Rick Chen, co-founder of Pozible, gave a detailed presentation on Pozible to the muru-D family in August 2015. To date my only exposure to Pozible has been a vicarious one with this project: http://www.pozible.com/project/193751
These notes are aimed to help people get good understanding of what Rick felt were important points.
How Pozible works – overview
Now let’s drill in.
Preparation is the most important stage. If you launch prematurely you could easily blow a great idea. Plan your attack and launch well. Rick mentioned there are lots of tips on the site (http://www.pozible.com/help/i/project_guide and http://www.pozible.com/help/handbook) and of course study successful (and unsuccessful) campaigns. I’ll concentrate on what Rick spoke about rather than regurgitate those pages.
Why Pozible? Well Rick is obviously a fan, but he said that the success rate is currently 56% (http://www.pozible.com/why) which is higher than others like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Whichever you chose, it makes sense to select just one and go for it, rather than dilute your project over two or more platforms.
Rick’s other argument for Pozible is that because of its Australian focus you are more likely to get picked up in local media if your campaign is interesting enough.
Finally Rick talked up the help their support team will give you for the duration of your project.
Who is your audience? This needs to be clear before you define your project. A project targeted at SMB will be different to the same project targeted at startups. Also it helps if your audience has some sort of disposable income!
Who are you? Pozible wants you to prove your identity otherwise you cannot play. You need to be 18+ and hold legit and current photo ID, have a residential address, phone number and a bank account.
How will you get to your audience? If you have already done a successful campaign or have a list of followers from somewhere then you have a good start. But if you don’t one suggestion from Rick is to partner with an organisation that will have members that may be interested in your product. Clearly they will need motivation of some sort to care enough to pass your project on to their community.
One long term benefit over and above the project is access to the audience that shows interest in your project, even if it is not funded. If they think your current project is cool, they’ll probably like your next one as well.
Where is your target audience? Pozible is Australia-oriented but Rick claims supporters come from all over the world. At the moment Pozible is single language, but Rick mentioned that you can have English then Chinese in the description. They also accept Alipay (http://global.alipay.com/ospay/home.htm) which may be useful if that is your market.
When is the best time to launch? Will your target market be interested just before Christmas? Don’t launch the campaign until you are ready, and understand that getting ready will probably take longer than you think.
What exactly is your campaign? The description needs to be very clear and concise, essentially an elevator pitch. It also needs to fit into one of the Pozible categories: Art, Comics/Graphic Novels, Community, Design, Event, Fashion, Film, Food, Game, Music, Journalism, Performance, Photography, Technology, Video, Writing or Craft.
Don’t bother trying to launch a campaign that offers sexually explicit rewards, or other prohibited categories like drugs or firearms: Pozible will not let you.
What sort of campaign do you want: public or private? You can start private (exclusive to people who you have shared the project URL with but not listed on the Pozible site) then go public. This will allow you to give special rewards to your inner circle, then open to everyone.
Note that there is also a Subscription style of campaign – see the Pozible FAQ for more details about this.
Why should potential supporters care? What’s in it for them? What the heck are you actually trying to do? Have you made that clear?
How can you get your idea across quickly and clearly? Rick placed importance on the quality of the visuals/video so plan and execute this as well as you can. If the visual look is poor then why would your offering be any better? Rick said the average “look” time per project was 47 seconds. If you haven’t made your point by then you will lose many potential supporters.
The video should get straight to the point and be no longer than 3 minutes. The project header has only one place for a main video but you can also link to others in the body.
What rewards do supporters get? Define your initial set of rewards, remembering that these need to be the best: the early adopters need to be rewarded rather than seeing better rewards being offered to latecomers.
Rewards can be products, services, events, recognition, experiences, and bundles of these. Rick said that the more quirky and creative the better, but he did go on about tea towels for some reason!
How much should rewards be? In a world where we pay $10 for a craft beer but baulk at paying 99c for an app, your price point needs to be on the ball. You can try to ask for $100 for a t-shirt but you’ll be lucky if anyone will pay that. The more personalised the reward, the more a follower might pay.
Getting supporters involved so they can actually influence the outcome is an interesting approach, for example Tom Dickins:http://www.pozible.com/project/5939
How long should your campaign go for? At the time of writing the maximum is 60 days but Rick said 30 to 50 is normal. There is a bell curve of initial interest, a mid-project slump that always happens, then a last minute upswing when FOMO kicks in.
What payment methods will you accept? Options at the time of writing include credit cards, Stripe, Alipay and PayPal. Apparently they also supported bitcoin but no-one seemed to care so they don’t anymore!
Rick said a pledge is like a hotel reservation made on a credit card. The money is reserved but not taken until the project makes target.
How much money do you need? Draw up a detailed budget so you can calculate the sweet spot that is achievable but also nets you enough to deliver successfully. Consumers are protected by various laws so taking the money and not delivering is definitely not recommended.
Remember if you ask for $100 but only get pledged $99, no dice.
The budget should cover costs like:
That's it for the Planning stage. The next post will cover what Rick said about the later stages.
These notes are aimed to help people get good understanding of what Rick felt were important points.
How Pozible works – overview
- Prepare your campaign
- Launch your campaign
- Manage your campaign
- At the end of period if you have met or surpassed your target, you get the money less Pozible charges
- Deliver!
