that'd be quite good actually, to move into some of the things that,

you know, some of the things you have to do to run a successful campaign.

I was really interested when you were referencing podcasts earlier.

So, um, my assumption around that, and you can let me know is that you

have to create different kinds of content for your crowdfunding page.

Is that correct?

So whether it's videos, podcasts, text images, um, is that how it works?

Do you tend to create different types of media to

The page itself on the crowdfunding platform is like

honestly it's not that important.

You, the average person gives it like eight seconds before they've

decided, yeah, I'll give money to this and they'll buy into it.

Or like, no, I'm going to go back and watch cat videos on YouTube.

That last page, that page that they see on the crowdfunding

platform is the last thing they see before they buy or don't buy.

It's not the first thing.

So the first thing that they see are your social media posts are your

press release, are your emails are what their friend has said about it.

So all the marketing around the page is really important.

And like, we all know, you know, they say you need to see something

like seven times before you buy it.

And that's probably even higher now.

So it's those seven touch points that they have before they land

on your page that are important.

And that's where you should have that variety.

Like, oh, I heard it mentioned on a podcast.

Oh.

I saw a blog that my friend shared on Facebook or like my friend

showed me this picture on Instagram.

Oh.

I saw a video about it and it linked to their crowdfunding page, but I

wasn't ready to buy at that point.

And then I saw another piece about it in the Guardian or something like that.

Then I went to the crowdfunding page at this point.

They only really need to scan that page because they've seen it so many

other times in many different ways that they've already built up an

idea of what it is in their mind.

So when they look at your crowdfunding page on whichever crowd funding

platform, well, they're really looking at is like the title and the one-liner.

How are you actually describing it versus how have I interpreted it?

The amount of money you've raised percentage wise.

And the number of backers, cause then I can trust you or not trust you.

They'll skim down the page and look at the pictures and they want to be seeing

like, oh, that's the problem I have.

That's the solution.

They've come up with ooh they've got a lot of validations.

This looks good.

And then the rewards, which reward do I actually want to buy?

Which one do I actually want to put my money with?

And that's, that's, that's the page.

That's really interesting.

Thank you.

Because I'd never thought of it like that.

That the page is the last thing possibly one of the least, well, I

guess it's important, but as you say, I hadn't thought about the fact that

all of these other things that you're creating are things, people are going

to see to get them onto the page.

That's so interesting because I was coming at it from the other way.

Yeah.

But a lot of people do.

So I think it's a really good question that you've asked, but again, it's, you

know, when people are on your website, are they looking at kind of the shop

page first or the checkout page, even, you know, you don't want to put all

your time and effort into the checkout page when actually your main job is

to bring people to that page and then just make that page as seemingly smooth

as possible that they want to buy it.

But you know, whatever product you're selling, you know that you've got

to do the hard work and having great photos across social media, with

testimonials, with other people, talking about it on other sites, et

cetera, to bring them to that page.

That makes so much sense because I think you're right.

I mean, just for my own experiments, if I've gone to a crowdfunding

page, I'm at least probably more than 50% there already.

Um, if I've actually bothered to go and take a look unless less, you know,

something someone's asked you to look at.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

generally, you've got a fair bit of intent.

Haven't you first you make it to the page.

Yeah.

And I think one of the other key things that you've just mentioned

that like, yeah, you're over 50%.

If you've gone and clicked on the page in the first place is also

as the campaign owner, you've got to make it as easy as possible

for the person to get to the page.

So, you know, that's why Instagram does not work to bring in money

because it's all like Link in Bio.

Realistically, how many of us can be bothered to go to click on that

person's page to then click on the link in bio to then go to that page.

When realistically all we came on Instagram, like to look at nice, pretty

pictures and videos of dogs or whatever, whereas on Facebook, this is why Facebook

still does better than Instagram.

You can put that link in the post.

And so I'm scrolling and I'm like, oh, a bit interested.

So I'm peaked.

I maybe like, you know, a little bit percentage interested.

I can easily click on it, but what we don't want is any kind of like roundabouts

and everything, to be able to get someone to give you money, we have to

make it as easy as possible for them.

Thank you.

And while we're talking about the pages, it might be a good point to

touch on crowdfunding platforms and any thoughts you have here around.

And I don't know wherever you want to, or whether you're able to talk

about specific platforms or not.

