Tahoe Silicon Mountain, a network of technology professionals who live and work in the Tahoe-Truckee area, is pleased to welcome Casey Sibley to present: “Be a Crowdfunding Success: An Alternative Way to Raise Capital for Small Business Owners”
Crowdfunding is becoming a popular small business funding alternative to boot-strapping, self-funding, or applying for a small business loan.
Casey Sibley, owner and designer at Casey D. Sibley Art + Design, a Reno, NV based studio specializing in hand-painted and digitally printed textiles, will talk about how she planned, built, and launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $10,000 to expand her business.
Sibley will discuss how, with both a limited budget and social reach, she went from an idea to launching her successful Kickstarter campaign. She’ll share with us how she chose the crowdfunding platform, built trust with her backers, got the word out, developed rewards, and kept momentum going as the funding deadline approached.
You can learn more about Sibley and her business here: caseydsibley.com
The meeting will be on Monday, August 8th, 6-8 pm at Pizza on the Hill, in Tahoe Donner at 11509 Northwoods Blvd., Truckee. A $5 fee includes pizza and salad. Before and after the presentation, there will be time for networking with other technology professionals who live and work in the Tahoe-Truckee region.
The event will also be livestreamed and available online as it happens on YouTube: bit.ly/YouTubeTSM
This month’s event is sponsored by New Leaders, Clear Capital and Holland & Hart LLP.
You can find us on LinkedIn and Facebook and at TahoeSiliconMountain.com or sign up for email meeting announcements here: bit.ly/14XGofL
7. A BRIEF HISTORY
Started a handmade business in 2012.
Began wholesaling my products with retailers in late 2013 (knowing very little about wholesale).
caseydsibley.com
8. A BRIEF HISTORY
Started a handmade business in 2012.
Began wholesaling my products with retailers in late 2013 (knowing very little about wholesale).
Grew retail stockists to more than 20 stores worldwide by mid-2015, currently at 35 stores and growing.
caseydsibley.com
9. A BRIEF HISTORY
Started a handmade business in 2012.
Began wholesaling my products with retailers in late 2013 (knowing very little about wholesale!).
Grew retail stockists to more than 20 stores worldwide by mid-2015, currently at 35 stores and growing.
Launched campaign in early 2016 to attend NY Now Trade Show to grow wholesale sales.
caseydsibley.com
17. KICKSTARTER GOALS:
1. cover exhibit costs for NY Now
2. increase brand awareness through campaign outreach
caseydsibley.com
18. KICKSTARTER GOALS:
1. cover exhibit costs for NY Now
2. increase brand awareness through campaign outreach
3. refine brand messaging and product line
caseydsibley.com
20. AFTER KICKSTARTER + NYNOW:
1. double retail stockist count to 70+ stores
caseydsibley.com
21. AFTER KICKSTARTER + NYNOW:
1. double retail stockist count to 70+ stores
2. PR push for national press exposure
caseydsibley.com
22. AFTER KICKSTARTER + NYNOW:
1. double retail stockist count to 70+ stores
2. PR push for national press exposure
3. increased brand awareness for more web sales
caseydsibley.com
52. PRE-LAUNCH
caseydsibley.com
Make a list of contacts
reach out to more personal connections early to let them know what’s coming
(you don’t need a massive list of connections to make this work!)
69. LAUNCH + MOMENTUM
caseydsibley.com
Let everyone know
touch base with pre-launch people
share on all social platforms
add links to campaign on email signature and social profiles
73. LAUNCH + MOMENTUM
caseydsibley.com
People will forget
or put it off for later
or not fully trust crowd funding at first
share often and openly about the process to remind them
74. LAUNCH + MOMENTUM
caseydsibley.com
People will forget
or put it off for later
or not fully trust crowd funding at first
share often and openly about the process to remind them
talk about the Kickstarter platform (again, build trust)
75. LAUNCH + MOMENTUM
caseydsibley.com
People will forget
or put it off for later
or not fully trust crowd funding at first
share often and openly about the process to remind them
talk about the Kickstarter platform (again, build trust)
tell them precisely HOW to support you
82. LAUNCH + MOMENTUM
caseydsibley.com
Provide frequent updates
don’t beg for money—let people know how it’s going
save some rewards for midway through the campaign
let people know about any exciting press
83. LAUNCH + MOMENTUM
caseydsibley.com
Provide frequent updates
don’t beg for money—let people know how it’s going
save some rewards for midway through the campaign
let people know about any exciting press
THANK YOUR BACKERS and SHARERS OFTEN!
92. AFTER THE CAMPAIGN
caseydsibley.com
Let everyone know the next steps
reward fulfillment timelines
Kickstarter money logistics
surveys!
use both Kickstarter updates and social media
93. AFTER THE CAMPAIGN
caseydsibley.com
Let everyone know the next steps
reward fulfillment timelines
Kickstarter money logistics
surveys!
use both Kickstarter updates and social media
you may have to email people personally
105. RESOURCES
caseydsibley.com
kickstarter.com (FAQs + Creator Handbook + Dashboard)
Green Inbox - use with discretion
Google Drive
Yet Another Mail Merge (Google Sheets)
Vanessa Vancour + Luka Starmer (Video Production)
108. WHY KICKSTARTER?
1. Trust.
○ Kickstarter is a wellknown platform and the rules are simple: Get funded fully or
get nothing.
