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Crowdfunding is a great tool. The only pity is that in order to enter large sites like Kikstater and Boomstarter, you need to be a citizen of the United States or Russia. But what about the rest? One option is to launch a project on Indiegogo.
This site is undeservedly forgotten in the post-Soviet space. In America, it is the second most popular after Kikstater, and, most surprisingly, it is much more convenient to start a crowdfunding campaign than its competitor. Therefore, it will be discussed now.
What you need to know about Indiegogo
The project was founded in 2008. Over the nine years of its work on the site, more than 200,000 advertising campaigns have been launched, which in total collected several tens of millions of dollars.
Indiegogo has several distinctive features that make it more crowdfunding friendly and loyal to people who need investment:
- You can start the project from anywhere in the world. It is enough just to have an account in the bank of your country. There is no need to look for intermediaries, as in the case of Kikstater, conclude an agreement with them and be afraid that after a successful fundraising, unscrupulous partners will disappear along with the money. The campaign will be officially registered to a representative of your organization.
- It is not necessary to achieve the goal of the project. This is required only if the campaign type is set to “Fixed”. When choosing a flexible model, whatever amount is collected will be transferred to you. This is convenient for selling pre-orders for an almost finished product, for example.
- The project will be published immediately, without going through moderation and concluding contracts.
Why is Indiegogo not in high demand? There are several reasons for this. Firstly, in terms of functionality, it is better suited for projects developing a real product. To provide electronic access to something, the service is not very convenient.
Secondly, the absence of the need to conclude an agreement with the site and the ability to withdraw money without achieving the goal led to the emergence of fraudulent schemes. Indiegogo, unfortunately, leads in the number of projects, after which the backers did not receive anything. Perhaps one of the most famous cases of this kind is the fundraising for a fitness tracker in the form of a BioRing ring. Startupers collected $750,000 from gullible users, after which they simply disappeared, leaving investors with nothing.
Should I launch on Indiegogo?
IGG is not the best place to promote your product, especially if it is a niche one – the project’s audience is still not very large. But as a fundraising platform, it is no worse than its counterparts:
- Payments are accepted from cards of any banks.
- Quick withdrawal of earned money to a bank account.
- Low commission.
Therefore, for startups that, due to regional reasons, cannot launch on Kikstater or Boomstarter, Indiegogo is a good option.
Is it worth worrying about the fact that this is not the first time that scam projects have appeared on IGG? Yes, if you plan to run the same. Otherwise, if you are not afraid to show the project face, provide a detailed development plan, or even better demonstrate a finished prototype, then the level of trust among users will be appropriate. In addition, the Indiegogo portfolio still has more actually released products than fraudulent ones.
How to start a project
All instructions that have so far come across on the Internet are either outdated or do not give a complete picture of the system interface and some functional problems. Therefore, let’s look at how to launch a campaign on Indiegogo.
Specify the name and purpose of the collection
There are no tricks. The only thing to remember is that after the start of fundraising, it will not be possible to change the data, but this is the standard practice of crowdfunding services.
Basic information (Basic)
We fill in all the fields. Campaign Tagline and Campaign Card Image will be displayed in the general list of projects, so it’s worth making them as attractive as possible. By the way, I advise you to immediately prepare more images of 620 x 415 and 320 x 240, they will come in handy later.
After specifying the Category, you will be prompted to enter which category you personally consider the most suitable for the project. We indicate, but it does not affect anything specifically. We fill in the tags, but they also won’t give much help in promotion. The rest of the fields are simple.
History
If the project has a video, provide a link to it. The video must be uploaded to Youtube. You can just upload an image. In any case, we will need the 620 x 415 image created earlier – for the main photo of the project or the cover of the video. This information will be placed in the header on the campaign page.
It’s time to use the second image – in the Overview Image. It will be placed immediately below the video field. Campaign Overview – text that will appear to the right of the newly uploaded image and should give a brief idea of the essence of the project.
Campaign Pitch – The main content of the campaign. A good text editor is available for design, you can insert links, upload pictures, embed videos from Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion.
Goods
Immediately after filling out the history, Indiegogo will offer to start creating Perks, but I advise you to start with the next item – Items. Unfortunately, the menu on the left won’t let you do that, so create a new reward and scroll through the “Included Items” field.
