0481 | Will Ford

Hi, my name's Will Ford. I'm the president and co founder here at LaunchBoom. You are listening to EA Interviews.

EA Interviews episode 481, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert authority effect interview. Have you thought about crowdfunding before? Do you have this cool gadget? Do you have a cool service? Do you have a cool product? Maybe a brand new idea that's never been invented before? I know I've seen some, I've supported a lot of them and it's always interesting to me to see the creativeness of what people are coming out with. And we're so empowered now to be able to crowdfund it. But do you know the ins and outs of it? I don't. That's why I have President co founder of LaunchBoom. On today's episode, Will Ford. I'm going to bring them up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you, regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's EA publishingmethodbook.com.

Foreign.

Ladies and gentlemen, Will Ford. Will, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing great. How are you doing?

I'm doing a lot better now because I'm going to learn a whole lot about crowdfunding and I really don't know a ton about it, but I have supported campaigns. So why is it important?

Crowdfunding is a better way to launch any new type of consumer product as long as it's like a physical, tangible product. We've seen so much success over the years taking those products into crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, Indiegogo. There's a lot of benefits, but mainly you can pre sell product to people all over the world. You can take their money before you. You have to figure out manufacturing and delivery. So it's a safer, easier way to validate new consumer product ideas, generate huge amounts of consumer awareness and new customers worldwide. And again, it provides even more capital up front. So now that entrepreneur, if they have a big enough campaign, they can now place larger volume orders with their manufacturers with economies of scale, get better price breaks per unit and make much better margins.

What would you say is a downside of it?

I'd say the biggest downside I've seen over the last 10 years of, you know, being in this crowdfunding space, I'd say the only downside I've seen is because these platforms are international, there are manufacturers in other countries that may try to rip off an idea and recreate it and then create competing brands. But over the years, we figured out ways around that to further protect our clients to prevent that from happening.

What are you willing to share on a few, how you do that? If someone has this killer idea and they want to do it, is there like even a preliminary step they should take? Like, I don't know, I'm just guessing here. Trademark register, something legal? Or are when you're dealing with those type of unscrupulous people in different countries, is it a lost cause, like to track them down because they're not around the corner even. Or even in a governed body? I guess I could say I don't want to name any specific area, but I know sometimes people say, oh, well, we have all the legal. It's like, you know, taking a kid to court. Like, really? You think you're going to get money? Like, where's this going to go?

Totally. No, it's a great question. So, yes, you know, getting trademarks and getting patents in place, that's definitely an important step and that will definitely help you protect your idea. But here's a real interesting hack that we've seen work super, super well over the years. So whenever you're not going to say.

Mail yourself the patent or whatever with the stamp or that thing, is it?

No, no, no. This is actually even more clever than that. So where we've had a lot of success is when our clients have really cool new innovative ideas. And if they are worried about their idea getting ripped off by manufacturers in China or other parts of the world, the best way around it is to rip off your own product first. And what I mean by that is once you create your brand, create some other bogus brands and buy those domains for peanuts. And then, and then when those companies in China do a Google search and they, and they, and they try to figure out how many competing products are in that same vertical, they see like half a dozen or a dozen. So they move on to other projects. So that's the easiest hack around it.

Oh my gosh, that's killer.

Yeah. And it works really, really well. And it's cheap and it's easy and it's really helped us big time the last few years.

Okay, so I got to ask, have you set them up with full E comm shopping carts and everything. And if so, how were the sales for the sister companies?

Yeah, so you can easily set up those E comm sites, and it doesn't really matter what sales are. In fact, you don't even have to have any sales. You just have to look legit.

Oh, I understand that, but I'm saying, like, were people actually ordering from there and you're still getting the benefit as if it was ripped off.

You set it up so it looks like you can go through the checkout process, but you don't always have to enable the checkout process.

Right, Gotcha. Okay, well, that. That is. I was making a joke about the postcard or the mailer. I've heard that one for years. It's like, oh, well, all you got to do. I'm like, well, I think it's good, but I don't think that's all you need to do. That sounds killer, though.

Yes.

I bought domain names for different things, for publishing, for books, just to, like, round it out if someone types it in. But that makes total sense, and I could to see how that has a really good use case. Wow. Five minutes in. That's a whole episode right there.

So, going back to the people you're working with and everything, tell me more about launch Boom and who you really help and how you're helping them.

