Crowdfunding Secrets To Kickstart Your Business with Will Ford of LaunchBoom

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap em in bacon for business owners, marketing execs, and anyone trying to grow your business. Pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo. All right, welcome back to Bacon Wrapped Business. This is Brad Costanzo and gonna have a lot of fun with today's episode. We're continuing on a topic that was really popular that I just did recently. The topic is crowdfunding. And you know, the way that we can use this as business owners to just really level the playing field and launch into, you know, just an entirely new realm of profitability and give us the ability to launch our ideas much quicker. Before I do that, however, I want to welcome all of the brand new listeners to the show. If this is your first time stumbling across the podcast. Well, I'm Brad and this is my platform that I use to interview some of the most exciting, inspirational, successful business owners, entrepreneurs, thought leaders and experts in fields that I particularly am really curious about. As a marketing and business consultant who owns his own businesses and helps others grow theirs, I like to stay on top of my game on all the strategies that are really, really working for entrepreneurs and business owners today. And this has been an awesome way for me to pick the brains of amazing people and let you eavesdrop on the conversations in the hopes that you learn as much as I do. If you are not a subscriber to the show, click that subscribe button or go over baconwrapbusiness.com jump on the newsletter so that you don't miss an episode. By the way, if at any point you ever want to get ahold of me, if you have questions, if you have topic recommendations, guest insights, or you want to recommend your favorite business book or other type of book to me, you can always reach out to me@askbradaconrappedbusiness.com and if there is anything I can do to help you get unstuck in your business, grow your profits, and just come up with some really unique and proven marketing ideas or campaigns, don't hesitate to reach out to me. This is what I do. It's what I love. And speaking of that, we're going to get into a topic that I have recently become completely infatuated with, which is the topic of crowdfunding. On a recent episode where I interviewed David Metzler from Serenity Venture Partners. This was really my first foray into the whole equity based crowdfunding platform and with some of the new developments that are out there. And then recently I connected with Will Ford, who is today's guest, through another close friend of mine that I've known for years named Tom Dodourian. Will is the president and co founder along with Tom of a company called LaunchBoom and they are a full service marketing agency that manages the entire crowdfunding process from start to finish. They partner with companies who are looking to launch new innovative products on platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. What's amazing is they have 100% success rate on funding every single product launch they've ever managed. And that's because they only launch campaigns when they can control the outcome. As Will has told me in our offline conversations, this happens when you really take time to not only understand the market, what works, and take on clients that you know you can do well for, but to really prepare for what they're going to do and then just go at it with a ton of digital marketing that focuses on not only raising the funds, but building massive amount of exposure. Will and I were having lunch the other day and we were discussing how reward based crowdfunding and equity based crowdfunding work together and what they're doing in both of the areas. And that's why I asked Will to come on the call today. So Will, are you with me, my brother?

I'm here.

Cool, man. It's great to have you on the show. I was really excited to continue the conversation we had over by the beach. I think it was like last week about some of the cool things that you guys are doing, some of the great opportunities that are out there for other folks. So are you ready to bring home the bacon?

I am ready.

All right, so tell me a little bit more about your background launch boom and why crowdfunding is so hot, so awesome right now.

Yeah. So I am what they call a serial entrepreneur. I've been fortunate enough to start three businesses and I've had three successful exits. And the reason I built LaunchBoom was because I had experience launching several products on Kickstarter, on Indiegogo, and before launch boom, I was really frustrated with the process. The reason I've had success with my previous ventures is because it's all about strategy, planning and then obviously being able to execute. And so obviously with my first few product launches on Kickstarter, on Indiegogo, I basically put together a plan so that I could prepare the launch. So when I turn it on, I can control it. The reason it was frustrating prior to launch boom was because I felt like I was herding cats, Literally herding cats. Reason for that is because in order to deliver a successful product launch on Kickstarter, on Indiegogo, you really need to position the product for that perfect consumer. And then what you need to do is you need to pre sell the pre sale on Kickstarter, on Indiegogo. And what I mean by that is I like to build beautiful marketing assets that showcase that product for that perfect consumer. And then once that's been done, I like to build a highly targeted customer audience of people that want to buy the product. Now the reason that's so important is because I do a lot of digital marketing, a lot of Facebook advertising in particular. And what I like to do is I like to build a massive email database of people that want to buy the product before I launch the product. That way, when I turn on the actual crowdfunding campaign, I can set a campaign goal that I control, that I can crush within the first 24 hours that my campaign goes live.

Nice. You're building up a lot of that pre launch hype and excitement.

That's exactly right, Brad.

Nice.

