Expert Tips - How To Write A Crowdfunding Campaign How To Write A Crowdfunding Campaign - Putting Your Campaign Together Over the last few years, crowdfunding has risen to become an ideal avenue of raising capital for startups. During this time, thousands of businesses have raised billions of dollars to bring new innovations directly to consumers. Between 2014 and 2016, over $2.1 billion was raised through crowdfunding campaigns. By 2025, it is expected that total crowdfunding raised will reach over $300 billion. For those that know how to write a crowdfunding campaign, and can do so effectively, the potential is endless.  Crowdfunding is not easy, though. The average success rate of a crowdfunding campaign is 50%; so for every business that raises capital through this method, another business fails to meet its financial objective.  Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK While there are many things that must be implemented to successfully meet your crowdfunding goal, it all starts with the pitch - or the crowdfunding campaign itself. If you’re looking for a template, you won’t find it here. Templates give you a “standard” way of doing something, but when it comes to effective crowdfunding, it’s the businesses that go outside the standard that succeed. Whether you're raising money on Kickstarter or one of the many Kickstarter alternatives, you'll need a strong campaign to win. In this article, we’ll share several campaign tips and show you how to write a crowdfunding campaign to successfully raise funds for your startup.  Expert Tips - How To Write A Crowdfunding Campaign 1. Create The Perfect Campaign Name and Title There’s no point in writing an incredible campaign if consumers never read it. Before you begin writing your crowdfunding pitch, start by crafting an amazing title.  The goal of a title is to persuade people to click through to the campaign. According to David Ogilvy, the Father of Advertising, “On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” In other words, your title is probably just as, if not more, important than the actual body of your campaign.  Don’t name your campaign after your product, but use this real estate to woo consumers. Use it to capture people’s attention by being descriptive and detailing the benefits of the product. When someone reads your title, you want them to feel connected and driven to find out more. Let them know what your product is and give them a reason to want it - before they even get to your actual campaign! When thinking about your crowdfunding campaign title, consider these titles of campaigns that were successfully funded on Kickstarter:  COOLEST COOLER's: 21st Century Cooler that's Actually Cooler Bring Reading Rainbow Back for Every Child, Everywhere! The Micro: The First Truly Consumer 3D…

Definition Sources of Early Funding Is Your Startup Ready to be Funded? What is Bootstrapping? How Much Capital Can You Raise? Want to jump directly to our seed funding infographic? Click Here If you’re launching a new startup, one of the first stumbling blocks you need to overcome is how to fund the growth of your startup. Obtaining funds to start a business is extremely critical in the early phases. Even if they’ve answered the question, ‘what is seed money’, many new startups don’t know where to find it. Without it, your great idea threatens to stay stagnant or, worse, a competitor with better funding can swoop in and capitalize on the market. Around 30% of start-ups fail from a lack of capital to grow the business for marketing, personnel acquisition, design, and development of the technology and business direction. Successful startups, however, know the power of early capital, and how to tap into it. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK Definition Seed money can be defined in many ways. When we define seed money or seek to give a seed capital definition, it simply means this - seed money is the first round of capital for a new business. For many new enterprises, seed money provides the capital and funds needed to establish and grow the brand. Common uses of seed money include product development, market research, hiring personnel, securing facilities or equipment, and initial launch and production. For an app startup specifically, common uses of seed money usually include developing the minimum viable product and initiating an early marketing strategy. So how does it work? Seed capital is often given in exchange for equity ownership — that is exchanging capital in return for a stake in the company. Even when a new business presents a solid idea, unvalidated concepts are a substantial risk to investors. Equity stake, or part ownership in a company, lends incentive to investors to engage in risk and provides a method to earn a return on their investment. Effectively, in exchange for access to early funding, you are trading ownership of the company and a portion of your eventual returns. Likewise, if your business fails to produce a return, investors risk losing the capital that they invested in the business. Capital for startups is a huge business, however, the traditional sources for seed capital are extremely competitive. While there are many investors seeking new startups to invest in, there are even more new startups seeking an investment partner. Sources of Early Funding While there are many ways a startup can raise early financing, the most common sources of seed capital come from three primary groups: friends and family, venture capitalists and angel investors. There are distinct benefits and ramifications for partnering with each type of investor. Asking for Seed Money from Friends and Family Friends and family are a common source…

