Dave shows some of the email from "Kickstarter Vultures" he got.
Every success crowdfunding campaign will get inundated with emails from companies that are spamming their marketing, fulfillment and manufacturing services etc.
Beware of the scammers!
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Every success crowdfunding campaign will get inundated with emails from companies that are spamming their marketing, fulfillment and manufacturing services etc.
Beware of the scammers!
Forum: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/eevblab/eevblab-43-kickstarter-vultures/'>http://www.eevblog.com/forum/eevblab/eevblab-43-kickstarter-vultures/
EEVblog Main Web Site: http://www.eevblog.com
The 2nd EEVblog Channel: http://www.youtube.com/EEVblog2
Support the EEVblog through Patreon!
http://www.patreon.com/eevblog
Donate With Bitcoin & Other Crypto Currencies!
https://www.eevblog.com/crypto-currency/
EEVblog Amazon Store (Dave gets a cut):
http://astore.amazon.com/eevblogstore-20
T-Shirts: http://teespring.com/stores/eevblog
๐ Likecoin โ Coins for Likes: https://likecoin.pro/ @eevblog/dil9/hcq3
Hi just wanted to do a video showing you what happens when you run a successful Kickstarter campaign now I may have actually done this once before I'm not sure when I did my microcurrent one I got a similar response, but because I just ran quite a successful Kickstarter campaign it raised I had two thousand, two hundred and ninety six backers raised six hundred and forty four thousand ozzie bucks which I haven't got yet. By the way, it takes two weeks for the money to actually come through after the campaign ends because they've got to verify all the charges. People get charges right when the campaign ends on their credit card and then it sits in Kickstarter's coffers for two weeks apparently. So yeah, that's a good little game, even it.
um, it's so it's supposed to come through tomorrow anyway. I've made purchase orders in anticipation that money coming through I hope it does otherwise I'm in deep trouble. Anyway, what happens when you run a successful Kickstarter campaign is almost immediately that it starts to get. It might even happen to like unsuccessful like like campaigns they get bugger-all exposure, but it tends to happen more to your real successful Kickstarter campaigns is that you get emails your non dated with emails from what I like to call Kickstarter vultures and I've actually set up an auto filter to have these I go into my gmail here and I thought I'd actually go through and show you some of these I'm not gonna hide any.
you know people's names or email company names or anything like that because you may need Kickstarter Actually warn you as a campaign creator against these. They'll send you out a email warning you against scammers and things like that that will try and contact you and just to be wary now. I'm not saying that, not implying that any of the companies here that if email me are in any way are scammers there. Most of them or almost all of them will not be.
They are legitimate. or they look like legitimate businesses that just want to offer you products and services that hey, you may need. As someone who set up a Kickstarter and you didn't really know what you're doing, you don't know how you're going to get it manufactured. You don't know how you're going to get a fulfilled.
Fulfillment is probably the biggest headache of all. I've just been dealing with fulfillment for the last couple of weeks and it is a pain in the butt. Let me tell you. especially Europe Thanks Europe all the EU rules and everything else.
Anyway, Fulfillment Manufacturing, You know the logistics and all that behind it advertising. You know, like marketing stuff like that. which is why they'll contact you while your campaign is active. because look, we can promise you anyway.
I'll rather than do it I'll just show you some of these I'm not in any particular order I Basically replied the very: I don't reply to them I've just got them here I probably got more than what's here I think I deleted some, some didn't get auto, they I may not have labeled them right or whatever and a lot of them will actually be quite proactive there. A lot of them will actually contact you via LinkedIn They'll go to the effort to find out here you are cuz as far as I know, my LinkedIn profile is not included in my Kickstarter thing anywhere. So they have to actually go to my website or go to research my name, do whatever and they'll contact you through LinkedIn and other places. So they do I some of them actually. well almost all of them have no I clue. No clue what my product is a multimeter right? But a lot of them actually they're genuine. like they actually do research you who you are and what. Maybe even if they don't understand what their product is though you know they are quite our personal as opposed to regular just bulk spam email so it's rather interesting.
Let's go in and and some of them will contact you multiple times. Like here's one. Oh yes, I will get contacted by IndieGoGo and said I've seen you this is from IndieGoGo right? I've seen you on IndieGoGo Would you like seen you on Kickstarter Would you like to join IndieGoGo in demand You'll get campaign has finished at this point. Hundreds of blah blah checkout examples here, blah blah and then they email you again and again and again.