The reason I was so frustrated prior to building Launch Moon was because I'd go out and I'd hire that awesome video production company to create the marketing assets and the full length Kickstarter video or Indiegogo video that you have to have in order to launch a campaign. So I'd have one group focused on creating the marketing assets. Then I'd go out and I'd hire a web development company. Their job is to build a landing page to showcase those beautiful shiny marketing assets that my video production team builds. Now the reason that was a problem is because the web development, they have their ideas as to which direction the product should head in. And sometimes, and most often, their vision is different than the video production team. And then the third component is digital marketing. My Facebook advertising team to drive traffic from Facebook to that landing page and they would have their own vision of where the product should head. So again, I spent most of my time on my earlier product launches just managing expectations and trying to keep all three teams aligned. So once I delivered several successful campaigns based on these early product launches that I launched on Kickstarter, on Indiegogo, I realized that crowdfunding isn't going anywhere. And the reason for that is because if you look at just the historical analytics 2013, the crowdfunding industry was at 6 billion. 2014 it finished over 16 billion. Last year the industry grew to 34 billion. And this year it's projected to be north of 60 billion. So I believe that crowdfunding isn't going anywhere. And I figured out how to build the perfect system so that we can basically put the video production, the web development and the digital marketing all under one umbrella, under one roof, which is what LaunchPoom is nice.

And that's like how you say you control the whole process and when you control the process, you know the best practices and you have much higher potential rate of success. You know, I want to kind of diverge for a second over to, you know, the best types of products and maybe the ones who aren't the most ideal for this. Because, you know, I've been following the Kickstarter Indiegogo model for a while. I've ordered multiple things off of there. Some of them I've been happy with, some of them I haven't. And I know it's been the wild west with a lot of stuff and I know that most of the things that I've seen do really well are physical products, very obviously consumer based products and whatnot. But do you kind of have a, oh, I don't know, a criteria for which you use to choose, to choose potential clients and launches to work on?

Absolutely. I like. Yeah, I like and I love hardware. Anything that's physical and tangible I can pretty much crush on Kickstarter on.

So when you do hardware, are you talking about like, you know, computerized hardware or just physical, hard, like tangible products just to kind of clear up there?

Yeah, just to be real, broad, tangible products. So we love gadgets, tech products, robotics. I love apparel. Yep.

Nice.

Yeah. So for me, to answer your question, I like the three following elements. I like great business owners and entrepreneurs that I believe can take the product through a crowdfunding campaign, but more importantly can grow their business post launch. If I believe in the team, I also need them to have a truly innovative, awesome product. Because if the product isn't great, I honestly don't want to touch it. And then the third aspect is it's got to be properly funded. And what I'm really alluding to here is I need to have an advertising budget to deploy on Facebook.

What kind of advertising budget are you typically looking as a minimum to really work with launch boom? You're not saying that everybody who does this on their own or whatnot has to do this, but to work with LaunchBoom, you're typically looking for what yeah.

So this year we're only doing 50 product launches and we're more interested in having as many of those be north of a million dollars at the end of the campaign and process.

As the amount of the raise, not the budget. Just to make sure that everybody understands.

Yeah, sorry, Brett. Yeah, so in regard to budget, we need a minimum $25,000 to deploy and that's deployed during the pre launch, during the preparation, before we actually turn on the campaign. And that allows us to build a massive audience. We also have tools in house. We have referral loyalty programs that are built into our platform. So when we drive traffic to that landing page and we get interested people to opt in and support the product launch, we also give them the ability to share it with their friends and family. And if they get additional supporters to come in and help support what we're doing, we give them cash back and or free product.

Now is that unique to you or is that just something that Indiegogo and Kickstarter does on their own?

Yeah, it's very unique to us. Nice.

That's what I thought and that's cool.

Yeah, yeah. There's no one else really out there doing what we're doing. Okay.

And you were telling me what I thought. What I think is really cool is at least with Indiegogo, right? Is it Indiegogo who, when people come there and they, they're signing up and they're talking to Indiegogo, a lot of times they will refer your company to say, well listen, you guys need to talk to launch Boom. They're, they're amazing, right?

It's wild, Brad, because we started LaunchBoom the brand July 2015, so exactly a year ago. And today we are the industry leaders. We have the best pre launch platform. And as a result I'm getting 90% of my leads from Kickstarter and Indiegogo. And the reason they're sending them every day to us is because they know if they go through our process and preparation, they know they're gonna perform better. And the way they make their money is they take a commission off of all the funds raised.

Yeah, of course, yeah. So that's, that's, it's a win, win. And that's awesome that they've recognized your ability to do that as well. I want to go back to where you were talking about some of the products you like. So you mentioned apparel, right? So give me an example of what, like apparently the type of apparel you like, what makes a good apparel, maybe even an example of something there.

Yeah, of Course. So for me it's again, I love working with awesome people that have awesome products and obviously that have some sort of advertising budget so we can drive traffic. And earlier this year we launched a product. It was a leather glove.

Oh yeah, I remember that.

Yeah. By a company called Giver and they're based out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And the founder is a great guy. I actually spent some time earlier this winter skiing with him up there in Jackson Hole. Had a great time, got some awesome video footage and he basically built this really cool four season leather glove. And if you go to Kickstarter or Indiegogo and you type in Giver, it's G I V E apostrophe R. You can actually see the results. And we basically launched this glove and within a two month period we did close to $300,000 in sales. It was powerful.

So. And I've seen the glove and I just want to give people an idea. So it's not like a fashion glove. That's a functional glove. Right. So tell me what's innovative about the glove?

