Earlier this month, the company participated in Jingdong Crowdfunding and accomplished its target in just 5 hours. Its co-founder shared the experience.
Crowdfunding is the best way to publicize a brand
From the perspective of global technological innovation, crowdfunding is becoming more and more obvious for the dissemination of brands or technologies. If you can't find a suitable platform to let more people know about a high-end technology that can bring convenience to your life, the speed and efficiency of its dissemination will be low, and its value can't be well reflected.
There may be many instances where crowdfunding fails, or doesn't have the desired effect. How much money can be raised in crowdfunding, this is not important, nor is it the purpose, the main thing is to test how well the product is recognized by the market and welcomed by consumers in this way.
Our first product is a mouse, which is mainly a TO C (consumer oriented) product, users can slowly experience the function of replacing passwords with finger veins, and at the same time, users can give us feedback to improve their opinions.
Basic process
If you want to go on Jingdong Crowdfunding, first take your product and show it to them. If the product is good, they will ask you to fill out a form for the record, and then send someone to follow up and communicate various details such as product images and copy.
The team side, you need two parallel, one is the R & D production team, one is the publicity and promotion team. Responding to the Jingdong crowdfunding application form, copywriting, pictures and other publicity and promotion part, there are two weeks can be. Then it is to wait for the product side of the handboard, testing. Jingdong crowdfunding requires that you must have the product in kind to be on, and even the box will be strictly audited.
Additionally, the crowdfunding stuff must be differentiated, really something that can shine in the market, otherwise, they (Jingdong) would rather not do the project.
R&D and production
1, prioritize the supply chain
A product, when designing it, should first consider the supply chain. First, the quality and cost of the product is designed, not managed. From the beginning of the design of this product, I have to consider what kind of LED lights, what kind of microwave chips, with what kind of lens, with what module assembly of my mouse, it will directly lead to the back of the product's cost; Secondly, it is related to the production of device supply and accessibility. So in the process of realizing this product, in the creative design stage, supply chain issues should be considered and discussed, fixed.
At the beginning, we examined the supply chain, including its capacity, qualification, production line, operation flow, including how to combine and match my product with the mouse in terms of process and structure, all of which we found feasible after we did the evaluation before we started the implementation.
2, looking for big brand suppliers
In the process of product development and production, we must find a big brand, there is information on the supplier, so that they give you to do the bottom line. Our small-scale startups for various reasons often choose small-scale vendors, it may not be a cottage, but if you work with this kind of informal, no matter in the process, production capacity, in the whole risk of coping with the company has no experience, the future occurrence of accidents is certainly there. This will very much affect the effect of crowdfunding.
3, the production process to do double backup, double insurance
Shipping time should be carefully formulated, and never let the fans have the feeling of bouncing tickets. In order to avoid the passive situation of bouncing tickets, the production process to do double backup, double insurance. For example, including some programs, some materials, some processes, we have prepared two sets of programs, one is the best program required, in addition, may be short-term if you encounter technical bottlenecks, but also a set of backup programs. Of course, this set of programs to make the product must be acceptable to the user within the scope.
Copy editing
1, trademark issues
In our products are to be in the Jingdong crowdfunding on-line, originally intended to be on-line at 12 o'clock, 11 o'clock when the Jingdong to ask for our "Wukong" registered trademark. Who did not expect a crowdfunding product also requires a trademark, at that time, all of our copywriting review passed, because of this almost this crowdfunding on the abortion. In the end, we figured out a way to add cein in front of our product name, and it became cein Goku Finger Vein Mouse. Because cein is registered by us, we can avoid infringement.
2, the product highlights expressed
In the publicity, we prepared a lot of versions, but also overturned a lot of versions, to consider from the user's point of view, do not talk too much technology. We set up a lot of scenarios to make users feel that these are things that happen around them and touch their pain points. Describe this pain point in layman's terms, and try to present it in the form of pictures and videos, instead of a very long pile of text and technology.
3, the designation of specialized personnel to closely cooperate with the Jingdong
We almost all the Jingdong advertising space for the picture is done, and then the Jingdong will help you grab advertising space. In addition, Jingdong requirements pictures need to be sent to them within two hours, the more timely, the better the advertising space you may get. Their requirements are still very strict, such as the size of the picture must be xx * xx, how many selling points of the product must be, set the scene can not be too false, it must be very easy for users to understand, they will be very detailed review of these contents.
And then the price, we had our own understanding of pricing in the first place, but Jingdong may be more experienced in this area, it may be able to set a more reasonable, more attractive, more skillful price bracket.
Jingdong crowdfunding requires your product to be consistent with the product description of the text description, such as "the world's first", "discount" such words can not be written, can not be false or exaggerated product features, characteristics.
For example, at the beginning we envisioned that the mouse would be able to land on the platform in the future, such as QQ, Taobao, these are within the scope of control, but at that time to the Jingdong time can not be landed, so these are not written. Now a lot of entrepreneurs think I'm a crowdfunded product, so I hope that when describing their products will be able to achieve the future features are written, but the Jingdong will think that you are cheating consumers.
Media communication
1, establish cooperation with the media, push more publicity
Crowdfunding before the media publicity is still very necessary, if this aspect of the investment more energy, the results will also be very obvious. At the end of last year in the hard egg fan festival, because of our products once ranked first, was a lot of well-known media exposure, in addition, we also with a lot of media cooperation, including Baidu, released a lot of manuscripts.
In addition, two days after the launch of the crowdfunding campaign, the i Spokesperson video that Entrepreneur created for us was broadcasted, and we also participated in other activities of the Entrepreneur i Spokesperson campaign, which helped us to succeed in the crowdfunding campaign.
2, the full use of WeChat, QQ group
WeChat, one is to cooperate with WeChat, and make full use of their own resources. For example, the bosses of startups are still quite powerful in terms of resources and connections, including the company's partners and investors. And our own staff, make full use of all the resources we can use to spread the promotion.
Additionally, we have also established a lot of QQ fan groups, which gather a lot of real fans, and at the same time, we have to arrange for specialized customer service to maintain this group. For companies that do not have professional customer service, I recommend that they pull all the company to this group, because users will reflect a variety of problems, there may be some technical problems customer service can not solve, the technical staff will be able to answer in a timely manner.
Including in the crowdfunding page topic area, also gathered a lot of technical control, gamers, they also mentioned a lot of specific needs and suggestions, we can be adopted in the future product. On the one hand, we want to get real feedback, and at the same time to let more people understand the finger vein technology, but also to facilitate our future marketing. These two points are very important.