What are the Best Products to Crowdfund? And Other Questions From the HKTDC Electronics Fair

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of speaking at the Startup Zone in the Innovation Hub at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) Electronics Fair. I was invited to answer the question,'Is Crowdfunding Right for your Business?' by Jumpstart Magazine who was working with HKTDC to connect startups to knowledge and investors to help them grow.  

 

I have to say, not having been to this event before, I was completely unprepared for how big it was! There was literally every conceivable type of gadget there, including hot trends around 3D printing and e-health. While walking around, there was great energy at the event and you could see that there was a focus on doing business and making sales. The number of people who joined the audience and their engagement afterward in asking questions showed the depth of interest in crowdfunding at the event.

In this blog, I wanted to touch on the two most popular questions asked at my talk:

'What product is the most successful to crowdfund?'

'What makes a campaign successful?'

 

For the question 'What product is the most successful to crowdfund' I touched on a number of points including:

  • The crowdfunding industry has matured and backers expect to see products with proven prototypes or samples.  This is particularly important as a few years back people were only preparing home made versions for the campaign that were difficult to manufacture on the scale required after successfully crowdfunding.  This meant often there were delays or even an inability to deliver the rewards
  • Also, many backers on crowdfunding websites are early adopters and are looking for an innovative or unique product, not something they can find in the shops.  These early adopters are generally happy to receive ‘Version 1' of the product with the expectation that they are getting something new & unique but can also give feedback.
  • Products with a lot of features are also great to showcase in a video.  The BauBax campaign is a great example of a simple jacket that has a lot of functionality that is brilliantly captured in their video.

 

Secondly 'What makes a campaign successful?'  This easily falls into these main categories:

  • Research Research Research - check out what similar campaigns to yours have done and why they were successful/unsuccessful.  For example, look at the price points, most popular rewards, image types, video and what press they were featured in to help you formulate your campaign.
  • Email Outreach is still the best way to convert sales versus using FB and Twitter.  So try to build up an engaged community and email list before you launch to really get some early pledges.  Some campaigners we meet won’t launch without a certain number of potentials supporters on their mailing list to ensure a greater chance of success.
  • Pre-pledges: getting agreement from your network to pledge on day one is critical,  especially on the larger websites. because if you show early success in the first 48 hours you are more likely to end up in the website’s newsletter, staff pick list, and searches. This gives you greater visibility and more success with their community.
  • High Quality Video and Images - don't scrimp on these as this is the window to your product and can be re-used for ongoing sales and marketing efforts.  So make sure you get these right.  
  • PR - if you are seeking to raise a substantial amount of money, then you need to be aware that all of the successful viral campaigns have generally used PR agencies to help them beat their funding goal, something to keep in mind depending on your budget.
  • Preparation - the more preparation you can do on all of the above areas then the better positioned you will be to succeed as in crowdfunding.  Unfortunately, the “build it and they will come” approach does NOT work in crowdfunding.  You definitely need to hustle to get your campaign out there and funded.   

If you have any questions on the above or would like to learn more about crowdfunding then please reach out us at [email protected] and we can see if crowdfunding is right for your business.\