I first heard of crowd sourcing as a way to fund a business a few years ago. I spent time looking at sites like Kictstarter.com and Indiegogo.com. I found it amazing that people were willing to pay for something that hadn't yet been produced. Even more amazing was the patience people had to wait months before they got the item they purchased.
It was a fundamentally new phenomena. It was a different type of impulse purchase. What I found interesting when I set out to make my own kickstarter campaign was how complex the whole process was.
It involved:
1. Sample - Having a prototype for the product/business. You couldn't set up the campaign unless you had a prototype.
2. Having a tagline/branding completed. It wasn't just a website, it was where people came to get wooed. So you couldn't ignore those things.
3. Copy - Part of branding but also very important on its own. More like a landing page after which you needed to secure a sale, the copy had to be on point.
4. Video - This is like a 2-3 min long superbowl ad. It is almost a requirement for any successful campaign. And the best campaigns try to be memorable, funny and exciting. A good video means a good idea, script, acting, recording, music and engagement. It isn't cheap either.
5. Marketing - The whole process is a big marketing kickoff but there has to be prelaunch marketing efforts to make it all effective. What I came to learn was that starting the day of is a guaranteed failure. It takes months of preparation to get the marketing right. That is more important than the prototype or video.
Having had the experience I had, I have come to respect the whole process. I have also started to observe that a lot of things are beginning to go the crowd sourced route. For a hopeful entrepreneur, going to a VC is a painful experience. Instead of trying to convince a handful of difficult people, letting the public decide what they like is the perfect way to go.
It was a fundamentally new phenomena. It was a different type of impulse purchase. What I found interesting when I set out to make my own kickstarter campaign was how complex the whole process was.
It involved:
1. Sample - Having a prototype for the product/business. You couldn't set up the campaign unless you had a prototype.
2. Having a tagline/branding completed. It wasn't just a website, it was where people came to get wooed. So you couldn't ignore those things.
3. Copy - Part of branding but also very important on its own. More like a landing page after which you needed to secure a sale, the copy had to be on point.
4. Video - This is like a 2-3 min long superbowl ad. It is almost a requirement for any successful campaign. And the best campaigns try to be memorable, funny and exciting. A good video means a good idea, script, acting, recording, music and engagement. It isn't cheap either.
5. Marketing - The whole process is a big marketing kickoff but there has to be prelaunch marketing efforts to make it all effective. What I came to learn was that starting the day of is a guaranteed failure. It takes months of preparation to get the marketing right. That is more important than the prototype or video.
Having had the experience I had, I have come to respect the whole process. I have also started to observe that a lot of things are beginning to go the crowd sourced route. For a hopeful entrepreneur, going to a VC is a painful experience. Instead of trying to convince a handful of difficult people, letting the public decide what they like is the perfect way to go.