Yeah. So when I first started LaunchBoom, my big goal was to be the largest crowdfunding agency in the world. That's what I set off to go do. I started LaunchBoom in 2015 and launched within a few years. We were there. The main reason I'd say the riskiest thing I did early on was I went to Kickstarter, I went to Indiegogo, the two major platforms in the space where we play. And I basically just put my cards on the table in their offices, and I said, hey, this is why my campaigns are raising so much more money than all the other average campaigns on your platform. And if you'd like us to help more of your campaigners drive bigger, better outcomes, I'd be happy to talk with them as early as possible. And the reason I say it was risky was because they had much deeper pockets than I did back in 2015, so they could have easily knocked off my model and done it themselves. But at the time, they were more focused on building their backer communities, and so they weren't as focused as supporting the entrepreneur back then. So both platforms added me as a preferred partner within my first year of business, which all that did was open up the floodgates and just bring so many more project creators into LaunchBoom. So that really gave me a major head start of eventual other agencies that, you know, try to come in and rip off my model. So again, I'd say we are the best at supporting entrepreneurs that have awesome consumer product ideas. So any type of business owner out there or entrepreneur that has a really cool, clever product, consumer product, it usually needs to be like physical, tangible. That's where we have the most success. What we do is we bring it into launch boom and we actually build a massive community around that product before we go to Kickstarter or Indiegogo. And that's why I ended up naming the company LaunchBoom. It's what I call the launch boom effect. So what happens is we usually spend about two to three months preparing these products for Kickstarter and Indiegogo. We do that primarily by focusing on Facebook, Instagram advertising. And then we pioneered something called the reservation funnel. And so what that means is if you're on Facebook, you're on Instagram, you see a super cool product, you're a consumer, you click on the ad, we're going to redirect you to a landing page. The landing page is going to say, hey, sign up. Be the first one to get this product. When we launch on Kickstarter, all you have to do is submit your email. So the first thing we do is we get them to opt in, join our community by submitting their email. Once they submit the email, we pull them into our reservation system where we say, thank you so much for supporting us. Please know that the first thousand backers are going to get a lower price and early delivery before everyone else. So if you want access to the best deal today, before we go to Kickstarter, all you have to do is place a $1 money back guarantee deposit and you're going to be locked into the best deal right now before we go to Kickstarter. So that reservation funnel is the most qualified audience you can build to support any of these product launches that we manage. In fact, we get a 30 times higher conversion off the reservation funnel versus just collecting an email. So at the end of the day, what we do is we stack that reservation funnel and once we have enough reservations in that funnel, let's just say we have a thousand $1 reservations, we know that 30% or more are going to convert with our first email blast that goes out the first day we launch on Kickstarter.

Wow.

Wow.

So in essence, what we're doing and it actually, it gets more exciting. So what happens is we manipulate the funding goals on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. So what we do is if we have 1000 $1 reservations and if we know that the average order value is going to be $100, I'm just using simple math, we can set that campaign goal at $30,000 because we know we're going to raise $30,000 within that first 15 minutes after we go live, always the first hour, hour, we get all our projects funded. So the idea is instead of keeping it at 30,000, let's be conservative, we might set the goal at 20,000 just to be safe. Right? So when we turn on the campaign with that first email, on average our funding time is 15 minutes. We'll have the entire campaign funded. The reason you need to have that funding goal lower than higher is because you don't get the funds out of the platform unless you hit the funding goal. So a lot of my clients come in, they're like, well, we want to pre sell a million dollars worth of our product. I'm like, that's great, let's go do our best to get there. But let's manipulate the funding goal so we get the thing funded as soon as physically possible and let's create a meaningful number. So it's not just like a 500 goal or a thousand dollar goal, it's like a 20,000 or $50,000 goal. So what happens is when we turn on the Kickstarter or the Indiegogo campaign, once we've stacked that reservation funnel, we literally have a launch bone. And what that means is we turn on the Kickstarter, we turn on the Indiegogo, and we get the entire project funded within the first 15 minutes on average. And right now we're launching about a thousand products a year. Right now that's how big our community is of campaigners. So the fact that on average we're getting all of our campaigns funded in the first 15 minutes is huge. But what happens when you do that? You become the most popular campaign on the platform. So now Kickstarter, Indiegogo, they.

Oh darn, they got to showcase you on the main page.

Bingo, bingo. Then they start to promote you in their newsletters. When that happens, you get this massive organic lift from the tens of millions of organic audiences that are already there. These backers are looking for super cool, new, innovative products and they want to feel like they're getting a discount off retail and they want to be the first ones to get their hands on that product. That's why Kickstarter and Indiegogo continue to convert so much better than if you were just to do a launch on an E commerce site, for example.

So Kickstarter Indiegogo, obviously two of the biggest. Is there a third, fourth or fifth you ever leverage?

