Crowdfunding has changed the game for developing products for Amazon and E-Commerce. But it’s not as easy as posting about your dream product and walking away. Today, I am joined by product development expert, Khierstyn Ross. She’s raised millions of dollars in pre-order revenue on Kickstarter and Indiegogo with her clients and students. In this episode, we discuss the in’s and out’s of Amazon product development when it comes to crowdfunding.
Khierstyn Ross specializes in go-to-market strategy for products using Kickstarter & other popular channels. In 2015, she began this journey when her first launch failed terribly. After relaunching, she went from a $16,710 failure to a $592,742 success story.
Date: August 21, 2020
Episode: 15
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Khierstyn Ross, a Product Development Expert who Raised Millions of Dollars in Pre-order Revenue on Kickstarter and Indiegogo
Subtitle: “It is failure that gives you the proper perspective on success”
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/15-product-launching-kickstarter-khierstyn-ross/
In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Khierstyn Ross, a Product Development Expert who raised millions of dollars in pre-order revenue on Kickstarter and Indiegogo
She specializes in go-to-market strategy products. In 2015, she began this journey when her launch failed terribly. After relaunching, she went from a $16710 failure to a $592742 success story.
If you are a new listener to Lunch With Norm… we would love to hear from you. Please visit our Facebook Page and join in on episode discussion or simply let us know what you think of the episode!
In this episode, we discuss:
Our favorite part of recording a live podcast each week is participating in the great conversations that happen on our live chat, on social media, and in our comments section.
In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:
Join our discussion network here!:
Norman Farrar 0:03
Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, a.k.a. The Beard Guy and welcome to another Lunch With Norm.
Norman 0:20
So as my buddy Manny coats used to say, how cool is that? We just got a little intro five second intro brand new, so, hope you like it. We are broadcasting live today, Facebook and YouTube. We haven’t got LinkedIn yet, but we’re trying to get that worked in. But like every show it Oh, I should leave this to Kelsey because Kelsey has one thing to do during every podcast. Kelsey, what do we do?
Kelsey 0:49
That’s right, we need to like and share the Facebook Live with all your friends, and follow us on Instagram, YouTube everywhere. Just follow us everywhere.
Norman 1:01
Just do it, please.
Norman 1:03
So today, I would like to introduce to you a very special guest. I’ve got to know Khierstyn, over the last year and she’s just incredible. Not only is she incredible, she’s a product launch expert. So crowdfunding has really changed the game for developing products on Amazon. But it’s not as simple as just going and posting your dream product and then walking away. So Khierstyn specializes in go to market strategies for products on Kickstarter and other popular channels. So if you have any questions, just post them like you do anytime, just post them in the comment section below. Thank you, Khierstyn, and sit back, relax, get a coffee and enjoy the show. So now, Khierstyn, how are you?
Khierstyn 1:53
I am good. I’m having fun being a little meme.
Norman 1:59
Can you do that every show? You’re good at that.
Khierstyn 2:00
Yeah, for sure. I’m just very animated and sarcastic. So I’m like, or whatever you need me to point out, point.
Norman 2:08
I love it. I need a pointer.
Khierstyn 2:11
Sorry, Kelsey.
Norman 2:12
Kelsey tried. Yeah. So we’re gonna be talking about crowdfunding today. I don’t think a lot of Amazon sellers don’t know about crowd crowdfunding, or they don’t even think about it. You find that?
Khierstyn 2:28
I find that the ones that have heard about it, I think it’s on their radar, but they don’t know how to use it. They’re like I see it as this cool product launch platform. But I don’t know how to use it or why I should use it.
