Brian Probst and Thoughts On Crowdfunding

In 2012, Brian Probst launched the CruxSKUNK, bringing in over $250,000 on Kickstarter. He followed that up with another $250,000 in presales on his website. This guy means business. However, when you look at the success Brian has had, it's easy to overlook the unsuccessful campaigns launched before and after the CruxSKUNK. Translation: he's seen both sides of the crowdfunding spectrum and has a well-rounded understanding of the mechanics behind successful campaigns.

Looking closely at his three campaigns, you'll see similar threads. All three videos were high quality. All three products were loved by beta testers. All three campaigns involved skillful press releases. Why then did one campaign do $500,000 in presales while the others did not? What is the key to crowdfunding?

Brian indirectly answered this question when I asked him what he would do differently if he could launch another campaign. The answer: launch on Indiegogo.

Now, I know what you're thinking because it's the same thought I've had many times. Isn't Indiegogo Kickstarter's little brother? What year did he graduate? Indiegogo's platform allows for high quality renderings while Kickstarter will only allow a campaign to launch if they have a prototype. What does this mean for the classic cash-strapped entrepreneur? Indiegogo is quick and cheap while Kickstarter requires a significant amount of time and money.

For many entrepreneurs, the money is an obvious problem. No money equals no prototype. No prototype equals no business. No business equals enslavement in a 9-5 job. Even more troubling than the money problem is the time spent. Even confident entrepreneurs feel the pressure as bills mount, deadlines are missed, and friends and family don't see results. At times, it feels that the road less traveled on is that way on purpose; maybe other travelers are smarter than the curious entrepreneur! Indiegogo solves this problem.

Instead of waiting months to bring a product to market, hoping and praying that things work out, an entrepreneur can get instant feedback for his or her idea. In Brian's words, the value of crowdfunding is not to make or break a business but rather to collect data. Indiegogo, to an extent, serves as a profound Qualtrics survey where potential backers are given one simple question: will you back my project? Answer yes with your pledge and answer no with anything else. The goal of any campaign shouldn't be to get rich and retire (although we all wish it was), but rather to show us which opportunities to pursue and which ones to discard.

Indiegogo is the perfect place to sink or swim. Instead of playing the lottery, launching just 1 product per year, a creative mind can launch 5 or 6 different products and pursue the opportunities that seem most promising. After all, our guesses at why a campaign wasn't funded are just that: guesses. We don't really know why one product succeeds and another fails. Was marketing poor? Did the design not resonate with the end-user? Did we catch the major press blogs on a bad day or have servers go down at a less-than-ideal time? We can rationalize the world around us but the only good it may do is to help us sleep better at night.

While I've stressed Indiegogo's pivotal role in product development, I don't want to hate on Kickstarter. After all, Kickstarter also has some big advantages and each campaign is unique. As well, I still plan to launch the NeverSnooze Alarm Clock on Kickstarter in the coming months. Why? I didn't meet Brian until after my co-founders created an awesome prototype. We might as well go with the big-dog platform that Kickstarter provides and hope for a home-run.

In the future, my plan is to use both sites according to the product being launched. It would be smart to use Indiegogo to validate a need, aiming for a small goal. Then follow the initial validation with a Kickstarter campaign featuring your consumer-grade, high quality prototype. Instead of seeing these mega-platforms as competitor, we can use them as complementary platforms to raise a boat-load of money as quickly as possible. One serves to validate on a shoe-string budget while the other serves as a media feeding-frenzy to get the word out.