No, never. Yeah, we don't need to. Kickstarter is definitely a larger community. They've raised over 6 billion since they opened their doors in 2009. For over a half million campaigners out there, Indiegogo's raised over 2 billion. But they've also funded actually more projects than Kickstarter. Over 800,000 campaigns have been funded on Indiegogo. So we generally leverage those two platforms. There are certain verticals that products fit in that are ideal for Kickstarter versus Indiegogo and vice versa. So depending upon where our clients kind of land within which category determines which platform we recommend, do you ever launch.

On both or is it always one or the other?

That's another great question. So yes, you can launch on both. So we have had tons of success starting on Kickstarter. When that campaign comes to an end, we roll into Indiegogo in demand, which allows you to continue the pre sale. But now you just get to tap into their community and continue to pre sell even more product that way.

Geez, I, I, okay, ask the first one. I have no less than a dozen questions.

What explain the verticals for, for us. So let me go back though. So you say.

Business to consumer works best physical product.

Yeah. B2C. Like that's our sweet spot. I had people all day long all over the world reach out asking me if I can launch their apps or if I can launch.

I was just going to say have you ever worked with authors and speakers or have you worked with any SaaS or software stuff?

Yeah, so SaaS software. No, it's not a good fit for Kickstarter Indiegogo. Authors, yes, authors can definitely launch their books on Kickstarter indiegogo. We've seen success there over the years. I'd say other categories that like get me excited here at LaunchBoom would be like tech hardware. Tech hardware does extremely well on Indiegogo. We've had some of our biggest campaigns ever in the tech hardware category.

Like literal robots and stu.

Like robots, drones.

Cool tech, like IoT type products.

Ah, yes, right.

So like yeah, anything like the Master.

The Philips Hue Lights.

Totally. Exactly. Yeah. Those type of products do extremely well on Indiegogo. Products that do really well on Kickstarter, believe it or not, are like tabletop Games. The gaming category is one of the top categories on Kickstarter, like physical board games. Physical board games are super hot right now. Who would have thought, right? But yeah, that's a big category on Kickstarter. We have so many multi million dollar campaigns in that category. On Kickstarter, we've also, believe it or not, like we've actually had success outside of the physical, tangible hardware product game with a category that we call glamping. So what's so crazy is that on Indiegogo we've launched more successful glamping campaigns than anyone else in the world. And what these entrepreneurs do is they'll buy land, they'll have a render artist design what it's going to look like when it's a really cool like, you know, boutique hotel experience. And then what we do is we pre book rooms for that experience before the product, before the product's even built. So the cool part is, is like these entrepreneurs buy the property, they have a render artist create this beautiful design of like whatever type of theme or concept they want to build. Then what we do is we sell it as like the ultimate experience. We pre book rooms, like to thousands of consumers and we've raised like millions of dollars for these glamping projects. Then the entrepreneur gets all that money out of the platform. Now they can actually pay for the bill, the development, and now they already have the rooms booked out for a year or two after it's been developed. Pretty cool model.

That sounds awesome. Wheel, spin. And even more aside from the so no to the SAS stuff, what about like a teaching and training thing? Like if you're. Do you have a course? I'm going to. I'm asking you, do you have a course on this? And if not, if you were to ever make one, would you use either of these to launch it?

Yeah, it's a great question. So we've evolved so much as a business here at LaunchBoom, so we were literally like the first agency to fully support the entrepreneur needs in this Kickstarter Indiegogo space. So that's why I started LaunchPoom, because I was looking for Launchpoon to help me with one of my product launches and they didn't exist. So I believe that Kickstarter and Indiegogo would be here 10 years later and be more powerful than ever, which they are. And that was the bet I made in starting Launchboom. And when I first started, I started it as like a white glove agency where we would do everything for the. The only problem with that model is that you really had to be a funded startup in order to afford that service. Because on average it was like a $50,000 investment for us to do everything for them. That would include the videos, the marketing, the advertising, everything we need to maximize that campaign outcome. Now what is really interesting is a little more than a year ago, we saw a major pivot of campaign demand in our space. And what I mean by that is campaigners were looking for lower cost solutions. They were willing to kind of get in the trenches alongside with us and they didn't mind doing some of that, some of the work themselves, as long as they had some hand holding and they had some guided expert guidance. So what I ended up doing a little more than a year ago was I actually killed my agency, which was a big deal because, you know, the CEO, Indiegogo and Kickstarter, they reached out to us to like, what are you doing? Are we in trouble? Is crowdfunding going away? Will, what's going on? And that's where I told them, no, we're actually going to build a better model so we can actually support more campaigners and have even bigger, better campaigns on your platforms. And they're like, how are you going to do that? And it's called Launch Boom Accelerator. So we actually dissolved our agency last year. We made a huge pivot to this coaching consulting model which allowed us to significantly redo that cost under 10 grand from start to finish. We can support any product launch creator in taking their product through a prelaunch, maximizing that reservation funnel and then actually having better campaign outcomes on Kickstarter and Indiegogo versus what we were able to do before as an agency. So we've basically, how is that, how.

