#237: Crowdfunding Your Idea Just Got Easier with BackerKit
Ever wondered how to turn your toy idea into a fully-funded product without breaking the bank?
In this episode of Making It in the Toy Industry, Azhelle Wade sits down with two crowdfunding experts from BackerKit, Lafia and Maddie, to spill all the secrets behind running a successful crowdfunding campaign.
They dive into how BackerKit helps creators manage backers, collect pledges, and fulfill rewards (without losing their minds in spreadsheets). You’ll also hear about "Topias"—group launches where multiple creators team up to support each other’s campaigns—and how to build an audience that will help you hit your funding goals in no time. Whether you're just starting out or looking to take your toy product to the next level, Lafia and Maddie share real success stories, smart strategies, and tips for growing your email list and marketing your campaign like a pro.
If you’ve got a big idea and want to learn how to make it happen with crowdfunding, this episode is packed with insights you don’t want to miss!
Episode Cliff Notes
Find your perfect ad strategy with BackerKit Ads and boost your campaign success.
Discover the magic formula for calculating ROAS, master profitable ad spending, and uncover resources that will help you get the most out of your campaign.
Learn why building a strong email list is crucial for your campaign's success.
Understand how effective direct communication with your followers can skyrocket your engagement and sales, featuring real-life success stories and tips.p
Find out the secret to successful crowdfunding with BackerKit's unique features.
Explore how campaigns are structured for maximum impact, and why personalized support and community collaboration are game-changers for creators.
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Learn More About BackerKit:
Website | Email: crowdfunding@backerkit.com -
[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: You are listening to Making It in the Toy Industry, episode number 237.
[00:00:05] Welcome back to another episode of Making It In The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach. com. This week, we are diving into a topic that I know so many of my listeners are going to just have your ears perked up for. And it's crowdfunding. So when you come up with your amazing toy and game ideas, you usually run into the issue of being able to have the means to actually produce it.
[00:00:49] You might reach out to a factory and find out, Oh my gosh, that's how much per unit and what's your minimum. And you just can't take the leap on your own. So what do you do now? We've heard of other platforms that are [00:01:00] well known, but there are a few. niche platforms that actually might be a better option for you to launch your product on.
[00:01:07] So today we have two people from the platform Backerkit with us on the podcast. I'd like to welcome Lafia from customer success, who helps creators launch crowdfunding campaigns at Backerkit and Maddie, who's a campaign strategist helping creators like you have their best campaigns ever.
[00:01:26] Welcome Maddie and Lafia.
[00:01:29] Maddy from Backer Kit: Thank you.
[00:01:29] so much. We're so excited to be here and to be joining this particular community. So thank you so much for having us.
[00:01:36] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: Yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation. This has been a big gap that I want to fill. when I did talk to somebody who was experienced in crowdfunding campaign, and I explained the campaigns I run to launch my digital program, Toy Creators Academy, they were like, Oh, that sounds very similar.
[00:01:53] So to dive into this conversation, see the similarities, see if we can brainstorm ideas together and inspire people to reach out to Backerkit. [00:02:00] So first up, tell me a little bit about the company. When did Backerkit get off the ground?
[00:02:05] Lafia from Backer Kit: They started over 10 years ago. And the co founders, one of them was actually friends with the founder of Kickstarter.
[00:02:13] They were trying to get off of the ground. Nobody knew who they were. Nobody knew what crowdfunding was. So they asked our co founder to launch a campaign on Kickstarter. And I think back then we were Diaspora. And we launched a campaign that was the first crowdfunding campaign to reach six figures.
[00:02:31] And after the campaign was done, they had thousands of orders to fulfill and all they had was spreadsheets to do it with. And they're like this is a real pain in the, you know what? So they created backer kit as a pledge manager. to help crowdfunding creators manage their backers, have it all in one spot so they didn't have to mess with spreadsheets from sending surveys, collecting order information, shipping addresses, etc.
[00:02:57] And so that's how we came about. [00:03:00] And then fast forward, or actually rewind two years ago, and everybody's like hey, Backerkit, you've been in the game for so long, why don't you launch your own crowdfunding platform?