○ Other platforms that I found offered much more flexible requirements, but that
has turned me off from contributing to campaigns on other platforms in the past.
2. Incentive.
○ Because it’s an allornothing platform, I knew that would incentivize people to
donate.
○ If people don’t feel truly needed, they will more easily forget or talk themselves
out of contributing, especially if it looks like you are really close to your goal.
3. Accountability.
○ Running a crowdfunding campaign is a lot of work and there are ebbs and flows
over the course of the campaign. It would be easy to say “Okay, I am close, and I
am tired, and I feel like people are tired of hearing about this…” And just coast
without getting fully funded. The truth I is, I needed every penny and wanted to
take it all the way.
4. Creativity and product focus:
○ many of the projects on Kickstarter have a creatively driven and product
focused mission. Since I run a product based creative business, I thought it was
a natural fit.
○ a lot of companies launch new products on KS, without having a philanthropic
mission for the campaign. I didn’t want to run on a platform that might be more
charity focused, which might mislead my backers about the mission of my
campaign.
○ I decided early on to focus on the product launch and business growth, and get
my backers involved in my growth story, while providing them with a physical
product for their contribution.
5. Reciprocity.
○ I liked that Kickstarter allowed me to offer “rewards” for backer support.
○ I structured my campaign as a presale of my fall collection.
○ I didn’t want to approach the campaign as a charity drive, but more as a way for
current followers to be a part of my business story and help me spread the word
to new potential future customers. I also like how Kickstarter helps to build brand
loyalty early in a business's growth by allowing customers to be a part of product
development and expansion.
PLANNING STAGE:
1. Start Early
○ (I started planning and reaching out for help about 5 months in advance)
2. Tap Your resourcesask for help!
109. ○ I had some very talented friends help me create a great video
○ hired a friend for PR help. We worked together on a consulting basis, since I
couldn’t afford to hire her for more than a few hours a month.
○ I also reached out to people who I knew that had run successful campaigns
for their feedback and advice. This was hugely helpful (although not all the advice
was applicable to my experience, so take advice, even my own, with a grain of
salt!).
3. Make a great video
○ and be really clear early on about the goal of the video with your team.
○ Use your campaign as an opportunity to educate your followers and
supporters about your business. It’s okay to get a little sappy too!
○ Keep the video short and engaging. We kept our video to 2 minutesmost of
the videos I saw on kickstarter were 3 minutes, but I noticed that I lost interest
about halfway through.
4. Budget for your ideal, big, scary, audacious funding goal
○ and be sure to calculate all expenses (kickstarter fees, material and labor costs
for reward fulfillment, shipping costs)
5. Rewards
○ Do an early brain dump of all your potential rewards
○ aim for easier to fulfill rewards at lower levels and exclusive, limited edition
rewards at higher levels
6. Plan plenty of time for reward fulfillment.
○ Make sure you create realistic reward fulfillment timelines and share them with
your backers.
7. Talk about it!
○ Don’t be afraid to say it out loud and get feedback from those close to you.
○ Share bits and pieces of the process as you develop your content for the
campaign (I shared occasional and brief snippets of the video making process for
ex)
8. Create a campaign that clearly and concisely illustrates exactly
what you are trying to raise money for
○ WHY it’s important.
○ Creating this campaign really helped me clarify a lot of the brand and goals
for my business because I had to say them over and over and articulate the
things that are important to me and make sure that my audience would
understand it.
○ BUILD TRUST with backers.
○ Tell them how the money will be usedillustrate it!
9. Use imagery in your campaign page design.
110. ○ I created an infographic with “quick stats” and lots of images of the rewards so
people could scan through quickly.
PRELAUNCH:
10. Make a list of every single possible person that you want to tell
about your campaign.
○ I created a “prelaunch” list who I emailed about a week before the campaign
launched to let them know it was coming and prime them to share when it
officially launched.
○ I reached out to roughly 120 people via email before the campaign, and started
telling acquaintances and followers in the online and local business community
about it leading up to the campaign.
○ I was also in a number of business groups on Facebook filled with people that I
had built genuine relationships withthese people will be your advocates during
the campaign.
11. Schedule of all the potential correspondence and social imagery
you will send out during the campaign:
○ launch emails,
○ milestone emails,
○ thank you emails,
○ updates, etc.
○ Have these drafted and ready to go so that you are not creating them on the fly
as the campaign unfolds.
12. Share the campaign on all of your social media channels.
13. Provide guidelines for sharing your campaign:
○ draft an exact statement that people can copy and paste if they don’t know what
to say when they share. You want to make it really easy for them to copy, paste,
click, and share.
14. Share a draft with your contacts. Let those same prelaunch contacts look
over the campaign for everything from spelling and grammar errors to things that are not
clearly presented in the campaign copy or imagery. I also asked people for feedback on
the rewards, which helped me strengthen my reward offerings.
15. I also shared the draft campaign with my email list for
caseydsibley.com, which was around 250 people at the time.
16. Use social media. I was sharing little snippets about the campaign development in
the weeks leading up to the campaign, without getting too specific. Then a week or so
before the campaign launch, I started talking specifically about Kickstarter. I didn’t want
to over share about it too early on with my followers, because I knew I’d be focusing
pretty heavily on it for a full month and didn’t want to fatigue my followers!