And that's fine either way, but just anything for people to think about

when they're considering which platform to use would be really helpful.

Yeah, sure.

So I'm independent of platforms.

So all of my advices like non-biased to any platforms or whatever,

choosing your platform is not the end of the world, but it also can be

like small things that can help you.

So for example, there's over 2000 platforms in the world, but

there's probably only about 10.

That most people can know and trust.

And again, you want your audience to know the platform and trust the platform.

Otherwise they're not putting their credit card details into it.

Let's be honest.

Think about yourself and your buying habits.

So the key things to think about are, are you selling this product, like just

in your home country or just in the UK?

Or are you happy to be posting it off globally?

If it's you, if you only want to be selling it in the UK, or if it's

like a coffee shop in the UK or a bookshelf in the UK or something that

like realistically, only people in the UK are going to be buying it, then

you want to choose like the biggest crowdfunding platform in the UK.

And if you are listening to this podcast from France or from Australia, or from

Hong Kong anywhere you want to be choosing the biggest platform in your region.

mN the UK, I would say that's going to be Crowdfunder is the best crowdfunding

platform for projects that are only going to be based in the UK.

And the reason I say that is people from the UK they probably know Crowdfunder,

but someone in like Spain, someone in Albania, someone in like, you know,

Algeria, they're not going to know us.

They're not going to trust it.

So choose the one that your market is going to know.

If you have a product like most products that you can sell globally, like this is

a coffee table book that everyone globally is going to love, or this is a new water

bottle that I can ship all over the world.

Then you'd want to consider using one of the big global platforms,

Indiegogo or Kickstarter.

They're the two best global ones.

Well, you do have to remember is again, they're global, you get big organizations

from like San Francisco and stuff running like hundreds of thousands of

pounds worth of crowdfunding campaigns.

If you're only raising like five grand, you're going to be such a

small fish like in the giant ocean.

So it's going to be much harder for you to get visibility on that platform.

Also never compare yourself to these other campaigns.

There are organizations in big cities in the world like San Francisco,

whose whole job is to run crowdfunding campaigns and pay hundreds of thousands

of pounds in Facebook ads and marketing to get their million pound raise.

But like you on your own, maybe with a co-founder in a small startup location,

like you're not going to be doing that.

If you're not putting that money in.

So think to yourself, what can you raise?

But definitely look to those big ones to take some of the design points on board.

So Indiegogo and Kickstarter, Kickstarter only has an all or nothing model.

So this means if you don't hit your target, you go home with zero.

So if your target is 50,000 pounds and you get 49,999, if you don't put that last

pound in, in the last minute, everyone keeps their money and you get zero.

So again, really think to yourself how, how honest do I think I am about

hitting that target because you don't really want to be putting all that

work in and not getting any money at the end, whereas on Indiegogo you

can choose to do it that way, or you can choose to do the flexi funding.

So your target might be 50 grand.

You raised 12 grand, you still get the 12 grand.

Now the problem with this is you really need to make sure that you'll still

be able to deliver with that 12 grand.

Otherwise your audience is going to be really grumpy.

The main difference between Kickstarter and Indiegogo Kickstarter really good

for like board games, games, video games, music, art illustration books.

Indiegogo is really good for everything.

There's not so many specific genres, but really good for like a product.

The only thing I'd also say is Indiegogo has a slightly, but ever

so slightly more like female focused audience, whereas Kickstarter has

a higher male dominated audience.

So again, it's looking at that product and what you're selling and thinking,

you know, is my audience male or female.

Because Kickstarter has that gaming board gaming video gaming

demographic as its core audience.

If that's not aligned to your audience at all, then I would really recommend

going on Indiegogo as the global platform.

That's really useful.

Thank you.

And I guess to an extent as well, while platform is important, given that what

you've spoken about was about how much do you need to do to get people to your page?

I guess your page is kind of what I'm trying to say is, I guess you're unlikely

probably to be found on the platform by people browsing, perhaps it doesn't

sound like that's going to happen.

So it's more important that wherever you are, you get people

to your page, have a direct link.

Yeah, for sure.

There's um, you can probably rely on like, like, you know, up to 10%

coming from platform kind of thing.

But again, like they have algorithms that you need, to hit.

So for example, you've got to hit that 40% within the first couple of days.

And money has to come in every day for their algorithms to pick you up to promote

equally, you know, there's biases as well.

