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Heri Rakotomalala

Montreal, Canada Area

Engineer, writer, developer

Have helped raise more than $1.4m for entrepreneurs, creatives, athletes in 2014 on Kickstarter, Indiegogo and many other crowdfunding platforms

Cinematographer

$3.33/min

7

7 Calls

24

24 Reviews

19 minutes
Avg. call

Ruby on Rails Crowdfunding Social Media Marketing Online Marketing Marketing Strategy User Experience Event Marketing Product launch Media Team Leadership

Call me to talk about

Expertise in crowdfunding for entrepreneurs.

How, why, what, where, from design to launch to management.

http://seedingfactory.com/

Growth Engineer

Positioning a venture for 100x Growth
Creating, Leading, and executing for 100x Growth

New Media Entrepreneur

Able to win and grow audiences for a specific topic
Content strategy + partnerships
Very strong in written, as well as photo and video productions : blogs, youtube, vimeo, wordpress etc.
Media sales
Event marketing

Technology Startups

5 years in engineering: architecture, front-end, back-end, developping proprietary algorithms, scaling, infrastructure

http://madmedia.ca/

Answers 11
Reviews 24

Answers

Heri Rakotomalala answered

For those startups within an incubator/accelerator, at what point should they begin to market themselves? Why?

They should market when they have validated their MVP, and they know that each marketing dollar brings in positive ROI

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Marketing

Early-stage Startups

Product launch

Heri Rakotomalala answered

What are some less obvious tips for ensuring my crowdfunding campaign is a huge success?

Make sure you understand why would anyone contribute to your campaign. It's worth taking time to prepare the campaign, create a vibrant community, build a story and bring emotion, and imagine unique rewards that lets the audience engage in your project.

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Kickstarter

Crowdfunding

Heri Rakotomalala answered

How do you get access to the right people to validate an idea?

I recommend being entrepreunarial and actually go in the streets. Go meet a food truck everyday. In a week, you'll have 7 conversations. Beats emails, phone or Facebook

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Market Research

Ideas

New Product Validation

Heri Rakotomalala answered

As an entrepreneur, what are the top reasons you'd NOT want to raise capital on a crowdfunding platform?

If you don't have enough backers yet, then don't crowdfund yet. You can't afford a very public failure.

If you are doing donation or rewards crowdfunding, make sure you have a tangible consumer product. It's difficult otherwise to crowdfund services, non-tangible or free products.

If you also want to patent, if you have secrets, it's better to make sure your business is secure before going public on a crowdfunding platform. Have a talk to your lawyer about this!

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Crowdfunding

Raising Venture Capital

Startups

Heri Rakotomalala answered

What's the best non-Kickstarter source of indie game development funding?

There is indiegogo, which has good traffic, as well as Gambitious, which will veto applications, and also lab.gamesplanet.com

I recommend taking a close look at Kickstarter though. It's the best for indie game developers, even if you hve to go through a US payement agent if you are not in the US

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Video Games

Heri Rakotomalala answered

What are some good resources to find a qualified tech founder?

Find technical events on meetup.com and see who is good.

Startup Digest also has listings for every city. Subscribe and go the edgy stuff.

One of the best ways is also join programmers in hackathons or startup weekend. You should enquire for the list of attendees before the event and message, and see if there's any fit. A weekend working on an app is like doing a mini startup.

Of course, you should have a solid web page somewhere showing what you want to build -- otherwise it's a hard sell for programmers

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Start-ups

Computer Science

Entrepreneurship

Heri Rakotomalala answered

How to increase and maintain the growth of my twitter account?

Hi

I can recommend the following :

- if you go to conferences, publish blog posts or keynotes, or comment online, make sure to add your twitter handle
- add your twitter handle in your email signature and business cards
- make sure your description is good. You can say : "I answer topics about management, journalism, and public relations in... every friday 2 to 4pm"
- i also find that my followers number (> 4000 currently) increases dramatically when I go to events or conferences. So make sure you advertise your twitter there. Use hashtags, live tweet the content of the event, comment on those who tweet as well.

Happy tweeting !

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Social Media

Social Media Marketing

Blogging

Heri Rakotomalala answered

I want to grow my blog readership to 1k readers a day. What strategies can I implement to make this happen?

I would do market research on how you would position the blog. There are thousands of education blogs and making sure your voice stands out and matches the market is essential.

After positioning, you need to make a list of all the content you can produce: original blog posts, infographics, videos, pictures, lists, news commentary etc. It's essential to begin with your best piece and make sure you keep the rhytm.

Packaging (i.e. layout, headlines, design) is as important as the layout. Visitors need to know they're on a unique blog

Finally marketing. I recommend checking out the upworthy strategy, with a strong foundation on social media marketing (twitter/facebook), and as an aside, also build a good mailing-list for followers.

Let me know if this helps, would be happy to detail.

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Blogging

Heri Rakotomalala answered

For a company in its beta phase, what advice / tactics would you suggest to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign?

I would check first if you are delivering a tangible product. Software-only or service companies have a hard time crowdfunding, as it's hard to find interesting rewards for non-tangible products.

I would then focus on creating a strong community behind the project. This is where investing resources on Facebook makes sense.

If you have more than 600 Facebook fans, I would then try to find an angle where you can tell a good story with emotion about what you are doing. Is there an overarching cause? Who are the people behind the project? What's the impact. Those would be good points to tell in the video.

Since you are in beta, I would present it as such : "We've already done so much, built a prototype, but we are a startup with limited resources, and need your contribution to get us to first version." Offering early access, user privileges, access to the developer edition are all good ideas for rewards. You can also have a "Credits" section on your product, everyone appreciate having their name on a public website.

