How to nail Crowdfunding

So after our incredible campaign on CrowdCube a few weeks back where we managed to over fund and close our round in less than 30 hours a lot of people have asked me what I think are the reasons behind why it went so well. So I thought I would write a super quick and simple list of what I think are the ways to nail Crowdfunding.

1. Have a personality: I’ve spent a few years in sales now and one thing i’ve learned is people don’t like to buy things from people who aren’t very passionate about what they’re selling. I think this is true for investing in business too. If you don’t love it, how do you expect others to? So make sure your passion and brand personality come through in your pitch. I’ve also noticed a few campaigns where founders seem to lose the ability to talk like a normal human in the questions section. Investors are just people like you and me so don’t feel you need to sound like a formal letter to the queen when writing a response.
2. Make an epic video: I always feel so frustrated when I look at a pitch on a crowdfunding site and all the company information is great and i totally get what they are trying to do and then i press play and the video is terrible. If you are asking for a decent sum of cash then it’s worth investing in a good quality video production, and don’t forget the music…the right sound track can either make or break it. Oh and for the love of god please don’t use your i phone on selfie mode to do it!
3. Momentum is key: I’ve renamed the first few days of the campaign ‘zero hour’ this is because if you don’t build momentum during this period you seem to become a bit of a sitting duck. It’s called ‘Crowd’ funding for a reason…if there seems to be a bit of a buzz about the pitch then it will help investors feel more confident in investing. We did a lot of work pre going live building a momentum and getting some investors to agree to invest via the site when we did go live.
4. Have a solid business plan to back it up: I maybe spent a little too long creating a rock solid business plan but I ended up being really glad i did as i got a lot of great feedback from investors about it and it swayed a lot of people into investing. Be prepared when you do go live for the influx of requests for the business plan you will receive from potential investors. It’s a really good idea to put an out of office on your email explaining you are crowdfunding as it is quite challenging to handle day to day tasks at the same time.
5. Go in or go home: If you are going to do a Crowdfunding run then go all in 100%. Just because your business is doing well or you’ve had amazing feedback so far doesn’t necessarily mean you will fund. You need to be talking about your campaign constantly (much to the annoyance of your friends and family), and you need to shout about it on social media. Tell people you pass on the street if you have to just never be blasé about it…nothing is a given in this life..Trump proved that!

These are just my thoughts from my Crowdfunding experience and I’m sure everyones experience is very different. But if you are thinking of raising money this way then i hope this helps a little and the very bust of luck :)

Emily Fitchett

Founder, Fitch Brew Co.