Norman 2:41
Yeah, let’s back up a step. I should have said this. I’m new at the game. So I forgot to even ask. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Khierstyn 2:52
Yeah, definitely. I’ll keep it short and then I guess guys if you have any specific questions, just drop stuff in the comments, but Yeah, like, I’ve been specializing full time in the crowdfunding niche for about five years now and when I say crowdfunding, I say like using Kickstarter and Indiegogo, to launch products. I got involved in crowdfunding after a huge product launch failure, Go figure, right? So before this, I was like I was running, I was actually in the trade. So I ran a house painting franchise. So if you think like if you needed to have your windows painted, or bedroom walls painted, or whatever, like I ran a bunch of crews for that. So that’s how I got started in entrepreneurship is really just like, offline, building a service focused business and eventually end up coaching people across Canada doing that. So that’s how I got into consulting and I knew I worked with this business for about seven years and I knew that once I left, first off, I didn’t want to do that the rest of my life because I felt like I’d kind of tapped out with that. So I went traveling. After I left, it was about 24. So I did like the typical backpacking find yourself and in that time, like I knew I wanted to be a consultant, but I didn’t know how that would manifest, right. So a couple years into my like, into this point, I was living in the UK for two years in London. That’s when I started, like really getting my first kind of consulting clients that were a little all over the place. I worked with a couple of apps, I worked with a couple of offline businesses, I’m really just helping businesses grow, which means nothing in niche terms. So after my visa expired in the UK, I came back to Canada and within the first two weeks, that’s when I met the founder of my first crowdfunding campaign. So at the time, I remember leaving England, and not two months before this, I had sat through a presentation from someone who was explaining crowdfunding, and I sat through his presentation and I still didn’t understand it. So it’s funny that you know about three months later, I’m now talking to someone at a networking event and he’s like, Hey, you, you know some stuff online about marketing stuff? Do you want to partner up on this thing and launch a product using crowdfunding? I was still like, Sure, I don’t really understand Kickstarter, but let’s just do it right and we ended up working for about two or three months doing what we thought we had to do to be successful to launch this product and we brought it to launch actually using Indiegogo. That launch ended up, we needed about $50,000, which was the goal. So the whole point of the campaign was to raise 50K and then if you get that money, you get to go manufacture, right? Well, that first campaign, we only raised about 17,000, which meant that it was a horrible failure that we had told everyone about in an attempt to market this and so this thing, it failed publicly, which was like, up until this point, I’d never had a public failure like this before, because everything was like offline. But now on the internet , you can kind of see everything. So with this product, we ended up deciding after that launch, we had two options. We could either, we were looking at why this launch failed, and we thought, Okay, what is it just the product sucks and we should like move on, or is the marketing and the strategy behind what we did that sucked and so we started talking to people in the industry, who were like, it’s definitely not your product. It’s what you guys did and how you approach the launch. So we’re like, okay, why don’t we just try this, again, taking professional advice, and see what happens and if it fails, again, we just know that it’s not meant to be and go from there. So we then after that first launch, spent about two, three months planning for the next launch and we then decided to follow the book and that second launch ended up raising just over $600,000 with close to 5000 orders.
Khierstyn 6:55
Which was a drastic turnaround. It was enough that a lot of people like some people in Toronto where I was based now, they were starting they ran meetup groups. They’re like, Dude, what did you do? Like That was an epic fail. How did you do it within six months? How did you do that? So I started speaking around Toronto to entrepreneurs just about like, what we changed and what we learned and that got a lot of interest to get like my next batch of clients and like our next launch after that first one ended up netting about $350,000. The one after that did 342 the one after that, it just kept going for six plus figure raises. Now today, you can kind of say that crowdfunding found me because I was very like, against, to focusing on this when I first started, but I kept finding awesome products and doing really well launching them. So now I’ve created a career out of this and five years later, here we are, so..
Norman 7:57
Wow. Now we gotta know we got to train our Amazon sellers to do the same. Hey, by the way, a couple of shout outs to Jamie and Peter and oh, this guy you might know, Tim Jordan.
Khierstyn 8:10
Oh, who’s Tim?.
Norman 8:12
I don’t know. Hey, guys, thanks for joining. Hey. Alright, so let’s get into this and try to figure out how we can help Amazon sellers. So why should Amazon sellers really care about crowdfunding? I know you explained how you just bumped a fail into a $600,000 raise. But what can an Amazon seller really expect from crowdfunding?
