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This is the eighth post in our 30 Day Ask Clay Crowdfunding Q&A.

I’m answering a new question every day in June.

Submit your question by going to CrowdfundingHacks.com/AskClay, where you can see all of the questions and all of my answers.

Full Transcript

Hey everyone…this is Clay Hebert from CrowdfundingHacks.com…and today’s question is…

Can I offer marketing (or other) services as a crowdfunding reward?

Great question. The answer is, yes, you can offer marketing services as a reward on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

But, if you remember from Episode 3, “How do I know if my idea is a good fit for crowdfunding?”, a great crowdfunding idea is a creative project, with a beginning and an end, in which something new gets created and shared.”

So, I want to walk you through two examples of offering services as rewards on crowdfunding.

Scenario #1:

Let’s say you run a marketing agency and your existing business offers marketing services. If that’s the primary crowdfunding perk you’re offering…an existing service that your business provides…then there’s really not a creative project where something new gets created.

If an ad agency just tried to sell some billable hours via crowdfunding, then no, that would not work well.

Scenario #2:

Now, let’s say your marketing agency wants to raise money via crowdfunding to launch a new app. Maybe one of the perks is the app itself, one of the perks is a lifetime pro version of the app, and maybe one of the perks is a full-day session where the backer can sit with your team and learn how to build and market their app.

That’s also offering marketing services as a reward but in this case, it’s a higher level reward and it’s not the main reward.

To use another quick example…let’s say you’re a personal trainer.

If you just want to use crowdfunding platform to just sell hours of personal training with you, that doesn’t make sense. Again, there’s nothing new being created and shared and crowdfunding platforms are not good ways to just sell existing service-based businesses.

But let’s say you own one gym and you want to raise money via crowdfunding to open a second location. If that was the case, and one of the many reward levels was personal training sessions (ideally, discounted from the full retail price), then that could make a lot of sense.

So to recap…

Yes, you can offer services as reward levels but they should be part of a larger creative project, not just selling existing hours or services. Something new should be being created.

As always, you can submit your question or see all of the crowdfunding questions and my answers at http://crowdfundinghacks.com/AskClay

End Transcript

This is the seventh post in our 30 Day Ask Clay Crowdfunding Q&A.

I’m answering a new question every day in June.

Submit your question by going to CrowdfundingHacks.com/AskClay, where you can see all of the questions and all of my answers.

Full Transcript

Hey everyone…this is Clay Hebert from CrowdfundingHacks.com…and today’s question is…

How big is the crowdfunding industry?

Well, just a couple months ago, in April of 2015, the folks over at Massolution released their 2015 – Crowdfunding Industry Report…a report on the global state of crowdfunding…

Here are some of the key stats from that report. Keep in mind, these stats are global and cover every type of crowdfunding (rewards-based, donation-based, equity and debt).

• Global crowdfunding grew again in 2014, expanding by 167 percent to reach $16.2 billion raised, which is up from $6.1 billion in 2013.
• In 2015, the industry is set to more than double once again, on its way to raising $34.4 billion.
• The strong growth in 2014 was due in part to the rise of Asia as a major crowdfunding region. Asian crowdfunding volumes grew by 320 percent, to $3.4 billion raised. That puts the region slightly ahead of Europe ($3.26 billion) as the second-biggest region by crowdfunding volume. North America continued to lead the world in crowdfunding volumes, growing by 145 percent and raising a total of $9.46 billion.

The Massolution research team collected information on 1250 active crowdfunding platforms across the world.

In the second episode of this series, we talked about the four different types of crowdfunding, including rewards-based, donation-based, equity and debt. While rewards- and equity-based campaigns typically get the most headlines, it’s lending-based crowdfunding that’s dominating the industry: in 2014, it raised $11.08 billion dollars.

As far as categories, business and entrepreneurship remained as the most popular crowdfunding category, collecting $6.7 billion in 2014, which represents 41.3 percent of total crowdfunding volume.

Social causes ($3.06 billion), films and performing arts ($1.97), real estate ($1.01 billion), and music and recording arts ($736 million) rounded out the top five categories.

Now those are global numbers, across all of the different types of crowdfunding.

If you want specific platform numbers, some platforms provide those and some don’t.

For example, on Kickstarter, as of today, June 7th, 2015, the platform has had 86,504 successful projects and $1,757,899,300 total dollars pledged to Kickstarter projects.