Yeah, so it's basically, we call it the four season glove because you can wear it in the summertime to do yard work, gardening. You can wear it in the wintertime if you're snowboarding or skiing. I personally wore them when I was up there in Jackson Hole in the middle of February and I was skiing in 16 inches of powder. And they kept me warm the entire time. They're extremely durable, so you can literally operate all sorts of mechanical machinery. You can soak them in boiling water. You can. They're waterproof and water resistant. So you can literally, if you're fishing and you get them wet, they're going to withstand that. I mean, they're just awesome all around gloves.

And whether or not I just kind of want to interject. So this is funny because I stopped by the launch boom headquarters prior to when I first met you, and I was with Tom and, and Kent Clothier. And we were in there and Tom was showing us the gloves. And I gotta be like, I love this. This is a great testament to your ability. I looked at the gloves and I was like, are you kidding me that these raised $300,000? Like, we were laughing about it. Like they, they looked kind of like work gloves, like big thick work gloves or whatever. They didn't look like anything out of the space age. There was nothing, there was nothing visibly remarkable about them. Just to say, like, you know, not to take anything away from, they're probably amazing gloves. But I think this is a testament to what's possible when you have like quality gloves with or you know, a quality product with some innovative features on it and the right marketing, I mean, like you said, you're able to raise $300,000 off of like durable gloves. And I know in the past, my, my, I guess my preconception about Kickstarter Indiegogo stuff has always been like high tech things. And this was awesome proof of concept that it doesn't have to be high tech in order to have a really successful launch with the way you guys do this.

No, exactly right. No, you're exactly right. I mean, the reason we did that deal was because the entrepreneur behind the company is an awesome guy and he really did build a great product. And all we did was we built a compelling story around the product and then we basically built a powerful community around that product during the pre launch. So by the time we turn it on on Kickstarter, we already had thousands of people ready to buy it.

Okay, so are there any other apparel related products that come to the top of your mind that you've either worked on or that you've seen have a lot of success? And I'm asking because apparel is one of those things that I don't think a lot of people would just think of. And I'm not talking about apparel, like super high tech apparel, I'm talking about other types of apparel, like, you know, so give me another example. And I know, and I also say this because I know that there's some listeners to the show and some people that I know who do sell apparel in multiple forms, that some of them, they have made and designed themselves and other ones that's, you know, just a fashion base, like the design has to do with it. So give me another example there, if you can.

Yeah, actually I'm glad you asked because we've got a launch that's going live in two weeks. It's called, it's called Yellow Berry. And Yellowberry is basically, it is a, I call it a tween line. So it's basically girls who need sports bras, girls who are like in that early adolescent stage that want, you know, good looking bathing suits. And it's basically led by a truly remarkable girl who is basically 20 years old and she is creating this brand and this community around, you know, being able to give younger girls, especially that tween age, confidence to, you know, go out there and truly enjoy the bathing suits and other products that they, you know, manufacture and purchase so that it's really unique because I've never done anything quite like it, but they've done a great job building just a great quality product. And we're launching these tween bathing suits in early July and the pre launch is going extremely well. When I say extremely well, we literally have over 100,000 people that have already opted in to the pre launch community that are already on standby to purchase the product when we launch another a hundred thousand.

Wow. Curious about that because this has always been a weird market marketing towards like that the tween, whether it's boy or girl, because typically the people, the end users of this don't have the money to buy. So they either have to ask mom and dad because they probably don't have a credit card. So are you, is the strategy there more to market to the mom and dad or is it more to market to the tween girl and get them to, to ask mom and dad that, oh my gosh, I have to have this?

Yeah, it's actually quite the opposite. We're actually going right to the parents.

Okay.

The parents are the ones who are totally understanding and loving this brand. And based on the metrics and analytics that are coming back from the Facebook advertising, you know, different advertisements we're deploying. Yeah, it's primarily parents.

Okay. So this is, and I'm fascinated. So this is a company that's already, they are already launched, right. They're operational, they are currently selling product or they just. Are they not even sold any product yet?

Yeah, no, that's correct. It's. It's a yellow berry.

Yeah, well, I'm there right now. That's why it looks like it's a, an active company. So what is the hook here for when you guys start to say, hey, come fund this, like, what are they funding? Because I know that a lot of times Kickstarters, Indiegogos, it is a, we have a concept for a product and we need your help to bring this product to reality. But in this case, what is the, like, I guess, what's the rationale behind the fundraiser?

Yeah, no, good question. So let me back up a little bit here because the reason I love hardware and I like physical products is what we're, what we're doing on Kickstarter, on Indiegogo is we're basically taking the new concept and we're pre selling it. And once we sell pre sell thousands of units. What I love about crowdfunding is that we get the cash up front and then we have six to 12 months to deliver the product. Yeah. So essence, it's really a pre sale platform the way I look at it.

Right, but that's not going on here.

Yes. So on this particular campaign we're launching the new swimwear sports bra products that Yellowberry has just produced. They're really cool new designs and again, it's nothing that the tween space has ever seen before. So it's great quality products, it's awesome designs and it's really validated at this point. I mean the fact that we have over 100,000 people that have literally gone to our landing page and given us by submitting their email address, you know, it shows us that there is a huge demand and we actually have some really big expectations when we launch this next month. So if you go to yellowberry.com, what you're looking at Brad, is the landing page and that is how we build our communities. We usually create a call to action saying please give us your email. Getting ready to launch soon on Kickstarter. Join our VIP community and be the first one to know when we launch. And we're going to give you a super sweetheart deal within the first 24 hour period that we launch. Makes sense.