Khierstyn 8:35
Yeah, so Kickstarter, like Amazon has a giant community of people that like to discover new products to buy or discover products to buy. So from a community standpoint, Kickstarter has millions of people every month that come to it to discover cool new products that can buy yours, right. Why an Amazon seller should use it. If you are white. labeling products right now, I wouldn’t go to Kickstarter. But if you are getting into the game of customizing products and you want to sell off of Amazon, creating a brand and instead of using Amazon as your main marketplace, but actually to, to build on Shopify, build a social media presence, really develop a brand that you own with a differentiated product or suite of products, you should absolutely take a look at Kickstarter. The number one reason why people will like sellers or entrepreneurs in general will use Kickstarter is because it is such an awesome solution to your cash flow problems. So that’s the number one thing because like, unlike Amazon, so if I go to sell a product on Amazon, I have to first identify the product I want to sell, develop the product, and then order thousands of units and pay for all those units to get shipped to Amazon and probably sell those products over the course of what three months to 12 months depending on how good long the inventory less. So you’re not even really making your money back on that inventory for months after you’ve already sunk in that initial capital and it’s risky because how do you know for sure that this product is going to sell. So Kickstarter really allows you to flip that timeline so that if you have a product that you want to sell, Kickstarter allows you to create a marketing. Essentially, post your product on Kickstarter, you have 30 to 60 days to raise, say $50,000 for the initial capital run of inventory. People, when they support your product on Kickstarter are pre ordering your product, which means that when you do a marketing launch on Kickstarter for this new product, you have your walking, you have people from all around the world, or within the US depending on like where you want to sell to actually pre order this product and at the end of the campaign, you now have hundreds or thousands of customers that have pre ordered your product, and you now have capital from Kickstarter that you get before you have to pay for inventory. So Kickstarter allows you to, if done properly, allows you to completely de risk the product launch process, because not only are you getting capital covered, but you’re getting market validation. The beauty of Kickstarter that some find a little like uncomfortable is that Kickstarter is an all or nothing model. So that means that if you put your product up there and you say we want to raise 20,000, or 10,000, or whatever that number is, if you don’t hit that target, then you’re not obligated to develop this product, which is really great. So from a market validation standpoint, and just in terms of that, that does, like turn some sellers off and there are other ways to raise money, using Indiegogo where Indiegogo will let you keep all funds raised even if you don’t hit your goal. So there is a workaround for that as some sellers are like, well, I don’t want to do this big marketing campaign and realize that like, it may fail, because there are workarounds for that. But essentially, it’s amazing for product validation, brand awareness, capital being the number one and also just creating an event around a launch forces people to talk about you, you get pressed, it’s going to open up doors for wholesale retail distribution, partnerships. It just really puts your brand on the map overnight. So there’s so many benefits, SEO. Like there’s so many benefits to doing a crowdfunding campaign, that if you are serious about building a brand, and you have a product that you’ve customized to a certain extent, then you should absolutely be looking at Kickstarter, I think.
Norman 12:44
So if you’re looking at launching plastic shoe stretchers that seven other people have, you really wouldn’t want to crowdfund it, it would be almost impossible.
Khierstyn 12:53
Yeah. Unless, yeah, so the thing is that like, if you have a product that is not. Because you have to look at the consumer to like, why would the consumer buy your product versus wait for like, buy your product on Kickstarter, wait four months to get it versus just buying it and getting a shipping on prime, right? So you do have to have something unique, something novel, but you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. That’s another common thing is that you see all these like new crazy, futuristic things that go on Kickstarter. You don’t need to have the latest and greatest in tech. You just need to be taking an old solution and making it better and then putting a brand and a story around that.
Norman 13:38
Yeah, so just taking and doing competitive analysis, finding out, why your competitors are having issues and just improve on it? Yeah, I think that’s a great idea and I know just from a cash flow point of view, so many people just go in undercapitalized and they’re screwed from the get go. So yeah, what a great idea. So are there any do’s and don’ts for new sellers?