What The follow-up regarding in the Yo-yo on Demand and they'll keep you know, keep pestering you four times. They're the crowdfunding's let's have a look. One of the more common things is you'll get cross collaboration with other in Kickstarter campaigns or you may have seen this where you're following a Kickstarter campaign and then you might get email earlier back in a Kickstarter campaign. you might get emailed from the campaign owner saying hey, check this out Weesa and try and support this Kickstarter campaign.
It's probably because we've got wrap like we've got an email like this: Hey, where the Sun Rise Smart Pillow Team! The world's most back smart pillow in history. Whoop-dee-doo What's a freakin' smart pillow anyway? God Unbelievable. And where are we now blowing pledges? La backers? Yeah, good on you. Yeah, you're an A successful campaign.
Let us know if you've clicked through out what form, cross promoting and all sorts of like they just spam other kickstart campaign owners that you know you want to cross-promote It's just really. Anyway, it might be valuable. like if you need exposure and stuff like that. I'm not saying all like the any of these things are particularly bad, but this is what you get inundated with Pledge Management software.
Crowd Ox Pledge Management allows you allow you to project and send more dynamic surveys. Increase your funding because the Kickstarter survey system sucks. It really does. I Can't believe that.
Kickstarter I really have not. They basically haven't improved a single thing since I used it a couple of years back. How many years ago was the microcurrent one? Two or three years ago? they haven't improved anything. It's just absolutely ridiculous. I've been tweeting out various things I can create I can allow other people to manage my campaign, but then those people who manage the campaign even reply to people's messages I can't even reply to individual messages. It's totally really kick starter system is hopeless. Anyway, they there's various companies that will you know, pledge management software, whatever it is, and if you go to a lot of the fulfillment centers, they will. One of the first things I'll show is Oh what software are you using to manage your campaign? Because apparently there's like these sort of industry standard software packages that allow you to common ones that allow you to manage your campaigns and your you know people's names, addresses the logistics of the whole thing.
and I Scott over just go CSV spreadsheet you know on the same. Oh really? Okay, that's fine, but they just assume that you're using some sort of management software anyway. Uh, crowd funding podcast interview requests. Do I want to be on the Fuzzy Weasel? fuzzy Wenzel Podcast I Like yeah, it's probably a paid thing if you engage them though.
that's this. My spidey sense tells me it's like a oh yeah, pay us some money and we'll have you on our podcaster follow-up I Just wanted to follow up and Hiya Dave Crowd Ox again. Geez, Congratulations on your Kickstarter success. Good! There's ago there's someone who's contacted me from via LinkedIn um the easy post or whatever.
Yeah, we can send you stuff cheap so there's like integrated fulfillment services. You know, just we'll handle everything. That's one of the common ones where some of the Marquee keep up the momentum. The Crowdfunding: Center Your campaign.
What What you're struggling with In if you're struggling low, get more backers with campaign boost. You can boost it. You can pay to boost your campaign. inspirational other campaigns.
What the hell? I Don't know I Don't even read any of this crap I Can't help falling in love with the eevblog multimeter and I found you and the product looks absolutely fantastic. Where I can find more information: Have you advertised to YouTube Vlog channels? Have you ever ties? have you advertised? Chinglish Have you advertise the eevblog on Youtube vlogger channels? Oh never thought of that. Dana Thank you very much I'll contact you immediately and engage you to promote my campaign on YouTube Channels the interested in a press release. We've got special pricing on them.
199 bucks. What's this Press release? Crowd Crowd Fund P I Managed to get funded, get staffed. Yeah, they'll probably do what. Like these companies as I said, don't necessarily scams, but whether or not you get good value, especially from marketing and stuff Like that, I mean I Didn't need marketing from my campaign because I've got a large established audience. But if you're a you know I've been coming Kickstarter and you're struggling to get it mentioned anywhere, then you know you might have to resort to marketing. But like my general rule is never ever pay for marketing. But then again, you know I'm old-fashioned right? These warr me too. I'm a bootstrapping guy.
These will come a cetera. Blown. We go. Oh coal, there this is.
Get frumpy. Get funded. No, we're seen. Get funded.
No. Have we seen them? Yes. Get funded. Get stuff.
Did we just see them Promotion for Eevblog? We have not seen a response from their mania. We'll pay after you see results. You are over a really interesting project. Our services Bla Pro Razors, Whatever the hell.