Yeah, it does. That's what you're doing for this one.

That's what we do for all our clients.

Okay. And then do you see that? Because I still haven't quite drilled down to maybe the answer I'm looking for here. So what is the rationale when you guys come out with the video and the whole campaign for this is the rationale, hey, we're Yellowberry. Here's what we've done. We want to launch this new line of products but we need your support in to order order to do that. Like what's the reason behind the fundraise and is it, is it just that like we want, we want to launch a new line and we need your help. We can't do it without you.

Almost always. Okay. It's just a great way selfish reason.

For asking you this that I'll come around to in a minute. But that's what, but that's why I'm digging deep is because I always like, I want to know the reason of.

The honest truth is it's the best way to validate a product. Okay. So anytime. So just so you know, today I work with the early stage entrepreneur and I also work with very profitable businesses. I actually have a Fortune thousand company right now that's a client. And the reason I'm able to work with everybody is because if you're launching a product and you want to validate that product. Crowdfunding is by far the best place to do that because you can pre sell units, you collect the cash up front, and then you can place a larger volume order with your manufacturer, which should help you get additional price breaks. So when I look at it, I really look at it like risk free revenue for business, because it really is.

Okay, cool. And I will circle back around to one of the reasons I asked for that on there. So physical products obviously are the best things that have some functional. These are somewhat functional, but it's more probably the styling that makes it fun and sexy and cool. I guess when you're talking about tweens, you don't want to use the word sexy.

No, but Brad, you're right. Like, it comes down to like design. You know, design's a real popular category on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. It comes down to the mission. You know, maybe it's just a great social cause. We actually finished a crowdfunding campaign earlier, earlier this week called O Search O C E A R C H. It's an organization that's basically doing all sorts of research because sharks are being eliminated right now. And so what they're doing is they're trying to figure out the cause to that because they're at the top of the food chain. And if they're extinct, it could have a very serious effect on our ecosystem around the world.

Right.

So I mean, again, it just comes down to style, design, innovative product. Maybe there's a, you know, a great social cause behind the product launch. And those are the type of deals that I like to get involved with because we're able to not only position that product, but we're able to build huge communities behind them to support them. And then when we turn them on, we're able to always crush that goal within the first 24 hours.

Nice. Well, and I love this because when we were talking last maybe was it a week or two ago where you were just launching Fly Charge, FLI Charge. And I, I was, I was having lunch with you guys, I think the day it went live. And they were, you know, raising a hundred thousand dollars that are already at 166,000. So congratulations by the way, again for, you know, meeting your funding goal there. That's awesome.

No, thank you.

And I know you've still got like, it says like three weeks left to go with 1300 backers.

I mean, Brad, that's just it. It's like basically what we're doing is we're launching products in A powerful way. But the reason I love crowdfunding, being an entrepreneur, is because by the time I'm done with a campaign, my clients, these entrepreneurs, these business owners literally have thousands of new customers that have purchased the product. And I basically put them in the best position for the bigger deal. Beyond Kickstarter, beyond equity based stuff.

Right?

That's part of it, but the other part of it is they can sit in front of retailers and they can actually look the retail and they have more leverage now because they can look at them in the eye and say, I sold a million dollars with my product in the last 60 days. Clearly there's a demand here.

Absolutely.

Same with licensing deals. So to your point, but there's also an even bigger opportunity as well now because regulation A just took effect last month, which means that now not credited investors have access to these early stage opportunities or these early stage deals, but now the 99% have access to these deals as well, which is extremely exciting.

Yeah, it really is. And that was one of the episodes I just recently did with David Metzler where we really, really went over all the possibilities of raising, you know, sub a million and then, you know, up to 50 million and all of the crazy cool opportunities and just how you can stack these as well. So for like, I don't want to go too, too far into the what, like the definition of equity crowdfunding for my listeners who haven't heard that one, they can go back and actually if you go to like baconrapbusiness.com equity crowdfunding, you can hear like the 101 on it. But I love the idea that because yeah, you can use in the very. And that's a much more complex and expensive process to actually raise, you know, give away equity for money versus doing a, you know, giving away reward based stuff. But I love the concept of, you know, doing proof of concept and your early stage fundraising and early stage, you know, get your early stage backers, the ones who just love you and you know, on Indiegogo, Kickstarter, and then you come back after you've raised that and hey, you, you reward them with the opportunity to give you more money for a piece of equity. And I mean, it's just so powerful what can be done when you kind of come combine these.

Yeah. So Brad, like you nailed it on the head there. So what gets me so excited about the industry I'm playing in is that it really is the Wild west. I mean, it's very, very new and it's a major game changer now. That anyone can invest in these early stage deals. So the reason I'm so excited about it is because if you think about the business model we built here at launch boom, we basically have created the perfect storm for our clients. What I mean by that is by the time I get through a crowdfunding campaign, about 50% of my clients are always asking me, hey, Will, can you introduce me to some angel investors? Hey, Will, can you introduce me to this venture capitalist? I want to raise another million dollars. I want to sell 10% of my company and I want to accelerate my growth and I want to leave any potential competitors in my dust. And so what's so exciting is when we get through a crowdfunding campaign, I always stressed this well before we launched the campaign, but I say we have to deliver an awesome backer experience because it's so imperative that we take care of these backers, these consumers, because now.

