Comment by Forgeties79 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Forgeties79 | Hacker News Reader

Hey there, I know this isn’t exactly what you asked but I felt compelled to send this along when I saw your example numbers. I’ve actually had a (somewhat) successful crowdfunding campaign and lI’d like to give two pieces of advice about what to expect (1), how to consider what you want to raise (2), and just a general piece of friendly advice (3):

1) 70-80% of your funding, unless you’re a rare breakout viral sensation, will be raised in the opening and closing 48-72hrs. The middle will be a slog. Be ready for that and just keep communication/promoting going.

2) It’s relatively easy to clear $2500-$5000. Not EASY, but relatively easy. It takes a lot to justify people to push you to $10,000+. You HAVE to get beyond your friends/family/immediate network and that is very, very difficult. You need to do a lot of prep, host events, and get people blasting this thing everywhere. You need to shamelessly shake EVERY tree you available no matter how distant they are.

3) People invest in you as much as, if not more than, your product. The video needs to feature not just the product/idea (having a functioning version helps a lot btw) but YOU. People need to like and trust you. This is no different from investors. Good luck!

Hi, I have questions.

1. What was your thing? Did you keep it going after the Kickstarter? If so how's it going?

2. Why do you get most funding at the start and end? I can see at the start because that's where you have to bootstrap it but why the end? Did you apply marketing at an increasing rate or decreasing rate or a constant rate?

3. On selling yourself. I've heard this but idk how to do it. I'm not an expert in the field my product is in. My main motivation is just to make money. So I don't have a compelling story. I'm just a guy with an idea. I was planning on doing a video where I explain where the idea came from but aside from that idk how to interject myself. How did you do it or how do you think someone like myself should?

Thanks for replying.

1. A feature length documentary. We raised about $4500 (goal was $12k). We used indiegogo so we were able to keep the partial funding. We got a lot of great content but we never finished partially because we were simply too underfunded and the project was too ambitious. We will be releasing a short series soon instead.

2. It’s a weird phenomenon that’s mostly related to hype. People are excited at launch/those are the low hanging fruit. Immediate friends/family. You end up wringing out that source pretty quickly. At the end people who dragged their feet or just wanted to see how it would do finally commit - plus you’ll just naturally be pushing it much harder at the end and probably giving away fun bonus stuff to people.

3. The video just needs to show you a lot. Be prepared, be confident, and just be as affable as possible. Have a friend or colleague coach you off camera if you can. Just really fine tune that image you know? Attach your name, your experience, everything about you to this. Be honest and clear - “I want to make money” can be said in many ways without being deceptive or obnoxious. You can say, “this product is something I stand by and I want to dedicate my full time and attention to it. When funded, I can dedicate the time, energy, and resources this project requires to make it amazing.” Stuff like that.

And no problem! Hope this is helpful.

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