Also, our PR base contact includes journalists who regularly cover crowdfunding projects in Tech Insider. Venture Beat The Verge Mashable Digital Trends slash Gear BuzzFeed Wow TechCrunch Oh Engage it. You can get on all these things. just give us money or give us a percentage of your Kickstarter back in and another 94 media with an audience of over 20 million per month.
and like you're just gonna get like the more Denisha your product is, the less traction you're gonna get on just anyway and that sort of stuff. Invitation to host an AMA event I am a feed do I want to promote and what? The Reddit VP Community Manager at I Am a Feed dot-com What their hell? I Don't know what I pay money for them to manage and ask me anything on Reddit or something. Hit your goal will go over if they sent it to my fan email hi this is Matt again how's your day going Great Thanks Matt Wonderful. Like crowd fun.
clicks calm. You can buy clicks yeah from some click farming freaking Cheryl Anchor or something went somewhere like that. Great yeah, you'll get good results from that way. Yeah.
wonderful. Ah, pre-orders Are you looking for pre-orders after? Kickstarter We specialize in taking pre-orders Just two percent transaction fee per order plus stripe fees. Ah get more PR for your Kickstarter diet we've seen them. Oh God Make and save Hope you have an amazing day Crowd ox get more pledges with backhoe land I Want to go to backer land and get more Where it will We say it was seen by our sixty nine thousand, Five Hundred and thirty eight super backers.
A super backer on Kickstarter with someone who's backed more than X number of campaigns I Don't know why that's for two hundred and forty nine bucks. Feature their project on our website To the super backers. We have helped more than seven Under projects meeting exceeding their funding goal. blah blah freakin' blah.
Here's what he's needed. We're gonna tell you what you need I Was about to leave a comment but he's dead I Decided to do some research. luckily I was able to find your email so we can get in touch. Thank you very much! Matt No crowd that you've already got multiple emails from them did I Yeah so you're pro god Anyway, wanting to know what you think of my business proposal I Think your business for proposal probably sucks Josh I'm loving what you guys have done with your Kickstarter I Imagine you probably started your manufacturing process bla morph manufacturing area making supply chains perfect bla bla bla bla bla Just keep saying them emailing thank you very much. Can I talk to the eevblog guy hoping to connect? We are. you are killing it on Kickstarter Surpassed your first campaign in two days. Excellent. Wanted to chat with you.
See about working together by funded today I Know you have a large following I'm pretty sure I'm sure plenty more in there so we can put together better fits your campaign. Try to really push the dollars. What client specialists? What do they do? Funded today? No. I'm not gonna click a funded dot today.
domain name couldn't afford funding you couldn't get funded. com Geez Unbelievable. Any a plastic mold design process see some of these might be useful. It's like you know you need some plastic molds or something done and I'm getting contacted by procedure someone in Shenzhen yeah Shenzhen in China You know like you might need these things, so some of these services might actually be valuable As I said in terms of logistics or in terms of you know, manufacturing or stuff like that.
But if you've started your Kickstarter and you have no idea about how to get your product manufactured and at least you know the basics of logistics and things like that, if you didn't have that lined up beforehand, you, you really should not be running a Kickstarter So this is integrated fulfilment. Last, spread the word. God Spread the BS and convert crowd. CRO docks.
What are they Docs people. The conversion rate of up cells, completion of the server happiness of backers blow. Whatever a blow, you've got a Youtube video crowd ox again. Bloody hell.
Anyway, also, you might get contacted by companies that claim to sell you email spam lists like a lack of previous backers. or maybe these super backers or whatever. You know, they harvest the emails from other campaigns or whatnot. Or apparently some campaign owners like me, but not me.
I will actually sell their list because after you campaign ends, you might get offers. Do you want to sell your campaign lists and things like that? Don't do it please for the good of the community. Just don't sell your campaign lists because then you go anyway. You can buy them of these backers and then you can spam the backers of previous projects with your project and it's just unbelievable.
Anyway, you get inundated with this sort of stuff and when you run a successful Kickstarter campaign as I said, some might be useful to you, some not. Maybe a few of them are outright scams. like any. I Think anything that involves marketing is probably like they could be scams or just simply completely ineffectual. You know, don't go blowing your money on marketing unless you're absolutely sure that you're what you're taught there, what market they're actually targeting and the mass appeal of your product to that particular target market. So yeah, it's just anyway. you get tons of this sort of stuff. invitation to D to global brands and well I don't even Awards have won a total and like a Skype man they always want Skype meetings.
You know that they always say I did like waiting it. please tell me a convenient time that we can Skype and I'll tell you all about it. You know I can sister company refresh it? What some of the biggest brands in the world that Alexis Disney McDonald's what? what? I don't give a you keep like this but what market he knew why you? you're a some marketing come I don't even get it. it's just ridiculous.
Anyway, there you have it. Kickstarter vultures. they're just way just get inundated with this stuff. So I hope you found that amusing and/or interesting to see what happens when you run a successful Kickstarter Anyway, catch you next time.