So if you are able to be emailing the platform, asking them some questions,

saying how well you're doing, is there any chance you could put us on your

social media, if there's someone working at that platform that is your target

market, that loves what you're doing.

Again, you're more likely to get that coverage to the, to their audience.

And it sounds like it doesn't hurt to ask in that case.

Yeah, it doesn't hurt to ask.

It's just, again, it's about asking the right person.

So use LinkedIn use these platforms pages to find out, let's say, for

example, who working there has a side hustle about sustainable jewelry and

like lo and behold, your business that you're crowdfunding for your product

is like a sustainable accessory.

So therefore you're not competing with them, but they'd

like probably your product.

Yeah.

That was really helpful.

It sounds like there's a lot of research that goes into getting this, right?

Yeah.

We always recommend a minimum of eight weeks in prep, but that is

like eight weeks intense prep.

And then the five week campaign, all the hard work comes before you

click launch button because once you click launch button, it's essentially

like being on a rollercoaster.

You have to do a lot of preparation yourself psychologically to like,

you know, get over your fear of Heights, go over a few roller

coasters to get on the rollercoaster.

But once you're on the roller coaster and you're strapped in, you can't get off.

Right.

You suck it up and you have to be on the roller coaster, whether you like

it or not, but it's all the hard work beforehand could make that an enjoyable

ride on a roller coaster or a few minutes of actual how that's useful, frankly.

I like the analogy.

So we've spoken a bit about the benefits of crowdfunding.

Are there any potential downsides we should be aware of?

Yeah.

There all with everything, it's not, you know, a wonderful thing in its entirety.

Um, one of the downfalls is obviously like failing, you know,

crowdfunding platforms have great SEO.

If your campaign fails, it's going to be there.

It's probably going to be higher than your website quite awhile.

So it's looking at, you know, learning from that failure and making a better

campaign second or learning from that failure, but like updating and keeping

people communicated with as to like why it failed, what you've learned from

it, why you're never doing it again.

And you've chosen another option.

You can't have too many failures and you fail once you learn from it, you

try again, could fail a second time.

You learn from that and try again, you fail a third time.

Your audience is going to be like, oh my God, like, why are you not learning?

Why do you keep trying this?

You know, you don't want your whole first page of Google search to be you

with failed crowdfunding campaigns on different platforms and then your

own website to be on the second page.

So that's one of the biggest things.

The second bad thing about crowdfunding is like, Honestly, I think you have

to be in the right frame of mind because you, you are putting yourself

out there for vulnerability, for failure, for getting criticism about

your product, your business, that you probably don't want to get.

If you haven't set your mind up in the right way beforehand.

And if you're not open to these things, it's going to backfire on you because your

audience and you are going to clash like this and that clash could be quite public

on like Facebook comments or, you know, with journalists when they're interviewing

you about things or something.

Also, I think you really need to have a great poker face because that third

week of the campaign is the hardest.

It's not new and exciting anymore, and it's not urgent to give right now.

So the third week is like the bleak week where money really struggles

to come in, but you have to maintain that like positive, upbeat, you

know, we're going to make it attitude because if you start doubting it,

everyone else has started doubting it.

And if you start, like, I once had a client that made a tweet that was

like, oh, I hate it when people say they're going to give and they don't

give, like, who are these people?

They're not my real friends.

And I had to like, luckily I saw it.

I had like call up and I'm like, delete the tweet because you can't, you know,

these people are giving you their money.

They're doing you a favor at the end of the day.

Like we have to treat them with respect and be nice to them.

There's a reason why they didn't give money right now.

They might not be the target market.

They just might be hard up that month something.

And I think.

You know, a downside of crowdfunding is probably is going

to bring out the worst in you.

Um, but it's making sure that you can probably keep that in check a bit more.

And then one of the other things that people worry about crowdfunding, but

the, I don't really worry about that much is in terms of like with product

people being like, but a company might see this and then immediately copy it.

And obviously there are patents out there that can protect you so that

companies can't go and do this.

Um, but at the end of the day, like, yes, people are buying your product,

but they're really also buying you and your story because chances are

like product, then not that wholly unique, there are there's one every

so often there's like revolutionary.

But most of them are like a tweak on something that you could buy

from a big business in some way.

So people are buying the product, but really they're also buying

like your story, supporting a small business, supporting a female

entrepreneur, supporting whatever has driven you to come up with this.