They can become investors.

You nailed it. And they're so much more powerful today than they were two months ago because of regulation A. So it's a real exciting time because for me, before I turn on a launch, after I have all the variables in place and I know, for example, let's say they tell me, hey, Will, I can deliver the product in October. What I do is I tell the backers on the Kickstarter campaign that we're going to deliver in December. And I do that intentionally so that I build a two month buffer so that I can deliver the product early and deliver an awesome backer experience. So the backer not only feels great because they help the company take their concept and turn it into a reality, but they're more excited because they're getting their product two months early. So now they're like, these guys have their act together. These guys are the real deal. And so what happens is what we're learning is that these early backers, there's a strong loyalty that just occurs because they help take that idea to reality. And what usually happens up until a couple months ago was I would then take that same company and I would launch a second campaign and a third campaign, launching a version 2.0 or launching an entirely new product. And what we found is that 40% of those backers would back the second campaign and the third campaign, so the campaigns would get larger and larger. But now, because of regulation A, we can actually go back to the same backers and say, hey, Brad, thank you so much for buying my giver glove. Because of you, I am killing it and I'm raising a million dollars now so that I can basically have the best glove in the world because supported me early, I want to give you first option to buy shares of my company and you can do that for as little as $100. Most consumers out there would be more than willing to give $100 bill to buy real shares of these early stage companies that have huge upside.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's never been possible before. That's what's so cool about this. I want to change the gears and I want to go into an example. So one of the things I love about my podcast is that I make it very self serving. I use this as a way to take some the of of the things that I'm currently working on and ask my guests, in this case you, what you would do in my situation. Now you and I have actually talked about this. So one of the businesses that I, that I own with my wife is Stiletto Coffee. And so let's explore this as a, you know, what's great about this for the, you know, the listeners, they'll get to listen about, okay, does this, does this end up being a good candidate for this or not? Right. So they'll get to hear your thinking about why this may or may not work. So you have a basic understanding of what we're doing at Stiletto Coffee, right?

Oh yeah. I think it's a super cool brand and I think it's a great idea.

Thank you. For my listeners who are just tuning in and have not heard me talking about it. My wife and I launched a coffee brand that is currently being sold only online and through Amazon at the moment back in January called Stiletto Coffee. It's the only coffee marketed specifically towards women with a social component to it. Heavy story driven, sexiest packaging in the business. And what's unique about it is that everybody else in the market is selling coffee beans. We're actually selling to the demographic first and we're trying to resonate with the avatar, the person who buys our coffee. Coffee is the mechanism to really connect with them. The sassy, classy, professional driven women who care about, you know, giving back and helping to raise other women up and break the glass ceiling. Right. So that's kind of the backstory for all my new listeners. So we have, we are in operation right now. We are currently selling like three or four different, different blends and we would love to scale, we would love to have more money to buy more product, do more marketing and hire people and actually more for operations. Now realistically, we don't need new cash to launch a product. So the nice part about if we're launching a new blend of beans, we can start off small, realistically, and be nimble. We come up with a new name, a new design, a new flavor profile. We put it out there and when people buy, we roast it, we bag it and we send it out. So that's advantageous to us and that there's not an enormous capital outlay. But if we want to grow the way we intend to grow, we will need capital for that. So in a case like this, whether we're using like Indiegogo or Kickstarter, would it even make sense to say, and how would you potentially structure that where it's like, okay, we want to. Let's just say we wanted to raise. I'm going to throw a number out there, $250,000, right. Like legitimately, just pulled that out of the air. But that would be great. We could do some major damage with that, hire some great people, get some major traction, etc. What kind of angles might you go with if we decided to do something like that?

Okay, great question, Brad. So on my side, in addition to having an awesome product, in addition to having an awesome business model, I need to match that up with equally exciting prize options. So what I love about Kickstarter and Indiegogo is that you're not actually giving away any equity at all, but instead you're just pre selling units or you're selling prizes to support your goals with raising your quarter million dollars. Right. So in this example, you, you have an awesome business model. I mean, you've got a great brand and it makes perfect sense what you guys are doing with Stiletto. But on the other hand, the only challenge I see here is that because it's more of a SaaS type model, we need to match it with equally compelling prize options. But what do you mean?

It's more of a SaaS type model.

Not SAS type model. But I guess what I'm getting at is you guys are basically, you guys are subscription E commerce. Is that correct? Correct. Because it's a subscription. E commerce is more membership based.

Well, by the way, it's not that, that it. We have a subscription program. It's not subscription only. So people can come buy a single bag or buy five bags if they want and not be a part of the subscription. So it's not like a curated coffee. It's not a. You can only have a membership. That's just if you want, if you want to be on auto ship, will you save like 10 or 15.

So which again, my previous business was the same exact model. It was subscription E commerce. It was in the.

But you only had. But you only had subscription. Right. Like, you couldn't just buy one box.