Khierstyn 14:07
Using Kickstarter? Yeah. So let’s assume that it’s your first time going to Kickstarter. First thing you need to know is that the Kickstarter launch should be seen as a bonus to your Amazon launch. So the way that you can use Kickstarter to get your product to Amazon is that if you are, again, building a brand, you want differentiation and stuff, what you’re going to do and how that timeline works is you’re going to spend the time building up an email list, you need that list, you need that audience going into Kickstarter, so that you have a way to get your product. The equivalent of Amazon’s ranked Kickstarter has its own algorithm that will help it determine which products to give more visibility to and when you get that visibility, that’s how you tap into Kickstarter. So the biggest mistake you could ever make with any product launch but specifically Kickstarter, because we’re in this conversation is that you need to be able to launch on Kickstarter and have a really strong first day of sales. When you have a strong first day of sales, typically you’re looking at bringing in about 30% of your overall goal in that first 24 hours and then Kickstarter is algorithm will pick you up as Oh, this is something my users like, we should show this to more people and when that happens, that’s when you start to go “viral” and Kickstarter helps to give you additional organic platform traffic. So that the initial 30% that you put in really will help you get a like a larger return on that from their community and the biggest mistake you can make is thinking that Kickstarter is just gonna reward you with no sales and that all you have to do is just kind of launch and hope for the best. It’s the worst thing you can do.
Norman 15:49
Oh, yeah, there’s a lot of Amazon sellers that think that once they put their inventory and get their listing up, Amazon is obligated to them to promote Yeah, very similar. Very similar but
Khierstyn 16:01
Very similar. Yeah.
Norman 16:03
This 30% you’re talking about? Is that your secret sauce?
Khierstyn 16:09
So in terms of, I get the 30% because that’s what Kickstarter and Indiegogo have publicly said, you need to get that benchmark in order to have a 95% chance of you being successful. Okay, it’s actually it’s a little bit higher on Kickstarter, because Kickstarter is so competitive, it’s definitely harder to rank on Kickstarter. So Indiegogo definitely still follows that 30% roll. But as crowdfunding platforms get a little more saturated, you definitely need to, like bring your A game and have even closer to 40% on that first day to make sure. So that’s kind of like that’s the benchmark for okay, well, if we want to see you succeed, and if you want to raise $100,000 if we work backwards, we need to get you 30, $40,000 or less for six figures we’ll say like 30k on that. First day, right? Then the secret sauce comes to how the heck do you get $30,000 of free commitments and that’s where having an audience comes in. But it’s not like I see people come in and they’re like, Oh, great. So I have a Facebook Fan Page of 10,000 likes, I’m like, that’s not gonna cut it because my recipe is you want an email list and you need to have a way to make sure that that list is full of people that specifically showed interest in your product, and are qualified buyers and they are super excited and ready to open up their wallets. So it really comes down to what happens behind the scenes of your funnel, once people join your email list. How do you nurture them? What’s the communication strategy? How do you know that these people are actually going to convert into that first day? I think that’s what comes down to the secret sauce is it’s not just about having a volume list where you have 20,000 people it’s like, how do you know I go for quality over quantity and I go for a relationship and community building because that’s really what’s going to get that list to convert at the rate that you need to support your launch goals.
Norman 18:06
So, do you find, the other day, I had a conversation with a buddy of mine and we were talking about failed Amazon sellers, and them coming back and you hear it all the time that they’ve gone either taking a course, they’ve taken a free course, the one that I hate the most is that they found information on YouTube and they end up failing. Is that the same with crowdfunding? Like should a person that wants to get into crowdfunding just go onto YouTube? Are there courses? How do they get to know more about it?