Is it better now than before?

So it's better now for a few reasons. So we basically kind of like democratized that entire agency process and we've upgraded our technology. So now we've made it real easy, simple and fun for entrepreneurs to not only like figure out the best messaging and positioning for their products, but we also help them do AB testing and figure out pricing. Because a lot of people come in and they go, we think we can sell this product for $100, but maybe we can sell it for $200 and we can sell more at 200 versus 100. The answer is like, we don't really know until we do the testing. So what's cool about our system is we've upgraded all the technology so now our clients come in and they can build their own reservation funnels within minutes. They can Drag and drop messaging positioning. They can add images, videos, and now they can actually use our backer audiences. So what I haven't talked to you about yet is we've launched more successful Kickstarter Indiegogo campaigns than literally any other agency out there. So we've retained all of the backer data from each and every one of the campaigns that we've touched since day one. So now our clients can actually access our backer data. They can literally pull audience specific to the category that they're in. And now they can do AB testing. They can figure out how to maximize their aov, their average order value. Yeah, they can figure out the best messaging, the best positioning. So we can maximize that reservation funnel as we scale that pre launch ad spend. So now when we go to Kickstarter Indiegogo, we have even bigger launch booms.

So you're saying, are you, you're saying, if I heard you correct, you said you've, you're now averaging a thousand a year launches.

Yeah, basically that's not a thousand in the last seven or eight years, that's a thousand a year since you started this. Right?

Yeah. So best way to explain this is we started launch boom in 2015, and from 2015 to 2022, we launched over a thousand campaigns as an agency.

Okay.

Right. So that's what we did from establishing the business in 2015 up until 2022. Early 2022, since we've pivoted away from the agency model to this coaching consulting model that we call launch from Accelerator. We now have 1200 active community clients, community members in the launchroom program. And which means that within our first year, we will have launched a thousand plus products in just one year using the new model. How cool is that?

That's very cool. Now do you. So is that the only offer you have now or is there even a do it yourself where you go, here's all the info, here's the data, have fun with it. Because I realize this accelerator, you're still working with them. And how long is that for? Is it 6 months, 12 months?

It really varies to be honest. It can be anywhere from 6 months to 12 months.

Depends on when they want to launch their product.

Exactly. It depends on the best season for them to launch. It depends on when they're ready to launch. Sometimes people want to take more time on the preparation and pre launch than others.

It sounds very akin to bookmark book publish, launching, public publishing the book and going, okay, when should we launch it? Well, the book should be done. I'd Launch it after you've finished writing it and editing it. But yeah, some people want to launch it 30 days after, some people 60, 96 months later, depending on how much marketing and fanfare you want.

And you're the expert when it comes to the book publishing, right? I'm the expert when it comes to consumer product launches. And so you touched on a point earlier in the question where you were like, so, like, do you have a do it yourself model? Do you have any other type of business model? So we actually do have a do it yourself model. And so that's actually what inspired this evolution into this coaching consulting platform versus agency. So back when we were the biggest agency in the world a year ago, if we had Legion that was coming in the launch boom that wasn't qualified for the agency, we would downsell them into the do it yourself model. So the reason we made the pivot was early 2022. We saw a huge decline in demand for the agency service that we had, but we saw this massive spike in people converting into the do it yourself model. So that's when we decided to maybe look at a model where we elevate the do it yourself. We provide a little bit more handholding because a lot of our clients that we spoke to that were using the do it yourself model, they were like, man, we wish we had access to your team. We wish we could jump on a call and get some questions answered as we're moving through the process. So that's really what inspired the development and creation of Launch from Accelerator, the coaching consulting model. So what it is, it's an upgraded version of our technology. So now our clients can do more on their own. They can basically generate much, much bigger audiences. In addition to that, they can also.

Use our audiences of backers to really understand how to maximize their average order value, to understand how to, you know, best position that product so they can convert as many backers as possible once they get to Kickstarter and Indiegogo. And so the development of the launchroom accelerator program, I wish we had figured this out eight years ago, really, honestly, I wish we figured this model out when we first started because it's more scalable, it's more profitable. We're launching so many more campaigns can.

Help a lot more people too.

It sounds like our clients are having more fun.

Yeah, but, you know, I got to give you some benefit of the doubt because you said, I noticed a decline last year.

The year prior, but maybe the market had shifted too. And you know what I mean, had you done this Eight years ago, would it have been the same result?

You know, that's a really good point.