The Truth About Startup Pitch Success Why Do Startup Pitches Fail? Failing Your Way To Funding Success Being turned down by an investor after a startup pitch can be disheartening. You spent weeks creating your pitch deck and practiced your delivery day and night. Even though you gave your startup pitch presentation everything you had, you weren’t able to convince them to invest in your business idea. Startup pitch failure is not uncommon. Most startup pitches fail, and most founders who walk into an investor meeting with high hopes will walk out without a deal. Any startup that has had success at raising money has likely also experienced many failed pitch presentations. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK The bad news is, if you’re seeking funding for your startup, you’ll probably get turned down by the majority of investors that you pitch. The good news is, even if 100 investors turn you down - you only need to convince one to turn your luck around. Startup teams that get funded are those that are determined and persevere even after a pitch failure - or many pitch failures. When successful startups pitch, there's no such thing as a failure, because every investor meeting provides a learning opportunity that eventually results in successful fundraising. The Truth About Startup Pitch Success With all the rave about multi-million dollar funding rounds and billion-dollar startup acquisitions, it may feel as though everyone is getting funded but you. Don’t let the media fool you, angel and VC funding isn’t as commonplace as it seems. David Rose, founder of New York Angels and Gust explained, “[Each year] roughly 1,500 startups get funded by venture capitalists in the US, and 50,000 by angel investors. VCs look at around 400 companies for every one in which they invest; angels look at 40.” Everyone is inspired by the stories of startup founders who were able to generate a huge funding round, but we rarely hear about what it really took for them to get there. Finding the right investor and convincing them to invest can be an intensive, drawn-out experience. A successful startup investor pitch is usually backed by a series of unsuccessful pitches. Studies by DocSend revealed that companies needed an average of 40 investor meetings over 12 weeks to close a funding round. Twelve weeks might seem like an eternity when your startup is relying on funding to move to the next level, but when it comes to fundraising, patience is a virtue. According to DocSend, companies that failed to successfully raise funds gave up after an average of 6.7 weeks - five weeks shy of being a potential success story. Why Do Startup Pitches Fail? There’s one main reason why pitches fail: investors aren’t convinced that the startup will provide a large enough return on investment. But what’s more important is why they weren’t…

What To Do Before You Pitch How To Deliver An Effective Investor Pitch How To Pitch Investors Successfully You’ve launched your minimal product. You have traction, a business plan, a strong pitch deck, and you’re ready to fundraise… but there’s one issue - you don’t have the first clue on how to pitch to investors. Don’t worry, the pitch process can be frustrating to everyone and it can almost seem scary until you’re actually out there doing it. If you’ve ever attended a Pitch Day or have witnessed numerous pitches, it’s easy to see that some people seem to have the gift of pitching while others just seem uncomfortable, timid and uncertain. There’s a major difference in these two types of entrepreneurs and it’s not ‘natural talent’ - it’s knowing how to pitch effectively and generating the necessary experience by pitching your business over and over again. At ThinkLions, we’ve worked with hundreds of businesses around the world - helping them create the best investment tools and consulting with them to develop successful pitches. In this post, we will share a few tried-and-tested tips to help you deliver the best possible pitch and raise the necessary funds for your startup. What To Do Before You Pitch There are several things you should do before approaching an investor to maximize your potential for success; but if this is your first time pitching, you should start by familiarizing yourself with the process. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK The great thing about living in today’s world is, we have access to things we could never access before the “internet age”. Twenty years ago, you may be walking in to give your first pitch without even knowing what a successful pitch actually looks like. Today, you can simply go on YouTube and type in “pitch competition” or “investor pitch” and watch hundreds of pitches; preparing you for what to expect. Preparation is key, and using tools like YouTube can give you a serious boost and a major advantage when you’re standing in front of a potential investor. Your first investor pitch shouldn’t the first time you’ve pitched your business. By the time you’re in front of a potential investor, you should have already tested your pitch dozens of times. Write out a few different pitches. Pitch it to yourself in the mirror, pitch it to your family and friends. If you’re tripping over your words and finding that your nerves overtake your delivery in front of your brother or cousin - how do you think you’re going to do when you’re in front of several experienced entrepreneurs and investors? Pitch to anyone that will listen - then ask for their honest feedback. Ask them what parts they understood and what parts they didn’t. Wait a few days and ask them what they remember from your pitch. If they don’t even…