Khierstyn 18:43
Like anything? People online like, gurus will put free information out there but they won’t give you their best stuff. They’ll just give you enough to make you think you need to know more so you can buy stuff. That’s the consulting. That’s just what happens, right? So I think that if you are like if you have experience in digital marketing, and you’ve built brands before, and you’ve, you’ve built a seven figure company, and you’re like, Alright, I want to learn this Kickstarter thing. You could probably piece it together on Kickstarter on YouTube, but you’re going to be overloaded with information paralysis, because everyone says something different. Everyone has a new strategy, a different strategy that worked for them. So I think like, what’s really worked for me is I invest in coaching, I invest in courses and I go all in on someone system that I resonate with, like, if I want to build a consulting business, I will find a consultant online that has like the system, the best results, and I do everything that he says that I need to do, right and I think that you get what you pay for on YouTube. I think there’s enough to piece together a successful campaign if you’re looking at raising under 50K. But I think that if you’re looking at doing this right, you’re looking at raising a whole bunch more money and you’re looking at saving time and getting the blueprint that works so that you don’t have to figure it out yourself. I think there’s a lot of value in paying for coaching.
Norman 20:19
Got it? I agree. 100%. Yeah. So if people are going to start out, what platforms do you recommend? I know, Kickstarter is the big one. But are there any others?
Khierstyn 20:31
Yeah, there are a ton. So the top two that I deal with are Indiegogo and Kickstarter, just because they have the audience and the social proof and they’ve been around the longest. There are a lot of other niche crowdfunding websites that for example, like Indiegogo, and Kickstarter, they cater to all sorts of projects, right? They’re like the Amazon of crowdfunding, you’ll find all sorts of stuff up there, from tech, to children’s books to whatever to food products, but because your success comes down to being able to find like getting your product in front of the niche that you’re selling to. There have been a lot of other crowdfunding sites that have come up that cater specifically to those niches. So you might say like, there’s, I’m not too familiar with them, but they are okay, I’m launching a food product. So there’s a platform specifically, that foodies follow that crowd funds for food based products, or there are crowdfunding campaigns that are crafting sites that support women crowdfunding platforms, there are like all different sorts of niche crowdfunding sites and I think that those ones are great too, because for smaller campaigns, if you’re only looking at raising like, again, zero to 60,000 for something. I think like getting into those niche sites, those platforms will really help you a lot more than say like a huge Kickstarter or Indiegogo. But I think that if your product, if you’re trying to go big with your launch or trying to go big to the masses, I’m still a big believer in the tried and true until we have proven that Kickstarter is kind of priced itself out of the game, which I think it’s pretty close to doing. So. I’m more of a fan of Indiegogo, that is my platform that I typically recommend.
Norman 22:20
Can we dig a little bit deeper on these niches? Are there any specific niches or better niches that people should look at? Or are there some that just are terrible?
Khierstyn 22:31
It’s less about the niche and more about the product. So I think that you can be successful in any niche, but you can’t be successful with every product. So how do you know you’re selling the right product? You have to go after like, what is the pain point that your product solves in somebody’s life?
Norman 22:51
Okay, yeah.
Khierstyn 22:52
So any good product that you can create a brand around is going to be, you have to be able to build off an emotional. So for example, of course it put it away. If you have a planner, there’s a difference between like a notebook and just a basic notebook versus a planner that specifically helps take you to a certain target. So I worked with a company called the monk manual, which is a 90 day quarterly planner that helps you bring more gratitude, more peaceful being into your life, and they do that through their system in the planner. So what the monk manual allows is for you to have more peaceful being and purposeful doing in your life, okay, and their system does that. I’m gonna pay $50 for that over just a basic notebook that has nothing in it because what the monk manual gives me is so much more. It’s like a guided system to help me achieve what I want in my life. Okay, because really that’s that’s where premium pricing comes in. Like if you want to differentiate your product, it comes down to being able to communicate how your product makes someone’s life better. What pain point doesn’t solve, because someone’s gonna pay a lot of money to solve that specific pain. Think hemorrhoid cream, think like foot fungus, think of what detriment that has on somebody’s life and if you can effectively communicate how not having your product is going to keep their problem festering in their life like, what do you know more about its foot cream, right? That’s what your product was?