I think you really know what you're doing. Obviously, you're the expert on it.

But there's always that. You know what I mean? Like, I can say that if I knew what I knew now, 11 years ago, when I started this, it's like, well, of course. But was the market even there? A lot shifted. I mean, I could mention live streaming, podcasting alone, publishing. That's shifted from audiobooks and Kindle and print and hardcover and on demand. You know what I mean? It's like.

I think it's just cool as heck that you did nail it now and it's going so well. I mean, congrats. That's huge.

Yeah. No, it's exciting. I mean, and now we're like, leveraging AI to provide an even better experience.

I was gonna joke about AI in the drones. When you said, yeah, we changed some stuff around, I was like, let them finish. But so how are you leveraging AI and are you leveraging drones? Just.

Yeah, so we're not leveraging drones quite yet, but what we're doing with AI, which is interesting, is when we onboard new projects into our accelerator program, we can leverage AI to do the market research much faster.

Yeah.

So before, it would take us weeks to figure out the market research, do a pricing analysis and really, you know, get the information we needed so we could really help direct our clients as to how to best position the product, how to really focus on what makes it superior versus competitors in the same vertical, and also how to understand what the pricing threshold is, you know, how to maximize that aov. And because we're leveraging AI now with our accelerator, once our clients come into onboarding and they give us the information we need, we can have a. We can leverage AI now to basically do that market research so much faster. So now we can dive right into the reservation funnel development. We can start testing pricing. We can do that split AB testing I was talking about earlier and then helping them actually build an even larger reservation funnel before these Kickstarter Indiegogo campaigns. Wow.

So you had my wheel spinning earlier and even more now. I've had my own product ideas for physical stuff because I just like creating and doing things. So this is interesting to me. I have not done a.

I guess it was just lack of info. Just like publishing, podcast, live stream, anything. Like, if you don't know it, it's like, I didn't want to. Not that I didn't want to screw it Up. But I knew there was more I didn't know than what I did. And it sounds like if you have the right product in the right niche, especially when you build out the community. Let me ask you, who's been your biggest success story? Like maybe fastest launch or highest dollar revenue, the most you raised or greatest impact? I guess, because I consider that success, even if it was for a nonprofit or something.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we have so many of those stories. I mean, from a high level perspective, since we started LaunchBoom, I should have.

Joked with you sometimes because I have successful people like you on the show. And when I first started doing this, I had this real deadpan look. I'm like, all right, we have a few more minutes. Tell me your top hundred success stories. And I kept a straight face. It was so hard. And they were like, oh, okay, well, the top hundred, we have 8,700. And they just rattled off some insane number. I'm like, all right, I think they called my bluff. But if you have two or three, go for it.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, we've, we've helped a lot of entrepreneurs. My favorite stories, just to be blunt, are when super green entrepreneurs come into launchbone, They've never launched a product. Yeah. But they have, they have a great idea. Right. And to take them through LaunchBoom, help them drive like a seven figure campaign outcome, and then watch them go on to scale and then exit their businesses for hundreds of millions of dollars, that is the coolest thing. That's what keeps me jacked up and excited about what I'm doing today. Still, after doing this for 10 years. Those are the stories I love to share. You know, like I. A favorite story would be like the brand Dr. Squatch. That soap brand. Yeah. So the commercials. Yeah, Dr. Squatch. It's a soapman specifically designed for men. And, and we literally launched our Kickstarter campaign and we had a great campaign. We raised like a good six figure campaign outcome on Kickstarter. And then they went on to eventually have commercials on the Super Bowl a few years back. And recently, that entrepreneur that literally was super green when we met him just exited his company for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Right.

And so, so to see him, like, you know, now he's like in his 30s, he's had a huge exit, he's living his best life. It's so cool to see that transformation. And that's what we do at launchbone.

I'm smirking because you're like, yeah, now that he's in his 30s. Yeah. Definitely retirement age and you know.

And so. Yeah, so, so just a, like another cool story, like super recent, you know, within like the last couple months there was this like lovely couple and they had a really cool tabletop game idea called Botany. It's like a botanist type type tabletop game. It's a really, actually it's a really cool, clever game. And it was like this lovely couple that came in and they had never launched a product before. We took them through launch boom. We raised over a million dollars through our launch boom accelerator program with them. I think they invested, you know, tens of thousands of dollars. That's all they had on their credit card lines and we were able to convert that into over seven figures in pre sales.

Wow.

And it's so fun like talking to them because they're so genuinely grateful. But they never dreamed that that many people would have an interest in their game and now they've got a super successful company. And what's cool about tabletop games, the margins are huge. So they made more money than they've ever made in their lives on this one launch.

