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Crowdfunding: For a company in its beta phase, what advice / tactics would you suggest to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign?
SK
SK
Serhiy Khvashchuk answered:

Starting crowdfunding while in beta is good - you already passed part of the way. So for backers it is less risky to support you.

When I've started my project - the only real option was KickStarter. Now it is the same because only KickStarter has "blockbuster" effect - huge paying audience. On KickStarter you'll collect at least ten times more if to compare to #2 IndieGoGo. Sure if your project will pass KickStarter moderation. But it is worth trying.

Giveaways, in my opinion, is always better: you test your production chain & keep full control over your business. Also the product is the core of your business and improving your product will lead to higher valuation.

If you have community - try to make it bigger & tell your followers about your crowdfunding plans so they prepare to back you when funding starts. If there is no community - start to build one. Also prepair press kits & at least 10 updates (when 30-50-75-100-150-200% of goal reached, explaining functions of your product etc.), make spreadsheet with press (also include communities related to your project) contact details, check your project category on the selected crowdfunding platform for projects related with yours (for future cross promotion).

Hiring expert is pretty useless, I think. Calls on clarity.fm will work better as you not tied to one person and may get more opinions, probably, for the same price. And it is not so much information in the net about crowdfunding to lost in it.

All you need (considering you already have great product) is: 1. good project page (which means video + photos + text) 2. good work with press (not so much may be done: press kit + send it over the contacts you have - the result is related to kit quality and amount of contacts) 3. some ways to utilize KickStarter organic traffic (that's "30% rule" & crosspromotion - these ways generally don't cost a penny and both work great for me and 2 more projects I've mentored).

Call me for details - I'll be happy to help.

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