[00:03:10] So it would hold all that information, send it to your fulfillment partner, make that process easier. Because as you said, people were struggling with the Excel spreadsheet of it all. so you said two years ago, Backerkit turned into its own platform.
[00:03:23] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: What kind of products did you first see Backerkit?
[00:03:28] Lafia from Backer Kit: so in the crowdfunding realm, a lot of it is tabletop games and RPGs. I would say that's about 60 percent of crowdfunding campaigns. And we got some of the biggest names to come to us first. Being like, hey, we don't understand why you don't have a crowdfunding platform. You guys have been doing this for so long.
[00:03:46] Matty, help me out with names. There is like Kingdom Death Return to Dark Tower, Tuesday Night Games, Monte Cook, Goodman
[00:03:53] Games.
[00:03:54] Maddy from Backer Kit: I, was like, you don't even need any help, but this is amazing, you're doing a good job. So just [00:04:00] to back up what you'll experience if you run a crowdfunding campaign you'll have to send a survey Basically every kickstarter if you're fully funded you'll send a survey to your backers. So let's say you're making a unicorn plush and you've got four different colors, four different sizes, and you're sending it all of your backers. They'll be able to choose their rewards. They'll also be able to add anything on to the pledge level they pledged at. So let's say they pledged, they got one unicorn plushie and it's pink, They go to do their survey and they're like, oh My goodness My six year old daughter is having a unicorn birthday party coming up I'm add on three or four more and so it's basically taking the kickstarter experience if you want to think of it as that was our bread and butter for a really long time.
[00:04:45] And then recently, we started this crowdfunding platform. So thank you all
[00:04:49] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: is think we've had a lot of creators in the game space on our crowdfunding platform. The other thing that doing is hosting these topias.
[00:04:58] Maddy from Backer Kit: I'm going to turn it actually back over to Lafia [00:05:00] I wanted to make sure that we talked about topias because they're a really unique thing that BackerKit's doing.
[00:05:06] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: the big creators came to us and they needed this crowd. They wanted a better crowdfunding platform than Kickstarter.
[00:05:11] Lafia from Backer Kit: So we built it for them. our whole goal is to make. The best crowdfunding platform for creators and with the topias, what we're doing is we're making group launches. So on the other crowdfunding platforms, you're usually launching a campaign by yourself. So if you are a company, but you're, you have many people on your team, but you're still launching one campaign.
[00:05:34] And with the topias we have many creators launching at the same time. And so we just had a really successful one at the beginning of the year. It was called Pintopia. We had over 120 enamel pin projects all launching at the exact same time. And we raised almost a million dollars between those 120 projects. And so what it does is you're bringing the pool of everybody's backers [00:06:00] together. And you're like giving them incentives. If you back a certain amount of projects, we're going to give you a special pin. If you back partner projects, you're going to get these two freebies from each creator. And so we're creating this ethos or ecosphere.
[00:06:14] Yeah. So to have everybody work with each other instead of being siloed and alone, because crowdfunding is hard point blank. It is hard to go to people and ask them for money. To tell them about your passion be told no a bunch of times But it's so much easier when you're doing it with a bunch of other creators And they're all working towards the same goal and we have this huge community now We have a private discord all the creators can get on there give each other feedback Cheer each other on back each other's projects support each other and promote on social media So it's just likewe took crowdfunding and we just pumped it full of steroids
[00:06:51] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: Yeah, and it's also great because now people can find more of the same thing that you know they already like and like social media and [00:07:00] algorithms these days make it so hard to even find people you follow and what you're doing is you're creating a space in which someone who first discovers these pins now also can discover pins from other creators and tell their friends who they know like pins and now they're just More of an opportunity.
[00:07:14] That's fantastic. Now you talked a little bit about the launch strategy and now would be a great time, Maddie, if you would walk us through what is a traditional launch like for Backerkit? If somebody has a toy product and they want to bring it, let's say to Backerkit, what would you recommend their launch
[00:07:30] strategy be?
[00:07:31] Maddy from Backer Kit: a question, think it's one thing that most creators are questioning, right? They've got this great idea, The biggest thing that we say as a starting point is like how can you start to organically grow?
