Tagged: crowdfunding crash cours

Crowdfunding Crash Course: Guillaume Rolland - SensorWake

- by Alyson Shane

Guillaume Rolland is an 18-year old entrepreneur from Paris, France. He is the creator of SensorWake, an olfactory-based alarm clock which wakes you up through the power of smell. He used Kickstarter to successfully fund his project.

Can you briefly talk about SensorWake?

SensorWake is an olfactory alarm-clock. It can wake you up only thanks your favourite scent (hot croissant, peppermint, coffee and even the smell of a dollar!)

Why did you feel that the crowdfunding model was the best way to promote the product?

It’s the perfect worldwide showcase to promote your device or idea.


Why and how did you choose Kickstarter over other crowdfunding options available?


Kickstarter is developing the most powerful community; it is multicultural, curious, and respectful about your project.


How big was your budget before you launched your crowdfunding campaign?


We have to create a great video and great images of our product. We don’t communicate about it but we started with less than 10.000€


How far along was your project before you felt ready to launch a crowdfunding campaign? In hindsight, would you have preferred to be farther along, or to have crowdfunded earlier?


You have to begin the preparation about 4-5 months before.


Can you explain how you prepared for and managed your campaign?


We built a strong team and made sure everyone had strong, unique, and different qualities to be ready for all the challenges we expected.


What tools did you use to market your campaign? Do you feel like you did so successfully, and if not, what could you have done differently?

Facebook Ads are a really great key to market the campaign when it’s live. You also have to showcase your product at a real event. For example we attended the Hello Tomorrow Start-Up Village in June; it’s just the perfect way to demonstrate the real qualities of your product, and to meet your very first backers.

In retrospect what were your best assets for running this successful campaign? On the other hand, what would you do differently?

One of our best assets was that we had a strong community before the launch. We more than 7,500 fans on Facebook before the campaign launch, who were our very first ambassadors who promoted our project.

What was your biggest challenge during your campaign?

Our best challenge is to keep in touch with our backers, we have to be close with them but not spend too much time responding to every email or comment.


What’s the most valuable advice you could share with aspiring crowdfunders?


Take your time before launching, develop a strong community and create the perfect crowdfunding page, do not forget that video is 50% of your campaign success.

This post is part of the Crowdfunding Crash Course series. You can find the full list of interviews and summaries here.


 

Introducing: the Crowdfunding Crash Course!

- by Alyson Shane

The other weekend John and I finally sat down and watched Indie Game: The Movie. This amazing piece of cinema is from Canadian filmmakers James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot. It follows indie video game developers as they struggle to develop and release Super Meat Boy and Fez, respectively, as well as interviews with Jonathan Blow, the developer behind Braid.

James and Lisanne ran two successful crowdfunding campaigns to fund the film, and after the movie I got to wondering: what makes a crowdfunding campaign successful?

Having never run a crowdfunding campaign myself, I figured that the best way to gain a deeper understanding of this booming phenomenon was to seek out knowledge from those around me.

With that in mind, I'm launching the #CrowdfundingCrashCourse project, where I'll be interviewing startups, musicians, businesspeople, and anyone else I can find who can share their experiences about running a crowdfunding campaign.

The first post, which will go up this week, is with Adam Brooks of Winnipeg-based film production company Astron-6, who used Indiegogo to crowdfund their movie The Editor.

I'm really excited to be starting this project and to share it with you and am always looking for new participants to share their knowledge. If you've run a crowdfunding campaign, or know someone who has and should be featured as a part of this project, please feel free to give me a shout.

This post is part of the #CrowdfundingCrashCourse series. You can find the entire series of interviews and summary posts here.


 

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