And that's really important in all your story and whatever factory in whatever

country that you're worried about copying your design is not going to have that.

So I don't think we do need to worry about this as much as a lot of organizations

do, but I will say this there's a really great documentary called capital

C and it's a Crowdfunded film about three people that go crowdfunding.

And there's a guy on there that crowd funds for this like beer cooler.

And he's got like some shack in middle America somewhere, and

it's just him and he's created it.

And then Urban Outfitters, see it and rip him off and Urban Outfitters create one,

which is the biggest fear of, you know, all of these people creating products.

And in the end, he's like, no, I can't afford a lawyer

to take down Urban Outfitters.

Who am I?

I'm just a guy kind of thing.

His social media following absolutely take down Urban Outfitters and call them out

for copying his design and call them out for stealing designs of small businesses

and things like this to the point where they have to pull their product, because

it's so bad for them marketing wise.

And that was all of his crowdfunding backers stood up as his army to protect

him and his product and his business.

And I think that whilst we worry about the downfalls of the crowdfunding

and we think crowd funding, great money, that sort of thing, it

really does bring us so much more.

And that so much more could be, you know, 3000 people telling whatever big

company off for ripping your design off and having your back for you.

And I think it's that thing that my opinion like makes crowdfunding

like a little bit addictive.

It's when that first pledge comes from someone you don't know, my clients

usually ring me up and they're like, do you know this person, this is

their name they've bought my product.

Who are they?

And I'm like, well, that's the whole point of crowdfunding.

We're going to get hundreds of those and it's that moment where it stops

being your friends, your family, your mom, your partner, and starts being.

I don't know these people.

I've never even been to this country and this person's given me money

that they've written great comments.

They're supporting what I'm doing.

And there's now 50.

There's now a hundred.

There's now 300 by, oh my gosh, this is crazy.

And it's that feeling that I think makes crowdfunding addictive

and people come back again.

Yeah, no, that is amazing.

And I think this the same when you, when you sell products as well, is

that the first time someone buys, you don't know who they are, you know,

they're not your mom or your friends.

And you're like, wow, how did they find it?

And they like it and they leave a review and yeah, I can see that.

And also, I'm just wanting to add that if anyone is still worried

about, you know, being ripped off, um, there was an episode very recently.

I forget the number I'll link in the show notes, but I did an episode

about patenting and copyrights.

So that's a good one to listen to.

If you still need a little bit of reassurance with everything.

Yeah.

Um, let's talk a little bit about keeping an eye time, just with

so much coverage isn't there.

Um, one thing I think it'd be definitely worth us talking about is any common

misconceptions about crowdfunding that you'd like to address here?

So anything you'd like to set straight or just make people

aware of that they may not have considered, or just might not know.

So I think like, I feel like I've probably put people off a lot in this

podcast already with the misconceptions, because I get so frustrated, but

like common misconception, like money doesn't grow on trees.

It is not easier to crowdfund than it is to sell a product or to get an investor

or to, you know, get money any other way.

No one wakes up in the morning and thinks I'm going to go find

a product that I don't even know that exists or that I need from a

business I've never heard of before.

And just go give them like 50 quid.

Literally.

No one thinks that when they wake up in the morning and it's

no different with crowdfunding.

The second thing is crowdfunding.

It's two words funding.

Yes.

That's the bit that's always on people's minds, but crowd comes

before funding and it does.

You have to build the crowd before you launch the campaign.

On my website I have a form.

Anyone interested in crowdfunding, they need to fill it in.

I asked them how much they want to raise and what it's for.

And I asked them like, how big is their mailing list?

How big is their social media?

And from that, I can pretty much work out how much they're likely to raise.

And 70% of the time, it's nowhere near how much they want.

And you have to put the work in to build the crowd.

And again, that is the most boring and time consuming.

It's not making fun pictures on canvas or making videos or setting up photo shoots.

It's sitting down with an Excel spreadsheet and working out who

have you ever met in your life?

What are they all doing now?

How can those things help you?

Who your target market is?

Where are they hanging out?

What content do they like?

And if your target market is so different from you, that's going to be hard.

You know, you might not want to watch YouTube videos,

but your target market does.

So you're going to have to go and watch them and figure out what's

great about living your target market's mind and how you can

recreate them and all of those things.

And a lot of people don't like doing that crowd building, but it is the

absolute success factor in crowdfunding.