Now let’s drill in.
Preparation is the most important stage. If you launch prematurely you could easily blow a great idea. Plan your attack and launch well. Rick mentioned there are lots of tips on the site (http://www.pozible.com/help/i/project_guide and http://www.pozible.com/help/handbook) and of course study successful (and unsuccessful) campaigns. I’ll concentrate on what Rick spoke about rather than regurgitate those pages.
Why Pozible? Well Rick is obviously a fan, but he said that the success rate is currently 56% (http://www.pozible.com/why) which is higher than others like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Whichever you chose, it makes sense to select just one and go for it, rather than dilute your project over two or more platforms.
Rick’s other argument for Pozible is that because of its Australian focus you are more likely to get picked up in local media if your campaign is interesting enough.
Finally Rick talked up the help their support team will give you for the duration of your project.
Who is your audience? This needs to be clear before you define your project. A project targeted at SMB will be different to the same project targeted at startups. Also it helps if your audience has some sort of disposable income!
Who are you? Pozible wants you to prove your identity otherwise you cannot play. You need to be 18+ and hold legit and current photo ID, have a residential address, phone number and a bank account.
How will you get to your audience? If you have already done a successful campaign or have a list of followers from somewhere then you have a good start. But if you don’t one suggestion from Rick is to partner with an organisation that will have members that may be interested in your product. Clearly they will need motivation of some sort to care enough to pass your project on to their community.
One long term benefit over and above the project is access to the audience that shows interest in your project, even if it is not funded. If they think your current project is cool, they’ll probably like your next one as well.
Where is your target audience? Pozible is Australia-oriented but Rick claims supporters come from all over the world. At the moment Pozible is single language, but Rick mentioned that you can have English then Chinese in the description. They also accept Alipay (http://global.alipay.com/ospay/home.htm) which may be useful if that is your market.
When is the best time to launch? Will your target market be interested just before Christmas? Don’t launch the campaign until you are ready, and understand that getting ready will probably take longer than you think.
What exactly is your campaign? The description needs to be very clear and concise, essentially an elevator pitch. It also needs to fit into one of the Pozible categories: Art, Comics/Graphic Novels, Community, Design, Event, Fashion, Film, Food, Game, Music, Journalism, Performance, Photography, Technology, Video, Writing or Craft.
Don’t bother trying to launch a campaign that offers sexually explicit rewards, or other prohibited categories like drugs or firearms: Pozible will not let you.
What sort of campaign do you want: public or private? You can start private (exclusive to people who you have shared the project URL with but not listed on the Pozible site) then go public. This will allow you to give special rewards to your inner circle, then open to everyone.
Note that there is also a Subscription style of campaign – see the Pozible FAQ for more details about this.
Why should potential supporters care? What’s in it for them? What the heck are you actually trying to do? Have you made that clear?
How can you get your idea across quickly and clearly? Rick placed importance on the quality of the visuals/video so plan and execute this as well as you can. If the visual look is poor then why would your offering be any better? Rick said the average “look” time per project was 47 seconds. If you haven’t made your point by then you will lose many potential supporters.
The video should get straight to the point and be no longer than 3 minutes. The project header has only one place for a main video but you can also link to others in the body.
What rewards do supporters get? Define your initial set of rewards, remembering that these need to be the best: the early adopters need to be rewarded rather than seeing better rewards being offered to latecomers.
Rewards can be products, services, events, recognition, experiences, and bundles of these. Rick said that the more quirky and creative the better, but he did go on about tea towels for some reason!
How much should rewards be? In a world where we pay $10 for a craft beer but baulk at paying 99c for an app, your price point needs to be on the ball. You can try to ask for $100 for a t-shirt but you’ll be lucky if anyone will pay that. The more personalised the reward, the more a follower might pay.
Getting supporters involved so they can actually influence the outcome is an interesting approach, for example Tom Dickins:http://www.pozible.com/project/5939
How long should your campaign go for? At the time of writing the maximum is 60 days but Rick said 30 to 50 is normal. There is a bell curve of initial interest, a mid-project slump that always happens, then a last minute upswing when FOMO kicks in.
What payment methods will you accept? Options at the time of writing include credit cards, Stripe, Alipay and PayPal. Apparently they also supported bitcoin but no-one seemed to care so they don’t anymore!
Rick said a pledge is like a hotel reservation made on a credit card. The money is reserved but not taken until the project makes target.
How much money do you need? Draw up a detailed budget so you can calculate the sweet spot that is achievable but also nets you enough to deliver successfully. Consumers are protected by various laws so taking the money and not delivering is definitely not recommended.
Remember if you ask for $100 but only get pledged $99, no dice.
The budget should cover costs like:
- Any professional costs to prepare your campaign, like good quality photos or renders, videos, sound etc.
- The costs of creating and delivering your rewards
- A profit if you are a commercial venture, or at least costs to cover the enormous amount of time you will spend tending the project
- Contingency, for any unforeseen costs, of which there will be several no doubt
- Pozible costs. Check their site but at the time of writing these are:
- Service fee of 5%
- 2.4% of each transaction plus 30c per transaction
- If you are already registered for GST then your rewards need to include GST
That's it for the Planning stage. The next post will cover what Rick said about the later stages.