Norman 24:35
Yeah, toe wart remover. How’s that?
Khierstyn 24:42
So I watched a YouTube video, this may or may not be relevant, but I watched a YouTube video where she’s like the foot doctor and she sees some of the worst foot problems and fungus and smell and seeing these people come in, they are so embarrassed. They have no confidence. And all of their worth comes down to this problem on their foot. So you’re gonna sell toe wart remover, fungus, or toe wart remover all day, if you can communicate how your product is going to significantly impact their quality of life and here’s exactly how that does that. So, if you want to know the secret sauce between having a commodity, like your, just an elastic band versus an elastic band you could charge, that’s probably terrible, whatever but an elastic band you could charge like $30 for you have to be able to identify specifically the pain point and the transformation that someone gets by using your product. When you do that, you have the recipe to be able to charge a lot of money, a lot more than the competition for just a commoditized product.
Norman 25:52
The other thing that I like about the crowdfunding system is its perceived value, right? You were just talking about this journey, this monk’s journal well imagine the packaging and that whole customer experience. People say customer journey now it’s, I’m old school, it’s customer experience. They open that up, and hey, it’s a $50 something on Amazon might be going for 13.99. You’re competing against a Chinese manufacturer, and just by packaging it up properly and putting it on the page, you can get that 50 bucks and in advance. Well, not in advance, once the campaign is over.
Khierstyn 26:32
Yeah, I mean, like, take a monk manual. I have it. I found it! I have extras, not an affiliate, but I’m just obsessed with it.
Norman 26:41
Hold it. I’ve got the toe wart remover. You know, I don’t.
Khierstyn 26:45
Unsponsored products. But essentially like, this monk manual, this is not open, but they worked with us to raise. Don’t go on Kickstarter, and they came to us about six weeks before and we’re like, we have a list of three hundred people. We have a goal of 50K, we need help and I was like, Alright, so anyway, we work together and they ended up six weeks later raising about 72,000 on Kickstarter with 1800 backers, and their campaign did so well, they were in backorder on their Shopify store for two months after that and now just like they’re growing really, really well organically after Kickstarter, and again, if they had just put this on Amazon, it’s harder to build that perceived value argument because you don’t have like, Oh, we’ve been featured on or big customer testimonials, or the perceived value of just the brand through association with Kickstarter, right, like those come with time off of Kickstarter, but you get that, like immediately with the right product.
Norman 27:50
Okay, we just another couple of shout outs out to Sarah and Angela, thanks for tuning in and oh, we got it and we do have a question from Angela. So, this is my hard part because I’m an old guy, and I’m trying to read this on the screen because it is big. So my target is pregnant moms and moms, what crowdfunding would you recommend? Should I also use Facebook and IG ads?
Khierstyn 28:17
Yeah, so that’s tough. My target is pregnant moms. Okay. So, because your sales cycle is so small by the time you get the product and ship the product if moms can only do this while they’re pregnant, I think your window is really small. So for you to do a crowdfunding campaign, I would recommend that you have a product in hand, so that when you do the marketing campaign, you are able to ship the product out to pregnant moms immediately. Otherwise, they’re not going to be able to use the product. We worked with series chill on Indiegogo which is a Breast milk chiller that allows you to keep your milk cool while you’re on the go and we ran into this problem with it where Indiegogo helped a little bit and it was great to get it up but the issue Oh, sorry, Angela. Okay, newborns and three years old. All right. So in that case, I do think Indiegogo would be great for you because Indiegogo has more of the female demographic and series shows we did do on Indiegogo and there were like, quite a bit of perks from that so.
Norman 29:32
That’s interesting what you were talking about.
Norman 29:37
Are there specific platforms that are better to go to like Indiegogo over crowdfunding or over Kickstarter for a niche like this? Because it has more of a woman’s demographic. I know with social media, let’s say Pinterest. Yeah, no, that’s women. Yeah and you get the highest average order value out of Pinterest. So that’s a little known or I don’t know, that might be a little known fact. Maybe it’s a big known fact. But are there demographics between Kickstarter and Indiegogo?