The smart pillow is the perfect resting place for the eevblog multimeter
Noting "amafeed" isn't part of Reddit, and her email address was on gmail. Yeah.
Just sent a flag on that campaign hope that will help.
She says it's "The world's most backed Smart Pillow in History". I wonder how many Smart Pillows there have been, in history?
On your spam list I noticed that "Dave Business" found you reprehensible!! What is up with that???
Fly thunderf00t to your lab, have a calab together…
Wait, he likes to blow shit up, you like to be aussie….
Let's keep you both far away from each other, 2 smart people that like to test the boundries of science is not a smart thing
Ooh sheet! I would have bought one if i knew! Should have been on your channel a little more haha.
Any cross-campaign email from Batteroo? I heard they were quite successful ๐
"Get Funded. Get….. stuffed!!
send them my skype dave. ill record it. giggles
Idk if you do respond to fanmail to your gmail account, but if you do, do people ever try and lure you into a conversation to sell their wares to you?
Dave: Just press the spam button. It reduces it a lot.
Kickstarter Vultures…? Says the guy who uses a crowd funding platform to "launch" his fully funded commercial product.
Reddit AMA is a real thing that mostly features well-known, established celebrities; Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and Lauren Faust's AMAs are moderately entertaining.
There's also the occasional AMA by some random Redditor about a particular niche interest (usually NSFW)…
recruiters also want to talk on the phone/skype all the time. I don't understand why, just send me a job description, salary range and benefits and I can tell you within 5 seconds if I am interested or not. Even worse are the recruiters who call you at your workplace.
Wouldn't anyone doing a crowdfunding campaign have marketing sorted before launching their project?
Pledge managers are actually more for pledges that have a bunch of upgrades available – some kickstarters offer a basic pledge and then a ton of addons, and for those, in general you need a pledge manager like Pledge Manager or CrowdOx to, well, manage them. Basically backers back the project, and then they add in some amount for the addons they want. But users are stupid and can't do math, half the time, so they may pledge $100 for the item and $10 for item A, $20 for item B and $15 for item C, and then back you for $130 or so. Or maybe you offer a ton of addons later as it gets more popular, but then all the backers need to adjust pledges. (This is doubly so if you have early bird pledges). So you then need a form where users can manage the addons, and often times, they want to buy more and thus you need to handle payment as well. If it's a simple basic item + one addon, sure, you can handle it yourself with a Paypal account, but sometimes it's complex and people want a mish-mash of items, and that's where a pledge manager comes into play where the additional shipping, charges, etc can be handled. And of course, you get breakdowns – how many people want item A, how many people want B, etc. so you can manufacture the right quantities, plus a fulfillment list that lists what each backer wants (split up in many ways – often times you may have split shipping where the base item ships first, then addons ship afterwards).
For example, if you take your kickstarter, then had offers to add on additional probes, cases, cables and other things, you would probably get inundated with handling everyone's options, so you'd turn to a pledge manager for that. (It also allows backers to change their mind – perhaps they wanted more probes at the beginning, but then wanted a case).
IndieGoGo is awful – they charge you immediately and then refund you. If you're international, that means if the project is unsuccessful, you lose about 10% of your pledge in transaction and conversion fees plus whatever the currency fluctuations happened between now and then.
Fulfillment centers are useful for international – there are plenty to offer "EU Friendly", "Canada Friendly" and other such options where backers can get your items without getting trumped by taxes. This is a recent development, and a good one. Bigger campaigns have noted upticks in international backing when they offer EU/Canada/US/etc friendly shipping options – lowered shipping costs plus handling all the customs and duties at once versus dinging backers another 30% at the doorstep.
The more you can do yourself at producing and selling a product, the better off you'll be.
Probably better to do 30 minutes of research to find an honest marketing or engineering firm then to give money to these spammers.
Dave you are hopeless. GET TO THE POINT.
How much will these multimeters be running for? Perhaps you've mentioned before, but in that case, I missed it.
I've done two Kickstarters, and both of those have been fully fulfilled by me, and I still get emails from people claiming they are a fulfillment center and want to help out with mine. My Kickstarters are over!
I would like "things that piss me off" for 500"
Hi, I'm Dana (27 yo) and I'm in love with a frakking multimeter! :^)
I've received that AMA email as well, I think it's just something they spam to linked in users. I have a linked in account but don't even really use it. Definitely don't have a kickstarter ๐
there is similar problem with science publication and conferences. Release one article or attend one international conference and you will be flooded with stupid emails with invitation for meetings completely out of your field or publication demands… its quite annoying :<