For Kickstarter, all of their stats can be found at

http://kickstarter.com/help/stats

Indiegogo doesn’t publish their stats publicly.

As always, you can submit your question or see all of the crowdfunding questions and my answers at http://crowdfundinghacks.com/AskClay

End Transcript

This is the sixth post in our 30 Day Ask Clay Crowdfunding Q&A.

I’m answering a new question every day in June.

Submit your question by going to CrowdfundingHacks.com/AskClay, where you can see all of the questions and all of my answers.

Full Transcript

Hey everyone…this is Clay Hebert from CrowdfundingHacks.com…yesterday we talked about the rise of crowdfunding, and today’s question is…

What are some common misconceptions people have about crowdfunding?

Great question. There are actually quite a few.

Here are three of the biggest:

Misconception #1: There is actually a crowd

The first misconception is that there’s actually a crowd of strangers waiting to helping you reach your funding goal. There’s no secret crowd that gets together every Thursday night and decides which projects deserve to be funded or not. Crowdfunding is actually a lot of tiny micro-transactions and the “crowd” is often not assembled until you find and organize them (before you launch). Unless you’ve written a blog or newsletter and have built some form of permission to communicate with your tribe ahead of time, the “crowd” isn’t going to save you and fund your project. Which leads to…

Misconception #2: The crowdfunding platform (Kickstarter or Indiegogo) will bring me most of my traffic and backers

I see this all the time. The press highlights the outliers and celebrity projects raising millions and people think that, with no real marketing plan, Kickstarter or Indiegogo will bring them lots of traffic and backers. That’s not how it works.

Successful campaigns build good pre-launch permission (often via an email list) and typically bring the first 30-50% of traffic and backers themselves. Then, if it’s an interesting product, those first backers will share it. That “second circle” sharing gets you the next 20-30%. And then, if you’re 70-80% funded with enough time left, the platform will typically help you get the last 20-30%.

Misconception #3: A few big press hits (or a celebrity tweet) will bring me lots of traffic and backers

This belief is very common and understandable. And completely wrong. Press mentions from larger, more mainstream outlets are great for credibility. Definitely use that New York Times or Rolling Stone logo and grab a positive pull-quote or testimonial and put that on your landing page (before you launch) and on your crowdfunding campaign page (after you launch). But hits like this don’t typically drive a lot of traffic or backers. By definition, they’re “mainstream” so they appeal to a much broader audience than your campaign does.

What works better is smaller, more targeted press. I worked with Kittyo, a device for cat owners to see and play with their cat when the owner isn’t home. Kittyo was an innovative device and ended up getting a lot of press, but the campaign got more and better traffic from a popular but niche site called HausPanther.com, because HausPanther was exactly the Kittyo demographic (cat lovers who appreciated design). The tagline for HausPanther is “The premiere online magazine for design-conscious cat people”. Creators should focus less on the big names whose traffic doesn’t convert and find their HausPanther.

As always, you can submit your question or see all of the crowdfunding questions and my answers at http://crowdfundinghacks.com/AskClay

End Transcript

This is the fifth post in our 30 Day Ask Clay Crowdfunding Q&A.

I’m answering a new question every day in June.

Submit your question by going to CrowdfundingHacks.com/AskClay, where you can see all of the questions and all of my answers.

Full Transcript

Hey everyone…this is Clay Hebert from CrowdfundingHacks.com…and today’s question is…

How did crowdfunding come out of nowhere? What changed?

I know it seemed like the concept of crowdfunding is pretty new and these platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo seemed to come out of nowhere over the last few years.

But the concept of crowdfunding is actually far from new.

Way back In 1713, Alexander Pope set out to translate over 15,000 lines of ancient Greek poetry into English. It took him over five years to get it right, but it was worth the wait: a translation of Homer’s Iliad that still exists. In exchange for a shout-out in the acknowledgements, an early edition of the book, and the delight of helping to bring a new creative work into the world, 750 subscribers pledged two gold guineas to support the job before Pope ever put pen to page. Yes, in 1713, Alexander Pope crowdfunded his translation.

70 years later, in 1783, Mozart wanted to perform three recently composed piano concertos in a Viennese concert hall, so he published an invitation offering manuscripts to those who pledged. Mozart’s first campaign actually failed, but a year later he tried again, and 176 backers pledged enough to bring his concertos to life. He thanked them in the concertos’ manuscript.

