Crowdfunding.  My response? “Well, THAT was interesting.”

You know, the best thing about walking in, rolling up your sleeves, and trying a bunch of stuff you’ve never done before is a very efficient way to improve.

That being said, it’s not as if it feels easy while you’re doing it.

Crowdfunding is… stressful.  It’s basically been my full-time (overtime) incredibly stressful job since April.  And it’s not ending yet!  I still have books to get printed, and after that, I still have orders to fill.

However, thanks to my friends, family, and loyal supporters, I’m a little more more confident about “solo” product-based crowdfunding.  My aim is to give something back.  I want to help any of my friends out there who might have some project to raise money for, and encourage you to go ahead and try it.

So here are a few things I learned that might be useful for you.

1. Make a budget.  Estimate how much money you will spend on actually making the product itself, then go over.  Ask for quotes from various vendors before choosing, and assume that costs will go up over time as your project changes or some other factor changes.

2. Be ready and willing to risk your own money.  You will spend money, so have some you’re willing to gamble on this venture.  This is not for the risk-averse, even if you don’t choose the “fixed funding” option.  You will still feel very sad and very stressed if you end up spending more money on this than you end up making.  (I really recommend the “fixed funding” option for this reason……if you don’t have deep pockets to pay for this on your own, it won’t matter if you have a little help or not.  You need to determine how much money you need, build in a buffer of 10 – 20% just to cover things, and then gamble.  If you’re broke, you have to be willing to take all the risk.)

3. Have something to offer that is: worthy, cool, interesting, or useful. Since I’m not good at being cool, and art isn’t particularly useful, I was left with “interesting and worthy” for example.  There has to be some reason for your project to catch people’s attention.

4. Ask for press coverage.  Months in advance, research the influencers in your realm – whoever these people are.  Do they run blogs? Do they write in newspapers or magazines?  Are they celebrities (in any kind of circles)?  This answer will be different for every single person’s project.  But the bottom line is: Find out who it is that everyone else listens to for news about your type of thing.  The influencers.  Then, ask them to talk about your project! (Because it’s Worthy or Cool or Interesting or Useful) HINT:  I asked 25 different people to talk about Amphibian Love, and ONE person did…..but it was crucial to my project.  This was the Scientific American blog called Symbiartic.  I made 33% of my funding AFTER this press mention.  Everybody go there right now and subscribe and shower love upon Kalliopi, because she deserves it.

2. Prepare lots of visuals early, at least a month before your campaign.  Visuals that are funny/cute, colorful, and charming work best….and they don’t have to look exactly like your project either……just line up lots of eye-catching visual stuff in advance so you can focus on responding to questions and comments, and managing a constant stream of content during your campaign. (Remember: Everything you say will have a picture with it, and most of the time people won’t read what you say …… they will just look at the picture.) I made things easier on myself by doing all my social media visuals 650 x 650 pixels, and using Instagram, with IFTTT to send these to both Facebook and Twitter.  (yes you will have to edit your Facebook posts – it was still a timesaver for me to do something other than hand-post to each social media channel individually.)

3. Be authentic.  Do the things you do well. If you are only one human, you can’t push yourself beyond your own natural capacity…..it just doesn’t work. ( So, for example, if you are not naturally funny – don’t try to be funny! )   This applies to what social media channels work for you, too…… I learned I was good at networking on Twitter and posting doodles on Instagram, for example…so I did those things.

4. There is lots of crowdfunding advice on the Internet, and only a small segment of that advice will apply to you.  Don’t read crowdfunding articles and follow them to the letter.  Don’t copy someone else’s marketing calendar. Don’t assume that you should set your funding limits based on other successful campaigns.  This is so important, I’ll say it twice:  DO NOT ASSUME THAT YOUR FUNDING LIMITS SHOULD BE BASED ON OTHER SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGNS.  There are far too many variables that contribute to the success or failure of a campaign.  It’s not only the product, it’s the branding of that product, your target market, your personal network, your press contacts and their reach, your Facebook advertising reach, the economy, and about a million other variables you probably can’t control.

5. Don’t get desperate.  Please ignore all the Kickstarter/Indiegogo spammers that will settle on you like hungry mosquitoes as soon as your campaign goes live.  You will get many tantalizing offers to “help boost your campaign!”  They will make it seem like they can help you in a million different ways.  They all just want to suck a little blood from you……

6. Make a good pitch video – this is the one thing you must do that everyone else says you must do.  It’s true.  Film yourself.  If you’re a dork, don’t be ashamed of looking like a dork.  Just be a dork.  Own it.  (I totally owned being a dork, as any of you who viewed my pitch video can attest)  Use a smart phone as long as it takes good video, use a tripod for stability, and get a friend’s help anyway, even though you think you can go it alone.  If you have access to better equipment, editing help, or any other bells and whistles…..use them.  If you don’t, use what you have – but put a lot of love and effort, one way or another, into your pitch video.

If you’ve ever considered crowdfunding, I hope I haven’t driven you away!  I hope instead that I helped you think about doing this.  I really am encouraging you to.  Even though it sounds like a lot of work,  I do feel the experience was worth it.  Probably the best thing about crowdfunding is getting the word out about your project.  Think about it this way – if you didn’t crowdfund, who would know that you ever created that book/space/art piece/toy/gadget?  Crowdfunding really represents that one big marketing push, with all your resources concentrated into making that 30 days work for you and your big idea.

So, yeah – funding an Indiegogo campaign?  Sure, no sweat!   On to the next challenge…  self-publishing.  More on this later…

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