I actually had both options as well. Okay. And that business, it did great and we had a great exit early 2015, which was awesome. Y. And so I totally get the model. But the. What we need to do is we need to create an exciting prize option. What we've learned is that a lot of backers on Kickstarter, they're selfish from. From a perspective that they want to feel like they're getting a great deal and they want to be excited about the product that they're, you know, getting ready to receive. That's why they're willing to give you their money now, and they're willing to wait six to 12 months to actually receive it in the mail. So again, in your case, I think you have. On the one hand, I think you've got the right brand, the right business model. But on the other hand, the reason I love hardware is because it gives me an opportunity to build the story around the product, talk about why we want to build it, and then pre sell it so that we can actually sell enough units to take it through manufacturing and deliver an awesome experience. In your case, the only thing I'd suggest is we need to really be creative about what type of product we would sell to complement all the work you've already done in creating a brand, creating your customer base. And so some examples, just thinking out loud, what, you know, we could do like a super cool stiletto coffee mug, or we could do, you know, all sorts of fun, cool accessories. We could do apparel, coffee maker, a.

Certain type of coffee maker, you know, Exactly. So not to where. And this is good. So it would not necessarily be, hey, we're raising the funds to bring out a new roast or to grow our business. Because nobody just really wants to give you money to say, oh, hey, yeah, we'll give you money so you can grow your business. Because that's not sexy. Right? They want to see a product kind of come to life. So we could maybe reward them with the coffee, but we're using the funds to fund the new development of something else that doesn't exist yet.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Or, you know, in the example of Osearch, osearch was our first nonprofit. And to be honest with you, Brad, we did it just as a good deed to give back to shear as a business. And again, these Guys had no money. They had not $1 for advertising.

Wow.

But they had a really big idea, a big cause, and a great team. And so what we did instead was we basically took their brand and we just did basic apparel. We did hoodies, T shirts, hats. That was the majority of the prize options. In addition to being able to meet up with the team and, you know, go out on the boat and actually participate in an expedition.

What did they say they were raising the funds for in particular?

Yeah, so this particular campaign was raising. They needed a minimum $150,000 to basically put together a team and expedition to go off the coast of New York and into the Atlantic to tag all sorts of white sharks, to continue to do deeper studies and research on what's going on behind this recent phenomenon with the white sharks disappearing.

Do you think we could say on Stiletto Coffee that Kenya and I need to find a trip to Colombia to go search for new coffee beans?

Honestly, like, you totally could.

We need to find an expedition so we can go find the most rare, amazing coffee beans. And we need you ladies to pay for it.

I mean, I hate to say it, but that could work. Definitely.

Yeah.

So these guys at osearch, the reason I did the deal was because they're like, hey, Will, we don't have any money, but we have about 100,000 emails in our database. And they're like, and these are people that have donated to us over the years. So the way I looked at it was, you know what, they already have an active audience, they have a great cause and they really need the money. So we did the deal pro bono and we basically took them through the process and without any advertising, not $1. We finished the campaign two days ago. They had to have $150 otherwise the project would not get funded on Kickstarter. And they said, well, we can't do this for a dollar less. And by the time we were done, we literally finished just over the goal. We did over $50,000 in the last 10 hours that the campaign was live over a 30 day period.

Mainly from their current email list.

It was their current email list. But what also happened was Kickstarter, they drove their traffic to it because Kickstarter is now a B corporation. So anything awesome social cause, they actually get behind internally and they. And they drive their audience to those campaigns.

Okay, interesting. Yeah. Because that's the nice part about Stiletto Coffee is we have an impact program where we do fund social causes through related to women through a portion of the profits. It gives me a Lot of ideas. You know, one question popped into my brain.

What is.

What is the most useful, unique. Whether you've been involved in it or not, just in the kicks in the whole crowdfunding stuff. What's maybe the most unique campaign that you've seen where it did not just involve using. I'm putting you on the spot here. But it did not just involve, like, the use of the product or like, oh, this is the coolest product ever, or whatever. Has there been anything that kind of comes to mind, like, oh, wow, this was a really unique way to use Kickstarter, Indiegogo and crowdfunding to fund a new business or a venture that kind of stands out from the normal way that people do it. I love thinking outside of the box, and I don't know if there. If anything kind of pops up. If not, it's okay.

Yeah. I mean, the truth is, we've done so many fun launches. I mean, we've played in the tech space, we've played in the robotic space, we've played in the apparel space. I mean, we just finished this nonprofit that I honestly was skeptical that we were going to hit it because it didn't go through our process.

Yeah.

And the fact that we finished on top was honestly probably the highlight of my week this week, But I'd say probably one of the. Another cool launch we did this year was it's called Orison O R I S O N and they're actually a company located and headquartered here in San Diego, California. And these guys have built on Energy, basically a battery that competes with Tesla's technology. Oh, wow. It's also a fraction of the cost. And so when we launched the product, to be honest with you, it was the most expensive product we ever launched on average. The average order was about $1,500 a unit. And the reason is because this battery has the ability to power your entire home off grid. And the way it works is when energy's at all time high levels, where it's very expensive to draw energy for your home, what happens is the battery has technology and software built into it, and it basically tells your home to stop operating off grid, and it basically powers your entire home. And then when energy levels are at low peak hours, where the energy is super cheap, it recharges itself, and it's super cool technology, but basically so very.