Here you need to specify the goods or services that will be rewarded to users who supported the project. It’s best to create them all at once, so as not to edit already finished Perks once again.
Pay attention to an unpleasant feature of IGG: products are sorted and displayed in rewards only by the date they were created. For example, you are looking for funds to produce unique drones. If you first create the Item “Book signed by the founder of the startup”, and then “Drone”, then they will be shown to potential bakers in this order, which is absolutely illogical – the key product of the project is lower than the auxiliary one. There is only one way to change this order – by deleting and creating the list again.
Therefore, you need to immediately think about what you intend to give users as a reward, what is its value and how it should look in the project description, and only then proceed to filling in Items. Otherwise, you will have to redo it at least once.
When creating a new product, you can add the ability to select its additional characteristics – size, color, etc. Unfortunately, it is impossible to offer the baker an empty field into which he can enter any information. Only a choice of template options is available. A maximum of three characteristics can be specified.
Rewards (Perks)
When all Items are created, you can move on to what users will pay money for. We just fill in all the fields in order, there are no special pitfalls here, moreover, the data can be changed even after the start of the campaign.
Pay attention to Perk Shipping Locations. Here you can specify whether to ask the user for information for the delivery of goods. Unfortunately, you can only get a physical address, so there may be a problem with the distribution of digital copies – the baker simply cannot specify which email to send the product to.
After the launch, in the Orders & Donations section, you will see to which email address the account of the user who supported the project is registered, and you can also send a personal message to the donator and clarify the data. This is not the most convenient way to collect the necessary information. But, alas, there is no other one on Indiegogo.
After creating the first Perk, the service will prompt you to create a hidden reward. It is not displayed in the general list when viewing the project page and is only available via a link. When the user clicks on it, an additional one will be indicated above all public rewards. To be honest, it’s not entirely clear why such functionality is needed, but perhaps you will find an interesting use for it.
All Perks on the project page are displayed on the right. They are sorted by price, and this order cannot be changed.
Team
Everything is simple here. We indicate the contacts of the person who will be fully responsible for running the campaign. If you wish, you can appoint new project administrators by sending them an email invitation.
Fundraising
Here you can manage financial information. Pay attention to the Funding Type. In this field, we choose whether the campaign goal will be flexible or fixed. The first option looks more preferable, but it is he who is the reason for some distrust of Indiegogo, because not until the end of the collected funds may not be enough to fulfill obligations. The most honest use of flexible funding is the sale of pre-orders for an already finished product. In other cases, it’s better to choose fixed.
Credit Card Payment Setup is a strange setting. It disables accepting payments from bank cards. Given that IGG has stopped working with PayPal, selecting “No” means that bakers will only be able to participate in the campaign using Apple Pay, which is only available in the US and UK. I don’t see why this is necessary.
In the Bank Account Holder, we indicate our real payment details. Please note that they cannot be changed later. After accepting the first payment, you will need to complete the remaining information.
Extras
Here you can set up a short link for the project, specify accounts in social networks, set up work with Google Analytics, create a gallery with photos or videos.
InDemand
Includes a feature that will allow you to accept payments after reaching the goal. Should not be used if the value of the product in rewards is lower than when it went to market. In other cases, there is no reason not to take the opportunity to raise more money.
It is not necessary to fill in all fields at once. You can save a project without publishing and return to it later. Before posting on the site, do not forget to use the campaign preview.
It remains only to wait for the first payment and enter the full details for the withdrawal of funds. No other information is needed anymore.
What’s next?
After launch, several additional fields will appear in the project settings on the left.
- Campaign Insights. Here are various reports on the progress of fundraising, activity, audience, etc.
- Perks Report. List of all rewards and the number of their purchases.
- items report. Same thing, but for goods.
- Orders & Donations. This lists all IGG users who have participated in funding, as well as their details: email, selected reward, payment status.
- funds. Report on collected funds and payments made.
Output
Indiegogo is a good alternative to crowdfunding sites. It is ideal if:
1. There is no desire to look for an intermediary in the USA or Russia.
2. Need a small amount of money.
3. Need a platform to accept pre-orders for the product.
In other cases, it is still worth considering choosing Kikstater, Boomstarter, Planeta, or one of the regional services.
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