When you say tabletop games, I want to clarify this a little for my own benefit and anyone listening, I'm thinking of like a real high end chessboard or something like that, or checkers or I've seen them where they're more decorative but they're playable. When you say t tabletop games and we mentioned board games, do you literally mean like Monopoly, board games, tabletop games or any of it?

That, that, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Like, like, like board games have been around forever. Right.

So whether it's cardboard or it's 200 for a chess set or a thousand dollars for a chess set, you just mean games that are physical, you can play. It doesn't really matter if it's a twenty, thirty dollar board game or three hundred or thousand dollar, whatever, you just mean the games.

Correct, Correct. And that's killer. It can even be a card game.

Oh.

Yeah. So, so, so again that, that's an example of a category that's currently performing and has performed super well on Kickstarter. So if you're out there and you're listening to this and you've got a really cool board game game idea, definitely take that over to Kickstarter, you'll have a lot of success.

So Kickstarter is better for that stuff. And you said indie is better for the consumer products.

Yeah, consumer tech, like tech, hardware. Tech hardware does really well on Indiegogo.

Wow. So interesting. So, so Interesting.

For anyone looking to do it, what are the first couple of things you would say they should do? Like if someone's going, okay, I'm listening to you right now, this sounds phenomenal. What are the first couple of things? Whether they want to do it themselves, call you, or whatever, no matter what route they take, what is the surefire thing?

Yeah. So I would say if you're out there and you've been sitting on a super cool product idea and you just don't know where to start, you may have even sketched it on a napkin. If that's how far you are, we would love to talk to you at Launchpone. At Launch Boom, you just go to launchboom.com you can get on a call with one of my experts. They can give you a lot more information about whether or not, you know, if crowdfunding makes sense or not. And. And then from there, we can add so much more value. Because a lot of. A lot of green entrepreneurs out there that have super cool product ideas, there's so much that we've learned over the years they can learn from. You know, a lot of, like, the common pitfalls we made and a lot of the headaches, you know, we've been through. They can avoid all of that if they just talk to us earlier.

For example, it sounds like it really depends on what they're selling. There's no cookie cutter approach. It really depends what they're doing.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Because again, even if they have the idea and they don't have a prototype, we've got manufacturing partners. We can help them get 3D renders, we can help them get prototypes made, but we can help them get that done for pennies on the dollar compared to they did their own search or they talked to random manufacturers. Because there's some great manufacturers out there. There's also some really bad ones that will take advantage of these green entrepreneurs. So I always feel like we're here to protect entrepreneurs from, you know, all those people out there that maybe don't have the best intentions at heart.

So it's not just the people copying the stuff or trying to love what you kicked it off with. That's awesome. So it's not just the people trying to steal the ideas. It's also the ones who are in partnership with them, probably to manufacture it and actually bring it to fruition.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Again, I've heard so many horror stories of people that have great ideas that just get in bed with the wrong manufacturer and they waste a lot of money. A lot of Time, sometimes they lose the opportunity because someone else rips off the idea and gets there first because they can't even get product delivered. Right. So again, any entrepreneur, any business owner out there, our system also works really well for like successful businesses that may have really cool new product ideas. So what's been interesting over the last few years is we actually have more and more larger successful businesses coming into LaunchPoom. We even have Fortune 500 clients that use our program to validate and test new product ideas. And if the prelaunch data is super positive, they put more resources in, they go big on the crowdfunding campaign and then take it into their, their various channels.

Yeah, that's cool. You're there to protect them and you have all that data. It's very similar, I'm hearing like when we're talking about printing the books, because there's printers you want to avoid and printers you absolutely want to work with. So I'm glad you're out there doing the right things. Clearly it's working. And it's also pretty cool. You know, the Fortune 500 companies, they're just, you know, you have all the expert data, you know, otherwise they're, they're going to just have to employ their research team and hopefully figure it out. I mean, there it sounds like they're very much in the same boat as just anyone, whether they're in a basement or their garage or whatever. What are you going to scour the interwebs and collect 11 years of data and a thousand plus case studies? Like really maybe ask AI to do it. What's the most successful thing like?

Come on, like another way to look at what we do. And at least this is how the Fortune 500 clients look at us. They look at us as the best opportunity to fail fast and fail cheap. Right. So, so what they're doing is they know that for less than ten grand we can take any of their product ideas and give them real market research and data showing them whether or not to put more time and money into it.

Yeah.

