Crowdfunding a Pre-Order

Campaign on Your Own

Website

3 Things $1M+ DIY Crowdfunding Campaigns Share

Q&A

Q: What do hardware startups like Coin, Tile, August, Lockitron, and Plastc all have in common?

A: All of these startups raised $1,000,000+ on crowdfunding campaigns on their own websites. That’s right--no Kickstarter!

Before We Find Out How...

Let’s go over the ‘5 Benefits to Running Your Own Pre-Order Campaign’:1. Greater Autonomy2. Keep Your Traffic3. Fewer Fees4. Optimize Flow5. Right Branding

1. Greater Autonomy

● You’re your own boss.

● Won’t fall under the Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or

XYZ brand.

● Launching your campaign on your website

leaves you untethered.

2. Keep Your Traffic

● Instead of driving traffic to platform websites, you’ll get to keep it all to yourself.

● This will be fruitful when SEO sets in, and you can reap the sweet rewards of an awesome pagerank.

...Hells yes!

3. Fewer Fees

● When all campaign fees are accounted for, Kickstarter and Indiegogo charge between 8-10% and 7-10% respectively

● Pre-order website platforms like Celery or Shoplocketcharge 2% and 2.5% respectively, plus the transaction fee.

● For example, using Celery as the pre-order platform integrated with Stripe would mean a total fee of 4.9% plus $0.30 per transaction.

‘Coolest Cooler’ Example

If charged the maximum, ‘The Coolest’, could have paid $1,328,523 in total fees to Kickstarter and their transaction partner. Eek! The maximum total on a pre-order website like Celery (paired with Stripe) would be $669,759—chump change!

4. Optimize Flow

● You’re entirely responsible for the look and feel of your backer’s checkout experience.

● If you’re savvy and see a way to improve customer onboarding, the options are limitless.

5. The Right Branding Fit

● If your product is slightly outside of the norm, or isn’t seamlessly suited to platform branding, have no fear.

● Take for example, Lockitron. In 2012 the bluetooth enabled keyless entry lock was rejected by Kickstarter. The company went on to host their own campaign that brought in$150K in less than 24 hours, and earned $2.3M in total pre-orders.

● You can create your own brand on your own site.

3 Characteristics of $1M+ DIY Pre-Order Campaigns

1. Double I’s: Incubated and

Invested

2. Not Their First Rodeo

3. Media Love

1. Double I’s: Invested and Incubated

Did You Know…?

Startups who've received funding during or after entering a hardware incubator like Highway1, HAXLR8R, or Y Combinator, are measurably more likely than average to crowdfund independently.

Highway1

Since its 2013 inception, Highway1, has pushed 35

startups through it's program. Collectively, these

startups have raised over $26M in venture capital,

and earned 4.5M in crowdfunded dollars and

counting...

1 in 3 for Pre

● Of the 25 startups highlighted in the Highway1 portfolio, approximately one third have chosen to run pre-sale campaigns on their own sites

● Among the alumni who have chosen to do so are: Navdy, Ringly, Cue, Lagoon,Shadowman, and Palate Home.

2. Not Their First Rodeo

A noticeable factor between those who successfully

run their own pre-order campaign is experience.

This experience comes in all shapes and sizes, but

often looks like:

A. A founder who has previously run a crowdfunding campaign

B. A serial entrepreneur who’s an overall badass.

C. Someone well-known who has made a sizeable exit/sold a

company.

D. A ‘corporate bawss’ who was head of product for Amazon or

LumoLift Casestudy

A Wee Case Study: Lumolift is the second product by BodyTech. Their first product, LumoBack, earned $200k in funding during its 40 day Kickstarter debut. A year and a half later, leveraging their following and experience from LumoBack, the company decided to go it alone. Their second attempt with the crowd brought in $1.2M in backing—six times that of their first campaign.

3. Media Love

Garnering media attention

and getting into fruitful

media romances are key.

Coin

The campaign video for Coin, Y Combinator’s, sleek all-in-one credit card, has been viewed 9.7 million times. They’ve also been featured in publications like Techcrunch, BBC, CNN, Fox Business, CNBC, Bloomberg, Wired, Forbes, Time, and Entrepreneur. On the first day of their November 2013 campaign, Coin reached their $50K pre-order target in just 40 minutes—a feat only possible when you’ve championed the media.

What’s Next?

A variation of the investment, founder experience, and strong media coverage cocktail is recycled throughout those earning $1M or more in independent pre-order campaigns—the ‘big guns’ of DIY crowdfunding.

In a sense, startups like Navdy, Coin, August, and even Lumo Bodytech, represent a sort of ‘pre-order’ elite—those who can “afford” to go it alone.

Future of Pre-Orders

It’s only a matter of time before flocks of fiery entrepreneurs with

kickass products and varied backgrounds begin to carve out major

success stories in the DIY space.

Try Celery

Celery is a pre-order platform that works with companies, large and small, who are challenging the pre-order status quo! Learn more and follow us @trycelery.