My most read article is how to reader, how to raise a million

pounds from a mailing list of zero.

Most read article in the first line says you can't, you have to build a

mailing list, but that's the thing so many people think that money is just

going to come at them when they do this.

And I think it's always thinking about in your shoes, how many people do you

know in your life who have ever run a crowdfunding campaign and how many of

them did you actually give money to?

Or how many of them did you actually share on your social media or with your friends.

And chances are, it's not that high.

And so it's making sure that you understand that that is

the same for everyone else.

Then not going to be rushing to share your campaign rushing to

give you money, that sort of thing.

They're going to be feeling the same way you felt when, when you were asked

by your friends and that sort of thing.

Those are the biggest misconceptions.

Perfect.

Thank you.

And then one of the final things I just wanted to talk about was the

time needed to run the campaign, because I think that's not that

we're trying to put people off here.

It sounds like we're on a mission to do that.

I promise we're not.

Um, but I think that's something else worth addressing because until I heard you

speak the first time I had absolutely no idea that is pretty much a full-time job.

So can we just touch on that quickly?

Yeah.

So varies depending on how much you want to raise.

Obviously, if you're raising five grand or 10 grand or 50 grand or

a hundred grand, it's going to need different amounts of time.

And the reason it needs different amounts of time is because you

need to contact more people.

That's very simple, but it's not just that you need to contact more people

is that you need to segment those people as well, so that you are really

talking to that particular person.

So the more people that you need to contact and the more

segmented they need to be, the more content you need to create.

So the more time that it takes also, again, you have to know yourself,

do you like creating content?

Are you actually good at it?

Would it be better that you outsource this either because you really don't

like it because you're not, you don't create stuff that really convert.

Or you just don't know how to, and you don't want to learn, or you're going

to have to take time to go and learn.

So it's really looking again at, there were a lot of different skillsets.

You need design skillsets to make design assets.

You need videography skillsets, you need PR skillsets, you need

copywriting skillsets, you need email and social media marketing skillsets.

You need to be able to network.

You need confidence, which of these do you have, which of these can you outsource?

And then that's going to be money.

And which of these do you want to have that you need to like learn?

And then that's going to be time, you know, because I could say,

you know, you need minimum, any campaign minimum without segmenting.

Segmenting would need about 10 emails.

So it's like five during the campaign and five like pre campaign.Someone

who's really good at copywriting.

And designing could like, you know, bash those out or MailChimp in like three days.

Really look at everything, analyze it, make it into a flow, create it, design

it, send them out someone that struggles with words, with persuasion, with

design, with tools, such as MailChimp or Canva or Photoshop, someone that

doesn't have all their ducks in a row before they start in terms of all the

lists, it's going to take them weeks.

So when you look at it, you really have to think, do I want to take the

time or do I want to spend the money?

Because I'm going to have to do one or the other.

And then thinking about again, like, what else do I have.

If it's the Easter holidays and I'm looking after my kids, probably

not going to have that much time.

If there's another big campaign happening at the same time, you're

not going to have that much time.

If you've still got a job or a part-time job or a full-time job, and this is a side

hustle, then it's going to take longer.

But everything that you need to do for the crowdfunding campaign

you need to do for a business.

Anyway, the only thing with the crowdfunding campaign is

like, it's all done at once.

When we start a business, like we need PR because we need people to be

aware of our brand, but there seem to be so many more important things like

creating a mailing list or creating a website or selling products that

sometimes you're in a business for like three years before you even got any PR,

because you didn't really want to do it.

And you just put it on a backburner.

Crowdfunding doesn't let you put anything on a back burner.

It's like everything in that timeframe.

So we have our eight week crowdfunding course.

And for that, I always say a minimum of half a day a week, but that's assuming

like you're raising less than 20 grand and you already have a solid feeling

about these things, but in reality, no one has a solid feeling about everything.

So it's more like one day a week.

And then there are weeks which are harder, content creation, time

consuming, that sort of thing.

In the last two weeks in the run up to your launch of the campaign,

it's a full-time every day, making sure you've got everything,

prepping, all the people beforehand.

This is what I need you to do at this time personalizing as much as possible.

That's the time consuming stuff.

That's really helpful.

Just having an idea of what it all entails.

Thank you.

And so let's, you just touched on your course then.

Um, what are some of the other ways that Crowdfund 360 can help?

