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KHARISMA MAGAZINE { PREMIER ISSUE 2018 }
WE REALIZED THAT MARKET CAMPAIGN ISN ’ T THE SAME AS
Kharisma : I know you have a really unique story and journey into the crowdfunding space . What were you doing before you got into the crowdfunding market ?
Khierstyn : Before I was crowdfunding , I was a start-up advisor . The problem with that business model was I was a little broad with my scope of services . I was basically a jack of all trades . If you needed someone for Infusionsoft ( email marketing and sales ), I would learn it . If you needed a sales funnel built , I would do it . This is just because I loved coaching and advising businesses . But , I also wanted to learn the online space , so I would just do whatever I can get my hands on at that point . Crowdfunding happened when I moved back to Canada from the UK and I started working with a client who , at the time , had this really cool business idea for a wearable weight loss technology and he said , I really want to do a Kickstarter project and I had no idea what Kickstarter was at this point .
I didn ’ t really understand crowdfunding , but as we started looking more and more into it ... as I had a lot more experience online than he did , but he had a really good visionary mindset with the product , so we decided to partner up and launch this thing on Kickstarter , but , we ended up not going with Kickstarter at that time , instead going with Indiegogo .
That first campaign was a disaster . We only raised $ 16,000 out of a $ 50,000 goal . We realized that marketing for a crowdfunding campaign isn ’ t the same as marketing for just the general business , because there is a build-up period and a bunch of other factors . With that failure , we ’ re like okay , well screw this , I ’ m not doing crowdfunding again , but then we realized that for funding models , we didn ’ t have enough to get the product funded and we had no choice , but to raise money again .
Our best option was going back to Indiegogo to see if we could relaunch the campaign . So , knowing we had to do it , we really studied to see what we did wrong and what we could do to improve to make sure that we at least hit our $ 20,000 goal the second time . So , we relaunched two months later with a $ 15,000 goal , and ended up raising close to $ 60,000 in a 40- day period .
Kharisma : Wow , that ’ s amazing ! Breakdown what crowdfunding is for our audience .
Khierstyn : Crowdfunding is such an attractive model , because 5-10 years ago , if you had a business idea for a product that you wanted to launch , the way that you would do it , is you would need to find money to manufacture the product , then manufacture it and then sell the product . But the manufacturing process and the prototyping is really expensive . You ’ d have to go for angel investment , you ’ d have to go to your parents , remortgage your house , get a bank loan ... like , the process is just crazy . It ’ s really dangerous , because after you spend thousands of dollars and years developing this thing : What if people don ’ t want to buy it ? Crowdfunding is actually the reverse of that model , where it allows you to put up a marketing campaign for a set period of time , and the goal is to raise money to bring your product to life .
For example , Pavlok was another project which we needed to raise $ 40,000 to manufacture the first run of the product , because we knew we needed it for tooling and manufacturing and stuff . The whole point is that you put up a marketing campaign on Indiegogo or Kickstarter . Customers can preorder the product , but they don ’ t get the product for six months or nine months , but the product creator or the entrepreneur will be able to take that money from pre-orders and develop the product and then bring it to market . And I get the question
a lot : Why would someone want to support a campaign for a product they can ’ t get for six months ? It ’ s because generally , people want to be a part of the novelty and new cool ideas that are out there and available to the retail market yet , and they