Daly - The crowdsourceress: get smart, get funded, and kickstart your next big idea

T he two most common questions I get when Im sitting on a panel or giving a talk about crowdfunding are How do you do it? and How can I do it too? No one wants to hear statistics, theories, or one-size-fits-all advice, and I dont blame them. People want real guidance, real stories from the trenches, and real takeaways. People have ideaswhether its a brilliant new tech product, a powerful documentary, or a gorgeous piece of designand they want to know how to capture the attention of the crowd and convince complete strangers to fund their dreams.

Ive raised over $20 million (and counting) for clients crowdfunding campaigns around the world, and I have a lot to share. My clients pay me a considerable amount of money for my guidance and expertise, but Im giving away all my best advice in these pages. Why? Well, crowdfunding has given me a lotmy career, my company, my sense of purpose, and the amazing experience of an entire community getting behind what youre doing. I love the egalitarianism of crowdfundingI love that its available to all, and not just the privileged few. I want to give back to the crowdfunding community that has given me so much. Thats why Im here. So hi! Welcome. Lets get started.

Since I first started managing crowdfunding campaigns as a freelancer in 2012, and after launching my company, Vann Alexandra, in 2014, Ive worked on an incredible range of projects. I spent my early days funding documentaries, and now Ive grown a business that runs major campaigns of all kinds around the world.

So heres how it works: Clients come to us with an idea, and we build and manage the entire crowdfunding campaign for them from beginning to endfrom copywriting, pitching press, developing an influencer strategy, and managing the video production to donor engagement, design strategy, messaging, email marketing, and all the day-to-day communication and handling of ongoing details. Some of my projects involve big namesDr. Maya Angelou, TLC, Neil Young, Joan Didionwhile many others come from everyday people with great ideas. One of my recent campaigns was to reissue an out-of-print NASA Graphics Standards Manual by two twentysomething graphic designers. It raised just shy of $1 million.

Im here to tell you with complete confidence that there are thousands of people out there who are eager to put money toward projects they believe in. In 2015 alone, the global rewards and donation-based crowdfunding industry helped generate a staggering $5.5 billion in fundingnot a penny of which will ever have to be paid back.

But before you get the idea that crowdfunding is basically money for nothingor that its easy to raise money onlinethink again. The harsh reality is that the majority of crowdfunding campaigns fail. Just look at one of the most successful rewards-based crowdfunding platforms in the world, Kickstarter. As I write this, there are more than 4,000 live campaigns; statistically less than 40 percent of them are likely to meet their goals. And recent research reveals that those success rates will continue to decline as the market grows. Plus, failing on Kickstarter means failing hardif you fall short of your goal by the deadline, you wont see any of the money youve raised, and you might actually tarnish your shiny idea. Launching a crowdfunding campaign is very public. If it fails, your backers might be gun-shy about giving you another chance.

The truth is, if you want to fund your idea, youll need to be prepared to invest blood, sweat, tears, hundreds of hours, and a ton of strategizing to ensure your campaign succeeds.

The good news is this: if I can be successful at crowdfunding, so can you. These days, Im known as The Crowdsourceress because of my extremely high success rateI have some of the most successful (and some of the most famous) campaigns under my belt. But back when I first started, I was pretty much clueless. The first time someone asked me to help with a project, I had to Google Kickstarter to find out what it was. But I learned on the job, figuring things out as I went along. At first I saw crowdfunding simply as a sideline gig, something I did in my spare time. It wasnt like I had a guidance counselor at college telling me I was perfectly suited to the role of crowdfunding campaign manager. It took people continually asking me to run their campaigns before I began to think, Well, maybe this is a thing I can really do. In time, crowdfunding became my full-time occupation, and I eventually realized I could make it my lifes work.

Crowdfunding brings out the entrepreneurial spirit in people. I think that entrepreneurship is something thats partly innate but can also definitely be cultivated, whether its the influence of our parents when were young, or from random people and events that come into our lives along the way. In my case, it was a little bit of each.

I grew up in Miami in the 80s and 90s. My dad owned a company that created antimoney laundering software for banks and financial institutions, and my mom owned a company that did marketing for radio and television stations. I remember going to my moms office almost every day after school with my older brother and doing my homework in the conference room, surrounded by ringing phones, meetings in progress, and the controlled chaos of people working hard toward production deadlines. Looking back, I know I absorbed some of my parents entrepreneurial drive. Its worth noting that I am extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from my parents. Not everyone gets that chance. Ultimately, what I really learned from my parents was the value of hard work. When my parents met, they had nothing; they built their companies from scratch. A big part of running a successful business is the head-down work involvedalso a critical component of a successful crowdfunding campaign.