And in 1885, the the Statue of Liberty had no pedestal on which to stand in New York Harbor. France had given us the statue and the United States was just responsible for building the pedestal, at a cost of $100,000. But nobody wanted to fund the project… until Joseph Pulitzer (who would create the Pulitzer prize in his will), used his newspaper, The World, to launch a unique crowdfunding campaign to build the pedestal, save the project and keep the Statue of Liberty in New York City.

So we know the concept of crowdfunding isn’t new. So what’s changed?

Well, what’s changed is that the internet that connects us all. We don’t live in an industrial economy anymore, we live in a connection economy. You want proof?

Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles.

Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content.

Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory.

And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.

Like no technology in history, the internet allows us to find and connect with each other.

If you’re Lee Miller and you want to make a new kind of device that allows you to play with your cat when you’re not home, you can find not just cat owners, but cat owners that love design and have some disposable income.

If you’re Satya Tweena and want to save New York City’s last hat factory, you can find the people that care about that and want to buy a hat to help you save that.

If you’re BSX Athletics and want to build the first ever wearable lactate threshold sensor, you can find the super serious athletes who care about tracking that.

The connection power of the internet, that’s available to all of us, is something Alexander Pope, Mozart and Joseph Pulitzer could only dream of.

The internet connects us all and makes the crowdfunding model exponentially more dynamic and accessible.

Sometimes what seems new is actually very old.

As always, you can submit your question or see all of the crowdfunding questions and my answers at http://crowdfundinghacks.com/AskClay

End Transcript

This is the fourth post in our 30 Day Ask Clay Crowdfunding Q&A.

I’m answering a new question every day in June.

Submit your question by going to CrowdfundingHacks.com/AskClay, where you can see all of the questions and all of my answers.

Full Transcript

Hey everyone…this is Clay Hebert from CrowdfundingHacks.com…and today’s question is…

Why do some terrible ideas get funded while some great ideas fail?

This is a great question. As a creator who has either had a failed project or someone thinking about doing a campaign, it can be frustrating to see what you perceive as “lesser” ideas succeeding and what you perceive as “great ideas” fail to hit their funding goal.

The answer can be found in the following statement:

“Crowdfunding is not a meritocracy, it’s a marketocracy.”

Yes, marketocracy is a word that I made up, but that’s OK. People make up words all the time. I highly encourage you to make up some words of your own.

I’ll explain what it means.

The Merriam-Webster definition of a meritocracy is:

a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement

So if crowdfunding was a meritocracy, the “best” ideas would raise the most money and the “worst” ideas would fail.

The problem is, the concept of a “good idea” is very subjective.

Let’s look at The Coolest Cooler.

To some people, a cooler that has a blender, a solar panel and an iPhone charger is ridiculous. To others, it’s literally, the “Coolest” cooler they’ve ever seen.

The Coolest Cooler campaign raised over $13.2 MILLION on Kickstarter, but what most people don’t know is, the first time out, The Coolest Cooler had a funding goal of $125,000 and they missed their goal. They only raised $102,000 and because they missed their goal, they got nothing. Zero. Zilch.

The second time out, there were a few minor changes to the cooler, but it was essentially the same thing! So what changed?

Their marketing changed.

The second time out, Ryan Grepper and his team completely revamped how they marketed and promoted the campaign.

They did the pre-launch marketing right and blew past their funding goal in a matter of minutes. Then they continued to promote the campaign effectively, targeting the people who they knew would be interested.

Same idea. Same basic product.

Completely different marketing. Completely different outcome.

Now even great marketing can’t save a horrible idea that nobody wants. It’s important to have a great product, but in crowdfunding, it’s about finding and reaching the people that care desperately about your idea. And then ignoring everyone else.

So to recap…

Crowdfunding is not a meritocracy, it’s a marketocracy.

It isn’t just the “arbitrary” quality of your idea (which is different to everyone), it’s also about the marketing…finding the small group of people who love your idea and building permission to market your campaign to them.

So with a nod to Merriam-Webster, if we were to define a marketocracy, it would be

a system in which campaigns succeed due to the combination of a great idea (to certain people) and the creator’s ability to find and market to those people (and ignore everyone else)

There…we didn’t just make up a word, we defined it.

As always, you can submit your question or see all of the crowdfunding questions and my answers at http://crowdfundinghacks.com/AskClay

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