And whether or not to actually launch it. And so that's why we have 100% success rate with all of our product launches using the launch from Accelerator program. Because we spend so much time on the preparation and pre launch that we know it's going to happen before we launch. So the best part is that sometimes we'll take a product through our pre launch system and the data is not there, the data is not strong. So what we do is we tell our clients, hey, the reason you don't want to launch right now is because you're not going to raise enough money to manufacture and deliver. Maybe, maybe we need to look at iterating the product or improving the product, or maybe we want to put that product idea on the back burner and go focus our time and resources on a different project. So that's the beauty of launch from Accelerator is that it literally helps everyone fail fast and fail cheap. And I know people hate that word fail, but I wish it's a good thing.

It's the only way to get to success.

Exactly. I wish I had this System failure.

Is thinking you'll go through life 100% perfect and that you are perfect.

Exactly. And believe it or not, but every person that comes into launch, boom. Everyone has the most beautiful baby in the world, right? Everyone comes in and they get the best product in the world, right? And the truth is like it is in their eyes. But now we have to prove that there's demand for it. And that's what we do here at Launchboom. We're able to, within months, figure out whether or not there is demand. And if there is demand, let's exploit it by going through Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and.

Then let's figure out which one's the best for you and everything, and let's.

Help you build that successful business faster with less risk. That's what we do.

Wow, that is so exciting. I got a couple more questions. One of them is this before we thank our sponsor. Got yellow or black?

Yellow.

All right.

What is something? What sounds exciting to you? That, like travel or an experience or something you haven't done? Maybe not even travel, more like an experience. Like do you want to ride a rocket ship or what's something give me something outlandish you've thought about that you still have yet to do. It's not even outlandish. That just sounds, like, awesome to me.

Yeah, so. No, you. You actually just said it. So. One of my personal goals in life is to one day be able to orbit the Earth. I think if I can get to a point where I can afford to see on one of these rocket ships and once it becomes public, where, you know, the public can actually go explore space, one of my personal desires and goals is to orbit the Earth and look down on the Earth from above. I think that would be so cool.

I do too. I've always wanted to do that. Also, I actually just watched Hidden Figures. If you haven't seen it, great movie.

When we first were getting rocket ships in the 60s, and before even going to the moon.

So that is. That's my dream.

Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. I'm going to thank the sponsor and we're going to come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours and it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishing method book.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually.

Getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice what he got done for me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable John Cody I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books.

Rocio there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process.

Adele if you're looking for an amazing.

Business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficcini or Bill Benner. I can't make a higher recommendation for me than to work with Mario Ficini. He has been great for me and right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishing method book.com.

And we are back with the Imperfect Action round. Will, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I am.

Got three questions for you. Rapid fire responses. First one is what's the fastest path to the profits?

Fastest path to the profits are to understand how to maximize your average order value. How to find the best manufacturer who can help you deliver the best quality product for the lowest possible cost. And then to figure out how to maximize demand and find that demand so that you can not only have a successful crowdfunding campaign but you can go on and scale through e commerce and retail and Amazon and all those other channels so you can grow and accelerate your growth faster.

Very good. Number two, what's the biggest problem? You see your prospects Making and the fastest way for them to fix it.

Yeah. The biggest mistake I see prospects that come into launchboom, I hate hearing when they tell me that they spent 50 grand on a crowdfunding video. There's no reason to waste those resources like that. We can build just as an effective video as that $50,000 video for crowdfunding. With five grand or three grand even, we've got different video production partners that can help support our clients in building a great crowdfunding video for pennies on the dollar. So I hate when people come into launch boom, and they've wasted all this money on assets that they don't really need.

Then you ask them, who's. Who's the. Who's your ideal customer? And what's the A B test results? What's the aov? And they're like, huh? Yeah, the video is pretty.

Yeah, the video is pretty, but it's the wrong positioning or it's focused on the wrong demographic. So anyone listening, like, don't waste your money. If you have a product idea and you're serious about launching it, talk to someone on my team so we can keep those.

Get the data first.

Yeah. And keep that money in your pocket until you need to deploy it.

Yeah. Very good. Number three, what's the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

That's a great question. And we're working on that right now at launchboom. So right now, our average client will stay with us for a year. Right. That's everyone coming through LaunchBoom accelerator. What we've done recently is we've added a new program called sourceboom. And what sourceboom is. Sourceboom helps all of our crowdfunding campaigners figure out how to figure out and scale manufacturing in less time and with much, much less investment. So because We've got the SourceBoom program, we have such a big demand within our community at launch from Accelerator, where once the crowdfunding campaign is done well, now they have to manufacture and deliver. So we built sourceboom to help them learn how to fish instead of fish for them. So now we can get them connected to the manufacturer so they have the relationships. Because those relationships are super important, not just for crowdfunding, but for what happens after crowdfunding. Once you start scaling through E commerce or retail, like, you want to have a great relationship with your manufacturer so that you can control your cost.