Is Your App Startup Fundable? You Already Know Your First Investor How To Find Seed Money For Your App Startup How To Prepare for Seed Funding How To Raise Seed Funding – The Process Anybody can launch an app, but if your goal is to build an app startup that has the potential for large scale success – well, at some point you’re likely going to need to know how to raise seed funding. Building an app is an expensive undertaking; it can cost tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring a full-scale app to the market. Once you launch it, you’ll need additional capital to fund your marketing efforts and actually get users to the app. Knowing how to raise seed funding is critical to a startup’s business plans, as many major app startups must go through several funding rounds to maintain progress until profitability is reached. Everyone with an app idea and a pitch deck believes that they are ready to pitch VCs and secure a large investment to bring their idea to life. Unfortunately, of the millions of app startups (or pre-startups) out there, very few of them are actually in a position to secure even a minimum amount of initial funding. In this guide, we will answer everything you want to know about how to raise seed funding and convince investors to invest in your app startup. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK Is Your App Startup Fundable? Often, entrepreneurs who have not been through the process of obtaining funding mistakenly assume that just having a great app idea is enough. It isn’t. These entrepreneurs are quickly humbled when they pitch their idea for the first time only to be hammered with questions that they weren’t prepared to answer. The truth is, an idea on it’s own has zero value to app investors. Everyone has the next idea that will “completely disrupt the industry!”; or the next “Uber for ____” idea; or the next idea for an app that will “really change our lives!” Mark Hurd (CEO of Oracle) once said, “Without execution, ‘vision’ is just another word for hallucination.” Unfortunately, very few app ideas ever become apps, and very few apps ever become fundable startups. There are several steps between the app idea stage and the seed capital raising stage – and even if you know how to raise seed funding, you probably won’t if you haven’t at least progressed your startup to a certain position. At minimum, a fundable startup will have reached these three milestones before raising seed capital: Established Startup Team: A single-member team isn’t a startup team at all. Building a business takes more work than most first-time entrepreneurs can ever imagine, and doing it alone is usually too much work for one individual. Your team should be complete with several professionals that have an extensive breadth of knowledges, experiences…

Is Your App Positioned for Funding? App Funding: How it Really Happens Making The First Step Towards App Funding It’s not easy to secure app funding to bring your app idea to reality. Most people believe that as long as you have a good idea and a business plan, investors will be kicking down your door to invest. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case and those who find funding from any source, usually have to work extremely hard to do so. Finding someone to believe in your app as much as you do takes a tremendous level of convincing, and usually, there are many steps an entrepreneur must take before approaching investors with their ideas. Need Funding For Your App Idea? Download Our FREE eBook now! Learn the expert secrets behind building successful apps that attract invertors and get funded! DOWNLOAD MY FREE EBOOK Is Your App Positioned for Funding? The word “investor” gets thrown around so much in the app development world that it almost seems to describe one specific individual — a rich person who thinks a certain way, dresses a certain way, and invests a certain way. In reality, every app investor is different, has their own style of investing, and has their own formula for analyzing whether an investment is right for their portfolio. Wise investors will typically consider several aspects before deciding to invest into your app startup. Typically, they want to know: Is your app idea unique enough to succeed? Having a great idea is one thing, but having an industry-changing idea with the potential to absolutely crush competitors — well, that’s something totally different! A fundable idea is one that has an obvious unique advantage over every other competing solution; faster, cheaper, better, or so uniquely different that it supersedes any current option. Certainly, there are businesses that have succeeded by copying the exact model of another business but in today’s age, where innovation is evident amongst almost every industry, investors are more keen to invest in new ideas that are profitable, validated and scalable. Who’s on your team? Investors know that the success of any startup will be largely dependent upon the dedication and knowledge of its founding team. By nature, startup ventures are difficult to grow and require the expertise of individuals across a wide spectrum of fields: product development, finance, marketing, operations, etc. While some investors do fund sole-founders, most investors seek startups that have a team (two members at least) with a varied range of skills and expertise; members who have been successful in their fields previously, have a vast knowledge of their particular specialty, and have already established relationships that can help progress the business quickly. Is it a business or just an idea? There is a VERY long road between “startup idea” and “launched startup”. Entrepreneurs who have not yet launched, will find themselves parked at one of a million points along this road – either closer to “idea” or closer to “launch”. Investors will want to know what you have done up to date to progress your business from point A (idea) to point B (launch). App entrepreneurs…