12 crowdfunding campaign tips from expert Kelly Angood

beepurple, the university’s entrepreneurship network, were in London on Wednesday with the University Of Brighton Alumni to hear from crowdfunding expert Kelly Angood.

Kelly is a University Of Brighton graduate who has enjoyed great success using crowdfunding platforms including Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Her campaigns led to her being recruited by Indiegogo UK as Design, Technology and Hardware Manager.

Kelly’s presentation took place in the sleek headquarters of email marketing firm dotmailer, whose founder Tink Taylor is also an alumni of the university.

Below are a few takeaways from the insightful presentation – but that’s not all. There’s a chance to hear from Kelly again in 2017. beepurple will be running a ‘Crowdfunding Surgery’ where you’ll be able to chat to Kelly about your specific crowdfunding issues.

The date will be announced in the new year. Make sure you’re registered to receive beepurple’s newsletter so that you don’t miss out.

Or if you want to chat now about your business idea, get in touch to book a one-to-one with our enterprise team.

Tips

1 There are two key forms of crowdfunding: rewards based, where people back your project in return for a reward (often the final product); and equity based, where investors buy a stake in your project and hope to profit when it’s launched. Kelly’s expertise is in rewards based crowdfunding.

2 Crowdfunding is a way to bypass the gatekeepers. They have traditionally determined what products are made and what are not. Kelly cited success stories like cat ear headphones, Jesus stencil toast and a pie dish shaped in the Pi symbol as ideas that may have been rejected by gatekeepers.

3 There are over 900 different crowdfunding platforms, covering every niche. Some questions to ask: Is there a platform that suits your project? Is your project very niche, or hyper-local? Do platform fees matter to you? How much control do you want over your campaign? How much support do you need?

4 Before rushing in, have a think. Is crowdfunding the right way to bring your idea into the world? If you don’t have much of a community, it might be worth exploring other routes for funding first. Or if your set-up costs are low, why not go straight to market?

5 Your funding will typically comprise first The ‘Inner Circle’ 30% (friends, family, current fans, people from your community); The ‘Outer Circle’ 31-75% (friends of friends, people who have seen the campaign shared by current backers, word of mouth); The General Public 100%+ (people who have read about it on blogs or news outlets, social media).

6 Exposure? Get in touch with the people who you know will be interested in your project and when you email them tell them why you think they’ll be interested. Get in touch with journalists & bloggers 1-2 weeks before you launch, and offer the ones with the most reach exclusivity. Write a press release that’s no more than a few hundred words and have a bunch of low & high res press images ready to go. If you don’t hear back, follow up!

7 The currency of crowdfunding is not simply money, it’s relationships and community.

8 What makes a great video? Keep it short! Who are you? What are you raising money for? Why are you raising funds? How can people get involved?

9 When setting your funding goal, understand the ‘Green Bar Effect’. 87% of campaigns that hit their goal exceed it by 30%+

10 Think about your rewards; the average crowdfunding contribution is £30-50.

11 Make you campaign length between 30-45 days. Campaigns under 40 days are 6% more likely to reach their goals than those above.

12 Try hard to encourage friends, family and contacts to contribute right away ( around 20-30% of your funding will come from this ‘seeder’ group).

These are just a few highlights from Kelly’s informative presentation.

To make sure you don’t miss out on the next beepurple workshop or next year’s crowdfunding surgery, sign up for the newsletter now.