What kind of services do you offer and what kind of people

and businesses do you work with?

Yeah, so there's the eight week crowdfunding course, which is, um,

every week you get like a webinar.

This is what you need to do this week.

You get to work, but you get every week, you work on one element of the

campaign and build on it over and over by the end of the eight weeks,

you're ready to launch your campaign.

Before that, we also have our six week building a crowd course, because as I

said, everyone hates building a crowd and I got to the point where I was like,

ah, you just need to build a crowd.

Okay, fine.

I'll just teach you how to do that.

We also do campaign management for big campaigns looking to raise over

like 50,000 pounds where we come in as a project manager, work with

the person and their team to make sure that it goes according to plan.

We also have even lower things like this, like touch points.

So we just have like hourly consultations.

You want to talk about crowdfunding?

You're thinking about it.

Great.

Let's have a chat.

Let's take you through what needs to be done.

You already have some plan.

Great.

Let me just check it over, make sure that you're on the right track.

Cause I don't want you to go on the wrong track and have a bad campaign.

And then my favorite thing that we do is these power hours.

So every Tuesday from four till five, we want a group session on zoom where anyone

crowd funding, any of my clients, anyone that's not, my client can come along

and talk about whatever is crowdfunding regulalry The great this about this is

there will always be other people at different stages of the journey to you.

So you can get advice from obviously like me.

You can get advice from them.

You can give advice.

It's a real peer learning experience.

There'll be someone who hasn't launched their campaign yet.

And there'll be someone who's halfway through that campaign.

You can learn so much from each other.

They can tell you what they wished they did back then.

And this person who hasn't watched the campaign can just say like, keep going.

You know, you're going to do it.

I think this is great.

Maybe just change this bit round in your email because it didn't make sense to me.

Something like that.

And you can have all of that in like the safe space, any of the

crowdfunding things we offer.

It's like a safe space between me and you, where you let all your

angst out about the crowdfunding.

And I listen.

Um, then we make sure that you've got the best face on when you go out to

the wider world during your campaign.

Amazing.

Thank you.

And so I'm aware that we've gone well over time on this Jes, which I'm apologize for.

And thank you so much for taking this time.

I've got one final question, if that's okay.

Before we wrap up, just to squeeze a tiny bit more knowledge from you.

Um, so I would love to know what your top tip is.

Your number one tip for running a successful crowdfunding campaign.

I don't know if that's going to be hard or not, but

So many tips, but number one tip before running your crowdfunding campaign is

to know where that 40% is coming from.

It doesn't matter if you're video shoddy, doesn't matter if your emails

are not great, doesn't matter if the photos aren't brilliant, but having

that first 40% just really adds an extra layer of trust to the campaign.

That's amazing.

Thank you.

And, and you shared so much useful advice today.

Um, I really hope we haven't been been putting people off

that wasn't the intention.

So if people are still interested in crowdfunding and they want to

find out more about you, I'm going to put a link to your website in

the show notes, people come across and I mean, I've had a good look.

You've got so many useful blogs.

Um, and then obviously there's links to all of your services as well.

So people can go and have a look.

So thank you again, really enjoyed talking to you.

If there is anyone listening to this podcast that has run a crowd funding

campaign and wants to like share it with me or whatever then by all

means like, just send me over your campaign and I'll have a look at it.

And if it, you know, I'll, I'll have a look like.

What went wrong, if it didn't hit that target or I'll just be

like, that's amazingly awesome.

If it did hit that target.

And thanks for sharing the success story, we also have a YouTube series

called Crowdfunding Conversations, where I interview people who

have crowdfunded again, to give advice to others who haven't.

So if anyone wanted to be featured on that, then feel free to

send over that campaign really.

Oh, that's an amazing offer, thank you so much.

And I'll make sure that I talk about that when I share out this episode as well,

because I think that's amazing and I think people would really appreciate getting

your take on their campaign so thank you.

Thanks very much for having me.

Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end of this episode.

If you enjoyed it, please do leave me a review that really helps

other people to find this podcast.

Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes and

do tell your friends about it too.

If you think that they also might enjoy it, can find me@vickiweinberg.com.

There you'll find links to all of my social channels.

You'll find lots more information all of the past podcast, episodes

and lots of free resources too.

So again, that's Vicki weinberg.com.

Take care, have a good week and see you next time.