Similar to the like. Like you said, like, was it the Tesla's big wall charger? Is it the same general concept, but. But you say it's cheaper?

Same exact concept, except literally a Fraction of the cost. Like I said, fifteen hundred dollars a unit. And there's wall units and there's also standalone units if you don't want to hang it from the wall. And so what was so amazing for me is that this company, another scrappy early stage startup, they had basically no budget at all. I mean, I think we deployed a total of $10,000 into advertising. But the reason I consider it so successful is because we did about $350,000 on Kickstarter last winter and deploy $10,000 in Facebook advertising. And to do over, you know, do over $300,000. That's an awesome ROI.

That really is. That really is awesome.

And the reason I tell you that story is because I was a little hesitant. I thought the price point might be too high and. And I, and I'm happy to eat my words on that.

Exactly. You know, it's funny, by the way, as you're talking, I went over to Indiegogo and I typed in coffee just looking at all the kind of cool things that are being funded. And I've played around looking at stuff like this, but it is neat when you're, when you realize like I'm looking at people who've funded 150, 200,000, $280,000 for different like coffee, gadgets, etc. And it just kind of goes to show you that if you do have an idea in this world, there is no limit with some of the developments of what you can potentially do. You know, one of the things we talked, you just mentioned this a minute ago or multiple minutes ago and we talked about it at lunch the other day was, you know, obviously running a, running a crowdfunding campaign costs money. You have to market it, you have to film a great video. And you know, a video is probably, I would say arguably the majority of it. If you're not, if you're not telling a compelling story, you're screwed. But it costs money to do this. And there's probably, probably. Weren't you saying there's a lot of companies that kind of come to you and say we would love to do this and you tell them, yeah, listen, here's the budget, you're going to need both for us for marketing, etc. And they just don't have that. Are there currently that you know of any options they have to borrow that money or to get that money in order to get it to work for them besides just going to other friends and family because it's like, you know, they're trying raise to money through Kickstarter, etc. But you need money to make money. Are you aware of any solutions for them at the moment?

Yeah. So, Brad, again, back to our lunch conversation last week. There's a huge opportunity there for someone to just for someone to step up and actually create a fund. And more specifically for my purpose, because I'm cherry picking the best of the best companies to work with and I do come across some deals that have the right entrepreneurs, have the right product, but they literally are like, hey, Will, I don't have two pennies to rub together and unfortunately today I'm not, I'm not able to help those guys. And so again, if there was some source where these earlier stage entrepreneurs with those awesome ideas could actually get, you know, a $50,000 loan, that would actually be enough for us to take it through our system and process, do 100% of all the work, and deliver hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in real revenue.

Yep, that's beautiful. That's exactly what we were talking about. And I don't know if you had a chance to listen to David Metzler's thing the other day of Serenity Venture Partners, which is one of the things that he's doing and he's one of the only people or one of the few companies out there doing this now, which is he's raising a fund to fund the marketing and startup costs for primarily regulation a equity crowdfunding deals where, hey, I need $50,000 for SEC filings or whatever and I need $100,000 marketing budget or whatever it is. So he's raising fund funds from investors who want a really beautiful return, short term return on their money in order to fund this. I can see this. For instance, if there's a company that with launch boom, you guys know what works and what doesn't. You guys have had 100% success rate. Let's say a company needs to raise $250,000 Like I said, and maybe the total budget they need is about 25 to $50,000. Or let's just say it's $50,000 to work with you guys for ad costs, your profits, video, etc. If you know for a fact or if you have a high degree of certainty that you're going to be able to fund this thing. I guess the option is they work into the budget. Okay, you guys need $250,000 to meet all your operational goals. Well, let's try to raise $300,000 so that we can pay back the money you borrowed at a favorable rate to the investor who, you know, like, let's say I loaned somebody some money. Let's say the next person that came to you is like, yeah, man, we need money. We just. We're like $40,000 dollars short. I'm just spitballing here, by the way. I say, all right, Costanzo Ventures will loan you $40,000, but I expect a 50% return on capital that comes out of the raise.

Right.

That's absolutely doable.

He. Brad, a genius, man. And now that I think about it, before I forget, if you could actually create an introduction for me and David.

Oh, yeah, I absolutely will. He's over in France now, but when he comes back, he definitely wants to meet you guys.

Yeah. Because, I mean, that's exactly what I'm looking for. Because just so you know, the only other way I'm able to help those companies that don't have the funding in place is we're actually launching a Do it Yourself product next month, like a course. It's. It's basically going to be like a Do it Yourself instruction guide where we hold your hand through the process, but it would be a fraction of our cost, and it would allow the entrepreneur to access our platform, give them access to our tools, and follow our system for success.

I love that. When are you guys launching that?

That's going to be launched on July 15th. Okay, nice.

You guys are keeping busy, man.

Well, think about it. I mean, everyone I deal with after the leads have been qualified and they land on my desk, out of every 10 people I talk to, I can probably only work with, you know, 10% or 1 out of 10 people, because again, for me, this year, I'm only interested in touching campaigns that I can take a $50,000 investment and turn it into a half million or more.

Yeah.

