A crowdfunding campaign shouldn’t only begin once it goes live. It’s what you do beforehand that really sets you up for success – helping you reach, double and even quadruple your initial goal.
That’s exactly what Brian Quach did with Tree To Tub (formally known as Soapberri), an all-natural soap made from plants. Using Kickstarter, he quadrupled his goal of $10,000. Brian stops by today to share how he did it and gives tactical tips to apply to your own crowdfunding campaign. All of this and more on episode 64 of Xero Gravity.
Their story began from a berry – one that grows wild in Taiwan where the co-founder, Michael Koh’s, grandmother grew up. The natural berry’s cleaning abilities have been used for generations, but today, it’s mostly left to grow untouched. That is until Brian and Michael got the idea to create and market a natural soap made from the berries – a much healthier option than the chemical-laden products on the market today.
Raising money for the idea through crowdfunding was a relatively easy decision for Brian and his team because they loved how it allowed them to connect with their customers from the start.
“Crowdfunding is really useful because you can use it to assess market demand, profile a customer audience that you might know almost nothing about, and it’s a fully functional marketing platform that will serve you not only during your campaign but well after it too,” explains Brian.
What helped make the campaign so successful wasn’t what happened after it went live, but the three months prior to launch. Brian and his team spent that time reaching out to different friends, bloggers, and anyone else they knew would be interested in the soap. So, when the Kickstarter launched they already had a community of people not only wanting to invest in the product but also willing to share it within their networks.
“We had an awesome landing page, so all these other channels would feed into the landing page that would have an email opt-in form where people would have a chance at winning some free product. So basically the idea is to rack up all those emails, and when your Kickstarter launches, you will have prepared an audience to market the Kickstarter campaign to,” says Brian.
Tune into this episode now, to hear more on Kickstarting your business – including tips on properly structuring your reward tiers once the campaign goes live and why pricing your product correctly is crucial if you want to come out on top.
Small Business Resources:
- ChompSocial
- The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch
- Tree to Tub’s Kickstarter campaign
- Hacking Kickstarter: How to launch a successful campaign
If you enjoyed this episode, join us again next week when we sit down with co-founder of Bean Ninjas, Meryl Johnston. She shows us how balancing your work and personal life is more than possible – the true definition of work hard, play hard. Be sure to check out all of our previous episodes for more small business tips, resources and insights.
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