Khierstyn 30:14
Yeah, so there’s definitely like, Indiegogo right now has a larger female demographic, not by much like where Kickstarter may be like 40, 60. Indiegogo is 70,30. Sorry, does that make sense? There’s like 10% were women on Indiegogo than there are on Kickstarter. Okay. In saying that, I wouldn’t choose the platform based on demographics. I would choose it on your product. So for example, if you are doing anything creative, so publishing, or board games, anything like that, Kickstarter is really clamping down on being able to focus on those kinds of products or anything creative, anything design wise and design can be anything under the sun, anything that like, it can be S’well. S’well is like a great example of a design product because it’s functional and aesthetically pleasing. So that’s kind of Kickstarter for you. Indiegogo is more of the tech side. So if you have hardware, if you have anything tech related Indiegogo really, especially with their arrow certification program, like they are the platform to go for that. If you’re kind of in the middle, I would be choosing the platform based on either track record for sales for what similar products have done, have they done better on Kickstarter or Indiegogo? If you still don’t know, I think from a sales perspective, you’re going to get more love, more attention, and more sales from the Indiegogo community because there is less competition on that website.
Norman 31:53
I’ve got a question that I know could stretch out for another podcast for sure. But if you could just kind of bullet point this. So if you could take me just basically through the stages of crowdfunding and how and when do I start the campaign?
Khierstyn 32:10
Right? So let’s say hypothetically, how would you start the campaign? Okay? So, depending on your budget, depending on a lot of stuff, but my average timeline that I like to look at is about two to three months lead up. So if you want to launch a crowdfunding campaign and say October, hold on, where are we? August, September, October. So hypothetically, you want to launch a campaign, mid end of October. What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna start marketing now, and you have like a two to three month build up where you’re building your email list, okay? Then your crowdfunding campaign will last on average 35 days. So we’ll say from middle, October 15, you launch and then November 15, you’re done. Then after that point what happens is Kickstarter will take about two to three weeks to transfer the money to your account and then that’s when you start fulfilling. So if we’ll say the campaign ends November 15, by December one money’s in the bank, you put in the inventory order in December one and when that happens, you’re gonna start shipping products out, say two to four months out from that depending on your relationship with the manufacturer and then so hypothetically, we say okay, so December one you put in the order, January, February, March, all product is fulfilled right? When the product gets fulfilled, right at that time frame, you’re now planning your Amazon launch and you’re getting on Amazon two to three weeks after that by using your email list, your customer base, your reviews, to then launch strong on Amazon and you scale from there. Just typically like a start to finish like a six month from okay building my audience to Kickstarter to Amazon.
Norman 33:59
All right. Okay, so let’s see. I’m just trying to think of something that’s not going to take up another hour. But anyway, I do want you to come back too, and we can just kind of go through it. Oh, yeah, I remember what I’m going to say. The cost. What does Kickstarter get out of this?
Khierstyn 34:21
Yeah, so Kickstarter has the highest fees. Both Indiegogo and Kickstarter will take a 5% platform fee. So it’s like matchmaking. So every dollar you raise, they take 5% and then Kickstarter takes between three to 5% for payment processing fees and then Indiegogo round the two to 4% mark.
Norman 34:44
That’s nothing.
Norman 34:46
Oh, that’s, that’s great. Yeah. Okay. The other thing that we were talking about, I guess a person, they really do want to make sure that they stand out of the crowd. Some people try to do it themselves. What do you think about going to a product development company to look and it’s gonna be more expensive but a product development company to work on your product, rather than doing it yourself? I already know the answer.
Khierstyn 35:13
When you say product, do you mean like a marketing agency? Or do you mean like an engineering firm?
Norman 35:19
Yes, an engineering firm. So take that plastic shoe stretcher and now make it into some work of art.