Yes. What I'm hearing is having that next step for them because, you know, you make them successful and a, you're just going to have naturally balanced, you know, and then C and D. It's like you just made a successful business, you think there's nothing left after this.

Exactly. So the idea is like, okay, now that we've completed crowdfunding, now let's deliver a great experience. And then after we deliver a great experience by helping support them through SourceBoom, we actually have another program called Equity Boom. And what we do with Equity Boom is we help our clients leverage equity crowdfunding to get better valuations. And now they can convert their customers into investors without having to spend too much more. Ad spend.

Oh, wow.

So it's a great way to double dip. After you've validated your product, you've delivered a great experience to your backer. Why not ask your backer to become an investor?

Yeah, very smart, Very smart. Being a publisher. I gotta ask you about books. What books have helped you in your business and life the most?

That's a really, really good question. So I love business books. Peaks and Valleys, That's a great book. If you, if you're out there and you're a business entrepreneur, there will be peaks, there will be valley valleys in your day to day life. The goal is to maximize your time on the peaks and reduce your time in those valleys. And so that's a great read. It's a fast read for anyone out there. I'd say another book, honestly, that like changed my life is an old book. It's called the Secret. And I'm sure you hear right.

So it's surreal for you to hear it say the old, the old.

It's old, yeah, yeah. It's an older published book. And I'll never forget when I started my entrepreneurial journey. When I was in my mid-20s, I hated my day job and I was, I did not want to ever have another day.

What was that day job?

I was at the time I was a commercial real estate broker, believe it or not. And I work for a big commercial real estate brokerage. And I just, I wasn't happy, it wasn't fulfilling to what I wanted as an individual. So somehow that book, the Secret landed in my lap. I read this book about the law of attraction. It made perfect sense to me. And from that day forward, I've always just focused on the positive outcome in any situation. And if I find a negative thought entering my mind, I notice it and I replace it immediately with a positive thought.

Okay.

And when I look back, I'm 42 now. I read that book when I was 25 and when I look at where My life is today versus where it was back then. I'm astonished. I'm genuinely like, I never could have dreamed that my life would be like this the way it is now. And I'm genuinely happier. And that book had a big time impact on my life. And there's so many other books out there as well, but those are a couple. Just.

And who's the author of Peaks and Valleys?

I don't recall.

I'll make sure it's in the show. Notes on the interviews dot com. But great recommendations. Thank you for that. And here it turned out that way.

Yeah. Another great book is the Go Giver. The Go Giver is a great book. You know, so, like, I like business books. I've read so many of them, I still read them. My business partner, Mark, he's written an awesome book on crowdfunding called Crowdfunded. Oh. So, yeah. So we were the first to bring this book into market. It's the first ever book written on crowdfunding. And it. That first book, Crowdfunded, is mainly on what we learned as an agency for the first seven years.

Okay.

But there is a second edition, a new book coming out next month, which is like everything we've learned from transitioning from a agency over to this coaching consulting model.

Oh, nice.

Because there's so much better technology and resources that don't cost nearly as much as what we had to put into these projects years ago. And so today we can literally have bigger, better Kickstarter, Indiegogo campaigns for honestly, like a fraction of the cost. And you actually don't need an agency anymore. So really what we're doing here at launchboom is we're the agency killer, even though we used to be.

Own the market and then take it all away.

That's the plan, actually.

Shift it over to. Because, yeah, you really can more empower. You can empower more people. I started with agency stuff too and transitioned it years ago as well. And it's just. It's better to teach people how to fish.

Yeah, exactly. And that's what we do now. So now we're teaching. Like I said in our first year after the Pivot, we have 1200 accounts.

That's awesome.

We have over 1200 active clients. We're adding 100 plus per month and we're teaching them how to fish, which is so much more valuable than paying someone to fish for you.

Yeah. For the vast majority of people. Some people still want stuff done, but you can still help them too.

Exactly.

Well, thank you so much for this. I've learned a lot. Where would you like people to learn more?

Yeah, go to launchboom.com we have a ton of free education. We produce more free content than anyone else in our space. So if you want to learn more about crowdfunding, if you got, if you have a really cool product idea and you want to take it to Kickstarter Indiegogo, just go to launchroom.com and you can literally talk to someone on my team.

Excellent. Excellent. Well, thanks so much for sharing your expert insights and it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. So thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me on the show. I've really enjoyed my time with you today and yeah, I super excited about where we're heading as a business and I hope this was valuable for all your viewers and listeners.

It absolutely was and you should be. It sounds like it's going well and I hope it continues to go that way. Expert Authority World we have another great episode here today. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day and God bless. You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started. Now once again, that's eapublishing method book.com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it. If you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.