The next thing that I want to talk about is crowdfunding. And if you're not familiar with crowdfunding 1
such as with Kickstarter or with Indiegogo, 2
it's essentially a platform that allows you to showcase your idea or your project and gathering people 3
together who are interested in funding the end result. 4
So on these websites people can pledge a certain amount that you define so that they can get certain 5
perks and those perks or rewards can be anything from just a thank you note to a T-shirt with your brand 6
on it or the actual product at the end which is usually the most popular. 7
And anything to you know a personal a personal meeting with the founder et cetera. 8
So the nice thing about crowdfunding as a idea of validation methodology is that it really gets to the 9
crux of the problem. 10
I.e. will people pay for your idea? And as much as it helps to gather information through looking at 11
sign ups via landing pages or seeing if people will click on a buy button, 12
there's nothing that tells you more about your idea than if people actually pull out their credit card 13
and put it down to buy what it is that you're going to make. 14
There is no better validation than that. 15
So Crowdfunding is a huge topic and I think success in it takes a lot of preparation, probably a little 16
bit more than just having a good idea. 17
We're probably going to make a separate course just for this because as some of you guys know, we had 18
a pretty huge crowdfunding effort last year and it went surprisingly well. And we just wanted to tell 19
you guys about a few of things that we discovered along the way. 20
And more of a systematic approach to how you actually go about creating a successful crowdfunding project. 21
Everything from videos to drawing attention to how you list it to 22
what are the setting of the dates and time. 23
There's a whole load of factors around crowdfunding on Kickstarter and Indiegogo that we're probably going 24
to dive into. Another 8 module or 50 hour kind of project 25
I think it's going to be. 26
But yeah if you're interest in that just hit us up over email or over Slack and we'll let you guys know once 27
that's ready. 28
But anyways back to the idea of using crowdfunding as an idea validation tool. Essentially you're looking 29
at the big two which is Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Now 30
they have now they have slightly different rules and slightly different use cases but for the most part 31
Kickstarter is a slightly larger community so it has I would say more active users and more hits than 32
Indiegogo on a daily basis. 33
But Indiegogo has slightly more favorable rates especially after your crowdfunding event has ended. Now 34
with crowdfunding you have a limited amount of time in which your project is visible and you can set 35
that time. 36
So it could be as long as you know three months or it could be as short as a week or two. 37
And I think for Project validation something like about 30 days is probably ideal. 38
The longer that you run your crowdfunding the more sleepless nights and constant caffeination you will 39
have. 40
So think about the toll on your team as well. 41
But it's basically just a great place where you can make a video describing what your app does or what 42
your or what your product does and then you know tell people what are the features, what are they going 43
to get from it, 44
what is it going to do for them i.e. the benefits. 45
And then if people are interested in it, they can pledge and back for a number of rewards. 46
So this is a currently active Kickstarter called the Beelinguapp 47
I just found on the front page of Kickstarter and you can either pledge one euro for support or you 48
can have a ad free version for 10 euros or some of the other pledges that you can look through. 49
And they're doing relatively well. 8 days to go 50
and they've raised €10,000. 51
So I think looking at the percentage they're probably going to make it. 52
And that means that you've got users from day one. 53
And also you have the funds that enables you to take time out of work or work on this as a side project 54
or being able to get a professional designer etc And you can set that goal to whatever you feel is necessary. 55
Now we think that that goal shouldn't be too high. 56
Don't be overly optimistic. 57
Instead just put down whatever it is that you think you will need in order to get it done. 58
And it is a great community actually 59
Kickstarter there's a lot of really really awesome people on there who will cheer you on, who will be 60
there for you 61
you know even in the toughest of times. And we certainly had a lot of lows you know shipping shipping 62
a physical product as is incredibly difficult actually. 63
And there have been so many unexpected turmoils and I have to say you know our community of over 700 64
backers have actually been a huge boon 65
and you know every time we read a comment that is really supportive, it just cheers us up just a little 66
bit 67
and it really really is-- makes a world of difference for us. 68
So yeah building that community about people with people who actually care for your product is another 69
huge advantage. 70
So in my opinion, if you're building an app or if you're building a product, running a crowdfunding project 71
for 30 days is a really great way of testing the waters and seeing if people are actually willing to 72
pay for the end product. 73
So have a look at it, 74
have a think about it and it does take a little bit of time to set up especially creating the videos 75
and creating some of the assets. 76
But as we said, we're currently planning on making a full course on this just because we learned so much 77
during the four months that we did this that we want to share with you guys as well. 78
Anyways have a look at Kickstarter, have a look at Indiegogo and if you are about to launch and if you 79
are thinking about whether if your idea is going to work or if you want to validate the market then 80
this is a great way of going about it.