Kowy® Indiegogo Campaign Ins and Outs
Kowy® Indiegogo campaign is LIVE! Since the beginning of my journey making Kowy® a reality, I had planned to do a crowdfunding campaign. It made a lot of sense to sell at a platform with lots of exposure and sell to people who, for a discounted price and innovative concept, were willing to wait for the product a little longer. The thought of being able to reach thousands of people and sell the product with a time lapse to be able to use the funds to produce is a larger scale seemed just too perfect to be true. And it was.
When I first heard about crowdfunding campaigns, I thought it was the best business model ever! I thought it was the perfect solution for someone like me, who had an idea out of the blue and when on to make it a reality, even if not prepared.
When you think of crowdfunding you think of a crowd of people helping entrepreneurs who actually need the fund to produce the product. Well, it was like that in the early years, but unfortunately, in 2018 it became a money-making business like all others. You need to spend a lot. So the concept of not having proper fund and actually getting help is NOT accurate.
For starters, you need money to produce the videos, pictures and you have to be at the prototype stage since no renders are allowed and actually it would be very hard to make the campaign without any since you don’t really know what you created until you have one. If you don’t even have money to do that then you should find it somehow first.
Then the preparation for the campaign takes a long time, writing all the information, choosing which perks to offer, pictures and mainly an awesome video. All of that is expensive but nothing close to what you will need when it comes to marketing.
Crowdfunding spending details – be aware
I learned along the way that for every $1 spend you make $3. And that is not even accurate really. So let me give you an example. If you set your goal as I did for Kowy® at $22,000 you need to spend $7,333 approx. Now think with me, if I had $7,333 free in my hands why would I go on a platform where I have to sell with major discount (average 30%) plus giveaways etc. when that is plenty of money to produce and sell directly to customers on marketplaces such as Etsy or Amazon?
Not to mention the money spent on advertising videos directly targeted to crowdfunding. I rather make videos to use cross-platform for an indefinite time. Well for me the answer is a definite NO. I would much rather spend my investment money on a platform I could build a store and a longterm marketing strategy.
The successful campaigns you see getting crazy amounts of money pouring in, are mostly from big companies which spend fortunes in marketing. These campaigns are successful in catching the Indiegogo algorithms, which like most others see nothing but $$$$$. So I will leave you a tip here, if you are thinking about crowdfunding to help you manufacture and start your business because you don’t have enough money, then you might want to rethink your strategy.
Crowdfunding Campaigns are a Big Gamble
Crowdfunding campaigns are also a big gamble because even if you send loads of cash in Ads you are still not sure to get funded all of that back. And not only you have to sell at discount prices but you also you pay 5% to the platform and 3% for CC processing. You are basically at theirs algorithms´ hands. Even if you spend the amount of money recommended, you might not get picked up by them and not shown to their customers, which is the whole point of doing the campaign.
In conclusion, I am still like and you can visit our page here. I build a gorgeous video and campaign page. But I just chose to spend another fortune in Ads, and so I have not gone very far. One horrible aspect of crowdfunding is you realize the closest to you are not so close when it means they have to touch their wallet. Even for $5. You will be very disappointed at some people. On the bright side, the total opposite, you will get attention from people you weren’t expecting.
So, all in all, it is an amazing experience, both professional and personal. But if you have the means just enough to go on on your own, I would much rather do that and spend wisely elsewhere.
Bye for now!
Thank you for reading, all the best!
Alessandra Marzano
Creator and Founder