Does the crowd just look beautiful? To count all the misunderstandings about the public raising

The herd has just begun to start in the US-and that's when the prosper.com is on the line in 2006-and I've been covering the news. Now it seems like every start-up owner I've met and every creative artist has launched a fund-raising campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Unfortunately, most of these campaigns are doomed to failure. And why? Because the person who launched the activity completely did not understand how the public raised the game.

I know this, it's because a lot of them have emailed me, and there's always one or two requests: they either want me to give free advice on their fundraising, or I want to report it, talk about it on Twitter, or spread it out in other ways.

None of these requests will happen, I'm not a member of your PR team. The days of releasing a press release and eagerly announcing that "I have launched a Kickstarter campaign" and getting media coverage and free publicity have long ceased to exist.

Still, tens of thousands of entrepreneurs still cling to the illusion that they can attract media attention, raise hundreds of thousands of of billions of dollars quickly, and conjure up a company as long as they start raising money on Kickstarter. Or, in the opinion of creative artists, it is the ability to instantly raise creative money for a movie, online drama, music CD, comic book or photo album of your dreams.

Here are some of the mistakes I've seen from entrepreneurs and creative artists, and the suggestions I've made to save a lot of time and energy for the people who want to try it out:

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For example, I received an email this morning from a would-be rapper from India who decided to try to raise $7,000 on Indiegogo to record a "album" about his "life, pain and struggle".

He has no connections. I don't want to be the one to tell him the bad news, but his fundraising is not going to work out, it can be packed.

I know what he's looking for--launching a fundraiser in Indiegogo or Kickstarter, in part, means thousands of rich people will find his project on the platform and decide to finance him. Everything is resigned to fate. He has no portfolio, no past works, no e-mail subscribers, and no popular mentors to recommend to his followers.

But there must be some reason to let the good luck fall on his head, he wants to hit the big luck. He and thousands of other people think so.

Why most of the fundraising has failed

The problem: The platform is not a magical atm. They are just a more effective way to get to know a lot of potential funders, as opposed to the way they used to call or meet in person. You still need to know someone to sell your ideas.

Last year, nearly 20,000 projects raised money on Kickstarter. That sounds exciting! It's as if it's easy to get funding.

But in reality, the Kickstarter that have been approved on the line only less than 41% of the public financing--kickstarter told me that another 20% of the application project was rejected, directly. So, more precisely, only one-third of the funding applications have been funded.

In addition, most successful fund-raising activities do not raise much money. Kickstarter's statistics show that most fundraising activities are raised at less than 10,000 dollars. Since the establishment of Kickstarter, more than 72,000 projects have been funded on this platform, and only about 1,600 of these projects have been funded at more than 100,000 dollars.

In general, this is a platform for small art projects and is not suitable for starting a large company.

However, entrepreneurs have unrealistic fantasies about Soar's success stories. They read a sensational effect of a Kickstarter fundraising project, and they think they have found a simple way to get a lot of cash. In most cases, they are wrong.

How to make the public-funded activities successful

In the last 8 years, I've covered many of the most successful start-ups, and I've noticed a pattern. Startups that get a lot of money from herd-raising have 5 things in common:

1. To have an audience

Almost every successful project I see comes from startups or artists who already have consumers, fans, followers .... They can disclose to these people the news of their activities. Or, you have a highly-popular mentor who is willing to give you a recommendation.

To a large extent, these are the people who will go to the public website and give you support.

No matter how exciting your video is or how amazing your ideas are, it doesn't matter if your campaigns don't have a ready-made audience. In this case, there is little hope of getting the funds to fund their projects.

Or, quote Kickstarter on the website FAQ: "In most cases, most of the money starts with fans and friends from various projects." ”

For some reason, every entrepreneur thinks he is the exception to the rule, and they think their project is so shocking that any stranger will be generous. However, this is a rare occurrence.

Conversely, companies with good customer base are often able to successfully implement new product financing activities on Kickstarter or even their own websites. Hot nail polish start-up julep is one such example, the company recently launched a new nail polish coating device to launch a public chip.

Before you get excited about using this approach, ask yourself how you will attract visitors to your fundraising page. If your answer is "don't know", then put some effort into it.

2. Provide truly breakthrough products

Many of Kickstarter's most successful fundraising activities involve a breakthrough technology or a breakthrough application of existing technologies. The exact example is 3Doodler, the first pen to be able to do three-dimensional painting.

The creator of this paintbrush, wobble works, is not a very well-known entrepreneur--one is an inventor from MIT, others have experience in toy manufacturing--but in 2013 they were able to raise 2.3 million of dollars for this unique product, Today 3Doodler is already on sale in Amazon and elsewhere.

3. Promoting advocacy for fund-raising activities

The public is not "wine is not afraid of alley deep" activities. Before you put the project online, you should have a marketing plan in place to figure out how to promote it. You should have been in the pre-sale, a few months ago with the focus on the products you will provide, report to them on the latest progress, so that they are interested in the project before the launch.

Ideally, your marketing is not alone. You will be setting up a referral team, which is a large number of prominent people who are willing to help you during the fundraising period. You plan to post content on Twitter, write guest blog posts, send emails ... And anything you can think of to attract attention to your fundraising page.

4. Make a fascinating video

One of the most important marketing tools for online fundraising is video. However, many entrepreneurs try to do it in a low-cost way, creating videos that are completely animations and not exciting. They either do it themselves or they outsource at a low price.

Note: Your video must be attractive enough for people to share with their friends and eventually take out their wallets. Don't be careful on this.

5. Provide an exciting reward

One of the things I've been impressed by every successful fundraising event I've seen is the creativity and fun that comes with repaying. It's not as simple as "getting our new product" The rewards I've seen are the personal calls and emails from donors to the founder of the project, the opportunity to "go behind the scenes", get a limited edition product, attend a consulting meeting, enjoy a substantial discount on the retail price of the product, and get extra products in the gift pack. One-time purchase of 10 products to enjoy wholesale prices, and so on.

Think about what you can offer in return to motivate people to contemplative. Realize this: Most people don't give you money just because they think you're cool. It's not a charity event, they don't get a stake in your company like a traditional seed investor, so you have to provide something else that really is valuable to them.

If your fund-raising activities do not account for at least four of these five elements, you probably won't be able to raise thousands of dollars, which is far from enough to start a serious business. Before you try to do it, it is worthwhile to plan carefully and make a few sharp questions about whether the pattern is a viable option for your situation.

(Responsible editor: Lvguang)