#Testimonial: Cleep Pro raised $21,000 on Indiegogo for the Smallest 4K Wearable Camera

The smallest wearable 4K action cam exists, and I helped the creator of Cleep Pro during the launch of this incredible product on Indiegogo.

Giulio, the creator, was not new to the crowdfunding campaign world, in fact, he had already launched a campaign some years ago, so we will see what he learned from the previous campaign and how the pre-launch phase really helped to step up.

In this testimonial, we will discover what lead Cleep Pro to reach its goal and what are the tips to learn for beginners in the crowdfunding world.

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1. TELL US ABOUT YOUR PROJECT AND YOUR CROWDFUNDING JOURNEY

We launched our first campaign in 2016, but things were pretty different from this last launch, we had different struggles. Because we design hardware products we know the most important thing is to have a working prototype to show to the crowdfunding community on Indiegogo. We started making the first sample, we record the video to show the functionality and we did a great pre-launch phase thanks to Mattia's support. The main important thing is to prepare a great pre-launch in my opinion, in fact, it is really fundamental to create a community of interested people ready to support you like we did!

2. WHY CHOOSING INDIEGOGO TO LAUNCH INSTEAD OF KICKSTARTER?

From our past experience with crowdfunding campaigns, we noticed that Indiegogo community is more passionate about tech products than the Kickstarter one, also Indiegogo helps founders in managing marketing stuff and having more exposure through emails and ads if you have a great product. Tech company take in consideration launching on Indiegogo especially for their tech community, in 2020 Indiegogo surpassed Kickstarter for money raised from tech campaigns and they also opened to Japan and China market, in fact we had a lot of japanese backers, because they really support tech products and very tech oriented.

3. TELL US ABOUT THE UNIQUENESS OF YOUR PRODUCT.

We built Cleep Pro, the smallest 4k camera in the market right now. It is unique because you can use it on your sunglasses or cap, even on your necklace. It is an action cam that records 4k footage and have a internal micro SD card to store up to 54 gb of video and photos with audio, and the main plus is that you can really wear it as you want, it is really light weight and this is the main plus because you can record from many different angles. 

4. WHAT KIND OF DIFFERENCES YOU NOTICED BETWEEN YOUR FIRST CAMPAIGN AND YOUR LAST?

A lot changed during these years in the crowdfunding market, the paid advertising was cheaper years ago and you could collect many backers with less cost, also the competitors were just a few and there were fewer products on crowdfunding platforms. With Facebook advertising, the cost per click is higher than before and it's difficult to stand out. These are the things to calculate before launching a crowdfunding campaign, it's not just putting the campaign on the platform, you have to build everything in advance.

5. WHAT YOU STRUGGLED MOST WITH?

The most difficult thing we had to struggle with was to find the right audience on Facebook, the right advertising to catch the focus of people interested in backing the product, and also build an effective email funnel to keep the backers engaged on the project. In other words, my main struggle was building the pre-launch phase. During the actual crowdfunding, the struggles were the ads and the competitors, because there were other big competitors that were spending a lot of money on paid advertising, so for our ads was difficult to stand out.

6. WHAT WAS THE KNOWLEDGE BEFORE THE FIRST CROWDFUNDING AND THE LAST ONE?

During the first launch that we did on Kickstarter, we didn't have so much knowledge, we didn't reach the goal on, so we cancelled the campaign and we launched again 6 months later on Indiegogo indemand, at the time we chose Kickstarter because we knew that it had a lot of people ready to back new projects and we launched the first campaign there. We didn’t invest in pre-launch and we prefered to invest when the campaign was live but it was not good. During the last launch, thanks to your support we really understood how to create a community, how to create a Facebook group to communicate and engage with people not just with emails. We're happy we did a great pre-launch phase before the last launch. 

7. HOW MUCH IS IMPORTANT RUNNING A PRE-LAUNCH PHASE FROM 1 TO 10?

I think 100! The pre-launch really makes the whole campaign because you can have some exposure from the platform, we had a lot of backers coming from the Indiegogo explore page, also it gives international exposure. Building the community through the pre-launch phase is basic to hit the goal in the first days because the platform will be motivated to push your campaign through the channel in order to get their fee of course.

8. HOW MUCH WAS IMPORTANT TO HAVE AN EXPERT FOLLOWING YOU THROUGH THE CAMPAIGN?

A lot, because in our case we had a lot of information, but we were not organized, your help was really important to get things done and make everything step by step. In the first stage of pre-launch it is not about the knowledge about crowdfunding, but how to implement the project step by step.

9. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?

We would have spent more money to develop more prototypes, in order to show it to influencers and YouTubers to make reviews about our product, this phase is important to build trust around the product, that would have really helped us getting more pledges. We are happy for this little goal, we’re continuing to build a community around the product, we’re working on mass production and we’re moving on with influencer marketing.

10. WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS?

We’re now working on mass production, during our campaign on Indiegogo we gathered a lot of contacts for distributors, in our case in Japan and USA, in this way we can ensure a minimum order quantity and help us low the cost of the production. That’s the reason why crowdfunding is better for newer brands instead of launching your own e-commerce. The whole crowdfunding page will help build trust in new people, because a lot people already backed the project! While in e-commerce platforms people will never know how many pieces have been sold and how many people backed the product. Crowdfunding is a good opportunity for new brands that need to get their space and credibility in the market. 

WRAPPING IT UP

This was a really great achievement for Giulio and Cleep Pro, I really wish his product will make it to the action cam mass market! It is always a great pleasure to talk about my client's achievements, it makes me so proud and that's the reason why I do this every day.

So creators, always remember to create a community of interested people around your new product, gather them and keep these people warm with special and detailed content about your new product, in order to make them want to support you and be part of your journey.

If you want to analyze and prepare your pre-launch phase to launch your first product I’ve got you covered with my crowdfunding pre-launch free e-book called ''3 steps to success on Kickstarter and Indiegogo''. 

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Ciao ciao! 

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