[00:07:45] Your audience and as soon as you sign up Your project for backer kit One of the first things that we have you do is create a teaser page. So essentially that's almost like a landing page About the project sometimes when i'm talking to creators i'll refer to it as a [00:08:00] business card You don't need to have Everything perfectly sorted out, but it serves as like that thing in your pocket that if you're like talking to friend and you're like, oh, I'm doing This cool project or I have this really cool idea.
[00:08:12] Why don't you check it out? The teaser page serves as a place where people that are interested in the project can sign up to follow along. You'll get their email. And then you can start to really build that momentum. We tell to, share that out with your community, share that out with, you know, going to conventions, if you are meeting in spaces with other creators it's a great thing and then one of the biggest things that we recommend at backer kit is like really knowing that when you launch that project You're going to be looking to have success within the first 48 hours
[00:08:46] Working based on your pledge levels, based on your funding goal, based on your goals as a business owner, how do we have everything structured? What is your audience looking like? Are there ways you can get in front of new audiences? the thing [00:09:00] about backer kit that's really cool is we do have a campaign strategist team We've got a success team.
[00:09:05] We're really here with you To go through that whole process andyou are you build out your campaign You'll feel confident. You've got an audience behind you and when you're ready to launch You've got all of those people that have been with you Like as you've been building that are ready to launch on day one or along down the lines and Hopefully you have a perfect campaign you get fully funded at the end of you'll survey your backers about what want and i'm glossing over because there's a huge creator journey of updating your backers. i've worked with creators who've done a really good job of tapping into social media as I mentioned like we walk through the whole process together and then at that at the end you're fully funded and we'll work with you to set up that first thing we talked about which is that pledge manager that survey of like, okay How do we get all this information from your backers and support you all the way through [00:10:00] till?
[00:10:00] You know your orders are shipped
[00:10:01] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: How long is a typical Backerkit
[00:10:03] campaign,
[00:10:04] Maddy from Backer Kit: so the there's a couple different things to mention typically classically and traditionally a crowdfunding project Typically runs for about 30 days. We've had creators do a little bit of experimentation of making it shorter Making it longer there's a lot of creators that jump on that kind of FOMO or that sense of i'm only going to be able to get this for a short amount of time we've had creators down to even three weeks, two weeks, just to get that excitement, that momentum.
[00:10:36] 'cause really the backer experience is an experience in itself. So you wanna feel connected with the creator. You wanna feel oh, this is, such a cool project that I'm only gonna be able to back this one time.
[00:10:47] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: so 30 days is a normal, but with Backerkit you can choose your length. I haven't launched a Kickstarter. Is that normal with a crowdfunding platform that you can choose your campaign length?
[00:10:58] Lafia from Backer Kit: I believe on Kickstarter, you like, [00:11:00] you just start, you choose your start date and you choose your end date. Yeah. So some people do 30 days, 45
[00:11:05] days, 60 days. But Maddie said you're instilling the FOMO in people. So the longer your campaign is, the less of the FOMO.
[00:11:14] And I would say like for toy manufacturers, we have to, that's why we have a campaign strategist team is because every creator and their project is unique and you need to talk to a human being and be like, here are the things that I'm making and here, this is my audience. And you just need somebody to bounce ideas off of.
[00:11:31] in the toy industry, you could be sending the message. this is a pre order We need these funds in order to even manufacture this reward, for the people who back us, who are supporting us in the early stages, you get the reward first. So once we get this funded and we ship those out, then we're going to go to retail and that's going to be on the shelves of target or whatever, but you're not going to get that product.
[00:11:56] Early, you're gonna have to wait a year or more before it hits the [00:12:00] shelves if you back now You're gonna get it immediately. So it's like that messaging that you're telling people back me now get it first And then don't have to wait
[00:12:09] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: Yeah, that's really so with backer kit, since you have the campaign strategist, how is there an additional fee to putting your product on backer kit versus other crowdfunding platforms?
[00:12:20] Maddy from Backer Kit: the fees are the same As far as platforms, they're pretty standard. kickstarter is about five percent campaign? And if you launch on our platform here on back to kit, it's about the same There's like little fees here and there and so Stripe fees, like the credit card type of fees but as far as like a differentiator, I do think that is a really big one where You know people ask me all the time before we get on calls How much money does it cost to get on a call?
