Course Description
During its first campaign, the “Coolest” cooler never reached its funding goal. After the founder retooled his approach and launched a second campaign, the “Coolest” went on to become the most-funded crowdfunding project of all time.
Many hardware entrepreneurs make the mistake of assuming that a killer product will essentially sell itself. The truth is, without the proper preparation and optimization crowdfunding campaigns may never get off the ground, no matter how awesome the product is.
This course takes a look at what makes a successful hardware crowdfunding campaign and how to accomplish the same. Through exclusive interviews with multiple hardware entrepreneurs who have each raised more than $500K through crowdfunding, you will learn how these founders exceeded their goals by an order of magnitude.
The course is taught through a mix of interviews, instructional videos and slide decks. There are no assessments during the course and you are not required to use any outside materials or programs. You will benefit from over 7 hours of course content.
There is nothing more exciting than watching all of your hard work come to fruition as your crowdfunding campaign rockets past your goal within a few days, hours, or even minutes. Be one of those entrepreneurs who gets everything right on their first try: learn how to Hack the Crowd.
What are the requirements?
No prior experience or additional materials are necessary.
What am I going to get from this course?
Set up and manage a successful crowdfunding campaign.
What is the target audience?
This course will walk you through every step of preparing for and running your first crowdfunding campaign. This course is probably not for you if you have already successfully funded one or more crowdfunding campaigns.
| Section 1: Fundamentals | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture 1 |
Introduction
|
03:44 | |
| Lecture 2 |
Why choose crowdfunding?
|
05:31 | |
| Lecture 3 |
When? At which stage of the startup lifecycle?
|
06:19 | |
| Lecture 4 |
When? At which stage of product development?
|
06:45 | |
| Lecture 5 |
Where? On which platform?
|
12:14 | |
| Lecture 6 |
How? Action plan
|
02:50 | |
| Lecture 7 |
How much time for preparation?
|
04:08 | |
| Section 2: Action Plan | |||
| Lecture 8 |
Product checklist
|
03:12 | |
| Lecture 9 |
BOM & request for quotes – how to set your goal
|
04:09 | |
| Lecture 10 |
Pricing
|
21:02 | |
| Lecture 11 |
Target your audience
|
09:47 | |
| Lecture 12 |
Build and grow your community (the pre-campaign formula)
|
08:41 | |
| Lecture 13 |
Crowdfunding video
|
10:00 | |
| Lecture 14 |
Crowdfunding page
|
11:52 | |
| Lecture 15 |
Shipping date
|
06:00 | |
| Lecture 16 |
PR strategy
|
09:14 | |
| Lecture 17 |
How to approach journalists and create engaging content
|
09:40 | |
| Lecture 18 |
Launch day!
|
06:03 | |
| Lecture 19 |
Communication with backers
|
05:44 | |
| Lecture 20 |
Running the marathon
|
04:34 | |
| Section 3: What’s next? | |||
| Lecture 21 |
Preparation for shipping
|
06:45 | |
| Lecture 22 |
Driving traffic from your crowdfunding page to your own website
|
07:09 | |
| Lecture 23 |
Celery: how to manage your pre-orders
|
09:55 | |
| Lecture 24 |
Manufacturing
|
08:43 | |
| Lecture 25 |
Shipping
|
01:48 | |
| Lecture 26 |
Final tip
|
06:05 | |
| Section 4: Bonus: full-length interviews | |||
| Lecture 27 |
OneWheel
|
05:53 | |
| Lecture 28 |
Omate
|
08:28 | |
| Lecture 29 |
Lima
|
14:42 | |
| Lecture 30 |
FlyKly
|
05:32 | |
| Lecture 31 |
Giroptic
|
16:12 | |
| Lecture 32 |
LIX Pen
|
04:47 | |
| Lecture 33 |
Narrative
|
12:13 | |
| Lecture 34 |
Panono
|
08:03 | |
| Lecture 35 |
Rainfactory
|
20:35 | |
| Lecture 36 |
Indiegogo
|
16:30 | |
| Lecture 37 |
Celery
|
20:19 | |
| Lecture 38 |
Dragon Innovation
|
20:03 | |
| Lecture 39 |
Kickstarter
|
24:22 | |
| Lecture 40 |
Willy Braun
|
09:53 | |
Instructor Biography
Alexis Houssou, Hardware Crowdfunding Expert & Advisor
As partner and co-founder of Elephants and Ventures, Alexis has advised and invested in more than 10 successfully crowdfunded companies. From this experience, he’s become an expert at bringing great ideas to life through killer crowdfunding campaigns.
Alexis is a co-founder of Hardware Club, a community of more than 40 startups across the globe who have collectively raised more than $15M in crowdfunding.
Previously, Alexis founded several companies (first one at age 20) and worked for many years in structured equity for a leading European investment bank.
He has backed more than 50 technology projects on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
Instructor Biography
Hardware Club
The past decade has deeply revamped the hardware landscape.
Fuelled by crowdfunding platforms, new connectivity systems and lower costs, a real Hardware Revolution has taken shape. Yet transforming a company supported by early adopters into an industrial machine designed for mass-production is incredibly hard and still requires an unparalleled level of skill. Startups rarely have someone to turn to when they need to push the scaling button.
The Hardware Club wants to change this. We want to be the catalyst of the Hardware Revolution and grow the Apple(s) of tomorrow.
We’re proud to count no less than 45 amazing startups from 15 different countries. These startups have collectively raised over $15M on crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo and managed to secure more than $53M in VC funding.
Instructor Biography
Barbara Belvisi, Hardware Lover, Investor & Expert
Barbara is an expert on all things Hardware and regular speaker at tech conferences.
She is a co-founder of the Hardware Club, which has helped more than 100 founders build and scale amazing hardware companies.
Barbara is also co-founder of Elephants and Ventures, a venture boutique whose portfolio includes Prynt, Lima, ISKN, and Keecker.
She has been in the Venture Capital industry for many years and has invested in more than 15 startups.
Recently, Barbara co-authored a book on the IoT.