The Exchanges

Q articulate back in episode 13 on the top. We had Christian Johan come on. They raised a million dollars via Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. That all started with a very interesting high tide in the Pacific. If you want more details on that, go back and listen to episode number 13 at NathanLatka.com forward slash the top one, three. So Zach, what did those numbers look like on that first campaign?

A Yeah, within the first one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, I'd say about the first 10 days we'd raised about 50,000 dollars, and at that point we were kind of like at a point where I felt like we'd exhausted a lot of our resources, and that's where we look to Other options. And that was where Funded Today essentially was born, because instead of just doing all the pre-launch that kind of led to that 50,000 dollars, we added in our other tiers. We kind of say we're a three-tiered system where we focus on paid media, landing press, and then we call it cross collaborations or networking, and that's essentially the pre-launch. That's our emails, that's our network, that's our, all the different campaigns and things that have backed projects in the past.

AI assessment note: “about the first 10 days we'd raised about 50,000 dollars”

Q Describe your ideal client to me. I have a lot of very, very smart people listening. I've had billionaires on the show like Tim Draper. I mean, I have smart people on. They might be thinking about doing a Kickstarter, and they're going, should I reach out to Zach and work with him? Describe your ideal client.

A My ideal client is somebody who understands this formula, and we believe this formula, when it's, when everything is distilled down to its essence, this is what makes a successful campaign. So my ideal client isn't a client, it's the actual qualifications for a campaign, and it's this, ubiquity plus techie, cool. Plus compelling chill factor story plus awesome video equals huge chance for success. So let's start from the top. Ubiquity. Is it everywhere? If we talk about the evolution bra, almost every woman in the world wears a bra. It has the ubiquitous element. Techie cool. It was called an eight in one bra because this is a bra that you can, that didn't stink. It had some silver technology or something in it. It can be worn in the office and then taken to the yoga studio. Things like that. See how that's techy and cool. Different than most bras, most likely. And now the story. Well, Joanna's story is pretty cool. She's a serial entrepreneur that's hustles like you, you know, she gets things done. She makes it happen. And it's an exciting story to get behind because look at what she's done. She's competing with all these big people. And yet she's just this one woman show. Cool story. People can get behind it. Uh, my favorite story that I use all the time is a company called Luna wear watches. Um, 7002 year old grandfather passes on legacy of watchmaking to grandchildren and i…

AI assessment note: “my ideal client isn't a client, it's the actual qualifications for a campaign”

Q What's the project have to look like to qualify?

A Um, we look at about 20 different factors, so a lot of it is preparation beforehand. So, Do they have an existing email list? If they don't, we're going to have to build that. Do they have any connections in the space? Do they have an existing product that is now going to be a two point O or a different version of it? What assets, what resources can they pull from? Have they ran a Kickstarter campaign before? A lot of times people come to us when they've already been running their Kickstarter campaign. Maybe they've already raised, like, let's say Rootsport came to us when they'd raised 50,000, which is essentially what happened with us. Even though it was me, I brought Thomas on because Thomas wasn't part of fun today at that time. And so, maybe a campaign's raised a little bit of money on their own, and then they're like, hey, we'd like to raise more. We're kind of dying now. We're kind of in a valley. Help us get back to those peaks. And so, they'll come to us midway in the campaign. If they're like that, and they've already been successful, chances are they'd qualify.

AI assessment note: “we look at about 20 different factors, so a lot of it is preparation beforehand.”

Q these examples, including the actual campaigns, in the show notes at nathanlacka.com forward slash the top one seven eight. Again, forward slash the top one seven eight. Zach, give us a sense of, you said you guys make money because you take a percentage. I mean, is that, give us a, I probably don't want to give exact numbers, but, uh, what's the range of the percentage you usually take?

A That also depends on if a project qualifies or not. However successful campaign is, our percentage varies. Now our percentage is based on a lot of different things. Things into what we charge. So for example, we act as a mini bank or a lender. I was actually just in city Creek today meeting with one of our clients, Joanna from Cal or from Canada. She's invented something called the evolution broads, the most funded fashion project in Kickstarter history. It passed up Jake Bronstein's tenure hoodie. Well, with her project, we were, we were talking about different margins and things and how it, and how it played out. And she'd been a little successful before she hired us, but she was kind of at that place where it was like, okay, Let's see what we can do to bring us on, and so we take a percentage of all the money raised, and we, and to reiterate her example, what she said was, I, what I loved most is I didn't have 20,000 dollars in my bank account, and I didn't have 20,000 dollar lines of credit to pay it at the time, and so you guys, and it was way more than 20,000 that we spent, because we raised her millions, but.

AI assessment note: “our percentage varies. Now our percentage is based on a lot of different things.”