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Crowdfunding

Kickstarter

Heri Rakotomalala answered

What are the key benefits of crowdfunding on Indiegogo compared to funding on Kickstarter?

Kickstarter has indeed a stronger brand and the quality of its projects is generally higher. It seems Indiegogo is always the fallback plan.

However, Indiegogo has a few strong points:
* It is very strong in internationalization. It supports many more currencies, languages and countries than Kickstarter. Kickstarter seems happy to be present mostly in Anglo-saxon countries
* Indiegogo is very strong in community (non-profit causes) and also in film projects. Additionally it has many health tech projects and finance projects that Kickstarter has not. When was last time that you saw an innovative finance project on Kickstarter?
* Indiegogo is growing faster than Kickstarter. Lately, Kickstarter has announced they will switch to a non-profit status and it's been a while they haven't announced new expansion while Indiegogo has fresh investment $$ and has announced new products
* Indiegogo has a staff that can help entrepreneurs and creatives. They will give you support before you launch and can give you advice to raise more. Kickstarter has very little support - apart from its shiny interface and automated interface.

At the end of the day, what matters is selecting the best platform that is best for your project. Conduct due diligence and see where the best performing projects are in your industry.

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Crowdfunding

Heri Rakotomalala answered

How do I know if its too early to launch my product?

You should always have access to close early adopters. I define them as people you are always in contact with : phone, facebook messenger, social media and even better, regular physical meetups. They can provide you with valuable feedback about quality and tell you if it's too early to launch your product, based on the samples you send them.

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Start-ups

Product launch

New Business Launch

Reviews

Heri and his partner Bruno have been amazing partners for the Crowdfunding workshops we have been running for the past few months. Heri's energy, enthusiasm and incredible network have allowed us to meet lots of new entrepreneurs and help them launch amazing projects. I strongly recommend letting Heri be your guide to crowdfunding success.

Michael Citrome Source: LinkedIn

Heri is a true community leader. Always there to support the Startup scene and all the actors involved. Heri understands what entrpreneurs need better than most. His approach is grass roots and always relevant to making Montreal a great place to build a business.

Philippe Telio Source: LinkedIn

I have worked with Heri on 2 campaigns for Jolietta thus far - Christmas/Holidays 2012 and Valentine's Day 2013.

Heri is creative, detailed-orientated, focussed, and a pleasure to work with. We came up with a concept for both campaigns; he had a vision and knew exactly what he wanted, and saw it through from start to finish. At the same time, he is flexible, able to think of his feet and quickly remedy a problem or provide alternative solutions.

Heri is a wealth of knowledge, especially when it comes to startups. I have learnt and continue to learn so much from him. He is an invaluable part of the Montreal startup community and I look forward to working with him again.

Nicole Fu Source: LinkedIn

Heri as been very helpful with MAKEACHAMP.com on a variety of aspects. With his business knowledge he carefully analyzed our marketing strategy and successfully helped us narrow it down to accommodate our limited resources. We were able reach a large portion of our market without wasting resources and time. On the product development aspect of MAKEACHAMP.com he gave us some crucial advice on designing a website specific to our costumer's needs. Heri has been crucial on helping MAKEACHAMP.com get to the point where it is now, we could not have done it without him. Every time we sit down with Heri we feel like we progress couple of months of work! I'd recommend Heri for any type of business help, he is truly a start-up Guru!

David Ancor Source: LinkedIn

Heri was an asset to the Dawson College Entrepreneurship Week organizing committee. His vision and expertise in all that is start-up as well as his extensive network, were invaluable to the success of the very first Eweek. Thank you Heri!

Madeleine Bazerghi Source: LinkedIn

Venture Cap TV is thankful to have Heri Rakotomala's wealth of experience on our Board of Advisors. His passionate drive for the tech startup community and hands-on involvement in the sector organizing initiatives such as StartupWeekend Montreal, NewTechMtl, Notman House's Indiegogo fundraising video and many others, have made him a well respected, sought after leader in the Canadian startup ecosystem. Heri's been a guiding force in Venture Cap TV's mission to get tech startups on the world map and is surely one of the more inspirational leaders molding the tech startup world of the future.

private private Source: LinkedIn

Heri has been a very valuable asset on the Venture Cap Tv board. His entrepreneurial experience brings a lean yet powerful mindset which is critical for a startup. Working with him has been a pleasure, I recommend it!

Patrick Barbeau Source: LinkedIn

I had the chance to work with Heri on the Startup Weekend organization. When Heri joined the team, the momentum really changed for the organization. He brang experience, expertise, knowledge, contacts and many other elements to the Startup Weekend.

I hope you won't hesitate to include Heri in any of your team, he is a great plus-value.

Marc-Antoine Baril Source: LinkedIn

I highly recommend Le Studio's services. Heri never ceases to amaze me with his project management skills. He has the determination and focus to implement impressive projects from A to Z, even under tight deadlines. He also has a wide understanding of all the technical aspects of video production which ensures that your project is in good hands.

Charles Brun Source: LinkedIn

Le leadership et la motivation de Heri ont permis de réaliser cette première édition du projet OpenIT4Africa avec succès. Enthousiaste, il a mis à profit ses qualités de leader de projet en rassemblant une équipe dévouée. Ce fut un réel plaisir de collaborer avec Heri pour OpenIT4Africa.

Géraldine Jippé Source: LinkedIn

With MTLNewTech, Heri has created a vibrant forum that encourages entrepreneurship in Montreal. I appreciate the presentations, the open exchange and the networking that takes place at these events. Well done!

private private Source: LinkedIn

Member since January 2013