Khierstyn 35:26
So I think that unless you are on a budget, and you have a mechanical engineering background, I wouldn’t be touching that. Because like, there’s just, I think going to a product design firm, is what I would do. Because what you’re getting is years of industry experience, that’s going to help you with the customer experience and a lot of factors that even if you’re good at building a basic prototype, there’s so many things that you’re going to just miss that are going to cost you later. So I think today to do it right, unless it’s a journal or something basic, I do think you should use a company like Jamba or another design firm.
Norman 36:09
Yeah, they’re great. By the way, yeah. Okay, we got one more question that came in. What strategy do you recommend to build a quality email list?
Khierstyn 36:20
Yeah. So in terms of building a quality email list, again, depending on your budget and your goals, there are two methods I like to work with. I like to do a mix of organic and a mix of paid. So paid is Facebook and Instagram advertising, driving people to a landing page, get them to opt into an email list. Okay. The organic is essentially anything you don’t have to pay for. That’s going out and talking to your market. It’s getting involved with communities. It’s doing direct outreach. It’s partnering up with influencers, to do giveaway contests, it’s getting on podcasts like this. It’s anything that you can do to get your brand out there. In a way that you don’t have to pay for. So those are two ways that I like to use.
Norman 37:05
Right. Is there anything else? We’re gonna pretty much cut it off right now. But is there anything else that you’d like to add something important?
Khierstyn 37:16
Yeah, I think that people don’t take the time to talk to their market. If you’re developing a product, it’s most likely because you had a problem in your life and you’re solving it, right. People make the horrible mistake of assuming that they know their market and they know their customer, and you’re going to be wrong 80-90% of the time. So you really have to take the time to go out and talk to your market one on one and get to understand them so you could speak their language. People don’t spend enough time doing that and it costs them a lot of money when they go to Facebook ads, trying to scale bad assumptions and they wonder why they lose a bunch of money or why they launch a product and the messaging doesn’t land.
Norman 38:00
Right. So we’ve touched a lot of different topics today and I’d really love it. If you could come back, fingers crossed. Just give me a wave and that would be good. All right, we’ve got her in. Anyway, thank you so much for being on Lunch With Norm today. How do people get a hold of you?
Khierstyn 38:21
Yeah, so I have a lot going on YouTube channel, two podcasts on the topic. The best place I would go is my website because that is kind of the hub for everything. You can book a call with me in the team, that sort of thing. So the best thing to do is go to my website, which is is there a way to type this on?
Norman 38:44
Here, Kelsey is going to be typing.
Khierstyn 38:47
My website is my first name. So it’s Khierstyn.com
Norman 38:57
That’s pretty simple. There we go.
Kelsey 39:01
Oh, sorry. We do have one more question. Someone was asking about a resource or a coach recommendation. Do you have any?
Khierstyn 39:10
Yeah, depends what you’re working on. Assuming it’s the Amazon seller community. I mean, me. So, there’s a lot of other gurus out there. I tend to be a fan favorite when it comes to Amazon sellers. Not that that sounds so egotistical, whatever, but that’s what I would say and if you’re looking to raise money for films or board games, specifically, I would link you up with Justin Gettings at the Kickstarterguy.com.
Norman 39:38
Oh, fantastic and yes, I can absolutely 100% vouch for you, actually, Tim Jordan was on here. Still don’t know if he’s on. But you’ve got a great reputation in the business. You are a product launch expert. So once again, I really thank you for coming on and helping everybody out today.
Khierstyn 40:01
Yeah. Thanks so much, guys and feel free to get in contact if you haven’t yet or any other questions that come up.
Norman 40:06
All right. Well, I hope everybody enjoyed the Facebook Live. Oh and YouTube live today. Kelsey, what do people got to do?
Kelsey 40:16
Follow us on social media via Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, even TikTok. So, yeah, just search Norman Ferrar and you should probably be able to find us.
Norman 40:28
Remember, we have Lunch With Norm every Thursday at noon Eastern Standard Time. So until next time, thank you for watching and we’ll see you then.
Norman 40:41
Almost.
Khierstyn 40:42
Tuesday at noon, not Thursday.