Otherwise. Otherwise, I'm only doing 50 deals this year, and I have to get as many of those, you know, substantial returns, because that is what's going to ensure that launchboom is the continued leader in the crowdfunding industry this time next year. Makes sense.

Yeah, it does. So repeat that number that you're looking to do. So you're looking to work with companies who are looking to raise how much.

So I want to only work with companies that have a minimum $50,000 to invest in this process. Right. That includes the advertising that I need, and I can basically take that $100 of all the work and deliver a half million or. Or a lot more on the effort.

I like it. I like it a lot. So, man, there are. It's really crazy. The opportunities that are out there that are allowing us to, you know, fund our dreams. There is another. There's another. I almost forgot about this until recently, but I think it was back in January was the first crowdfunding episode that I did on here was with my friend Greg Jacobs, who crossed created a course called Incredible Dream Machines. And the premise of that, by the way, was, and you're welcome to go back and listen to it, it was really good. But he had a course called Incredible Dream Machines which was how to use specifically Indiegogo, because I don't believe this is available on Kickstarter where he says, listen, if you, you know, you can find products that are, you know, already in existence overseas on Alibaba, etc. So you're finding the manufacturers, you find something there. And if you can think of a way to improve that, if you can think of a way to, you know, customize that. Because the nice part is on Alibaba, you're typically buying from the source, not the, you know, not like a wholesaler. And you can find that you come up with a, like a design modification or something else. You can, you can have that mocked up, sketched out up, etc. And then you can run your Indiegogo campaign about this and tell them what you're doing and what you're trying to launch and then raise the funds in order to buy all the inventory and then begin selling that not only after this, but then now you're able to put it onto Amazon, sell it elsewhere, etc. But in essence, it's how to fund your own. In essence, like a private label product out there where you're not necessarily inventing from scratch, but you're improving something that exists and using the Indiegogo to, you know, for the inventory and marketing costs, etc. So it's really, it was really an interesting. I don't have to go back and listen to it. It was an interesting conversation though.

It makes, makes. I mean, that's exactly right, Brad. There's so much opportunity out there and crowdfunding, it's, it's exponentially growing as an industry each and every year. Yep.

Nice. So I am going to continue to put my hat on for this in a couple ways. I know we've talked about potentially joint venturing in one way or another, and especially helping Tom and utilizing some of the marketing capabilities of myself and my company, Costanza Marketing Group, and seeing if there's any ways that we can add value to what you guys are doing. Doing. I'm also consistently looking to keep my eye out for clients of mine or potential ways that I can bring them in to say, listen, if this makes sense for you, let's do that and bring it to you. And you know, we all work together on helping to fund somebody else's dream. I know you're looking for great companies like you said, who have a cool, innovative product, hardware that with a great story behind it and can potentially utilize your services to fund that. What's the best way to get ahold of you? If somebody's listening, they're like, shit, I think I need this.

Honestly, I think the best way to do it would be just visit our website. You can go to launchboom.com yep, launchboom.com and if you go in there, there is a button on the top of the page that says Apply on the upper right hand side of the website and if you click on that Apply button, there's some basic fields that you can fill out and we will get back to you within 24 hours.

Beautiful. I love it. Well man, Will, I really appreciate you taking the time to be on the call today and I want to continue our relationship as we go forward and find some cool ways to work together. Whether it's with mutual clients, whether maybe, I mean could be something to do with Stiletto Coffee. I think that would be a really cool thing to kind of explore the possibilities and really think out of the box here how we can make a big dent in what we're trying to do. If there's nothing else you want to add, we can go ahead and wrap this up up and I will tell all of my listeners that if you've enjoyed this. I mentioned earlier there was another couple episodes that I've done. One of them was called Incredible Dream Machines and using Indiegogo. That was with Greg Jacobs. You can find it on the in the show notes. I'll link to it as well as the link to David Metzler from Serenity Venture Partners who talked about equity based regulation, a crowdfunding in much more detail and all of the cool things there obviously will. You've done an awesome job at explaining some of the nuanced possibilities and success stories and what it really takes to make a rewards based crowdfunding platform take off. As I said, I've been really just diving into this head first because there is so much opportunity there. If you guys agree with that, if you have any ideas, if you have any contacts, if you just want to explore the possibilities of maybe this is right for me, maybe it's not. I mean, you can feel free to go to launchboom.com like Will said. Or if you before you go there, if you just want to kind of pick my brain to see if I think it's worth you applying with Will, you can always reach me@askbradbaconrappedbusiness.com and I'm happy to look into that and see if there is any potential opportunities, whether it's with crowdfunding or other unique ways to get some cash in your pocket to grow or launch or scale your business or even potentially sell your business. If you've enjoyed the show, share it on the Book of Faces and tweet it on the Twitter machine. Share it with your friends, talk about it, leave a review on itunes. And until next time, Will man, if there anything else you wanted to add.

Brad, I think you're awesome at podcast. I'm impressed. Thanks.

I appreciate it man. Thanks. Appreciate that a lot. So alright guys, till next time, tune in. Got some awesome shows coming up. Got some awesome shows in the backlog. Go listen to them all because I mean it's way more fun than working. So talk to you all next week.

Bye bye. Have a great weekend.

Thanks Will.