[00:12:49] And where we are right now is we want creators to feel empowered. We want you to feel like you have all of the information, that you can possibly get Lafia and I both look over [00:13:00] campaigns before they launch.
[00:13:01] Actually, everyone here at backer kit, we will go through your campaign, make sure it looks good and make sure there's not any missing pieces or bugs or things that might be going on. before you actually set it live.
[00:13:12] If you're listening to the podcast is when I asked her, how much does it cost to get on a call? Lafia was like holding up and saying like zero,
[00:13:19] zero.
[00:13:20] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: zero.
[00:13:21] Lafia from Backer Kit: And here's the thing Like I said earlier, crowdfunding is hard.
[00:13:27] On the other crowdfunding platform, 60 percent of the campaigns fail. And at any given time, there are 2000 live campaigns going on over there on backer kit.
[00:13:38] We have a nine out of 10. campaign success rates. We have 90 percent success rate. Granted we just started and we have fewer campaigns, but our whole philosophy is we help you before you hit that big launch button to make sure that you have a successful campaign and you raise the funds that you actually need to go and [00:14:00] produce your rewards.
[00:14:01] And with that, it's like we help you at zero cost because if we help you in the end, if you make a bunch of money, we make money.
[00:14:10] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: How many calls are included in a person's engagement with backer kit?
[00:14:13] Is it one a month? Max five. is there a number for
[00:14:17] Lafia from Backer Kit: Unlimited.
[00:14:19] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: Oh,
[00:14:19] Maddy from Backer Kit: Yeah.
[00:14:20] Lafia from Backer Kit: and here's the
[00:14:21] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: like a company in the early
[00:14:22] stages that we need to get in before things
[00:14:24] evolve.
[00:14:25] Lafia from Backer Kit: Here's the thing though. When you need hand holding and you're a new creator, you need all the hand holding in the world. once you get that first campaign under your belt though, you're not going to need to be
[00:14:36] calling
[00:14:36] us as much.
[00:14:37] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: don't know. I'm sorry. I don't know why I haven't found you before. I have so many students actually just had a call with a young woman yesterday who has a great idea for a doll brand.
[00:14:49] Dolls have really high costs for molds. So like she's looking at 75, 000 to 100, 000 investment to really build this line. And she's yeah, we're good. We're planning to sell all this [00:15:00] stuff and we're going to do it. And I was like, honey no. But I would love for her to have an opportunity to fund even part of that with crowdfunding.
[00:15:07] Cause she's already looking at other sources. So yeah, no, I love That there's so much support and she has such a great niche, like a niche that, has a ride or die following. So I just see so much potential, but also let's not take that unnecessary risk. My, was that my question?
[00:15:22] No, my question, so many questions. So my other question was because you're so concerned and careful about, will this campaign succeed? Does someone have to be accepted to be on backer kit or to have a backer kit
[00:15:38] campaign?
[00:15:39] Maddy from Backer Kit: Nope.
[00:15:40] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: No okay.
[00:15:41] Maddy from Backer Kit: Anyone can crowdfund. We want everyone to feel like they can I've had clients ask me like, well, if Backerkit needs to check all my work before I launch are you going to prevent me from launching?
[00:15:51] We won't take a look at your project and say, we don't think you're ready for launch, But what we will say, hey Realistically, here's your funding goal. Here's your audience now and we [00:16:00] kind of want to have that frank conversation ofwe want you to be successful where you are now isn't where we think you should be before you launch but certainly if you are like, I know that i've got people that are kind of come out the woodwork and support me we'll definitely you go for it.
[00:16:15] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: we want you to be successful and we're going to give and coaching as we possibly can so that you are successfulWhat visibility do you have to people's audiences? Does backer kit have some sort of access to, is it also a CRM or are you just saying, if we look at your Instagram, your Tik
[00:16:30] TOK and like those
[00:16:32] Maddy from Backer Kit: Yeah, so we go back to that teaser page so really what we want is we want you to sign up send people to that teaser page. And there's a couple different reasons for that. But one of the biggest reasons is how many people do you have on that page that have said, yeah, I'm interested in this.
[00:16:48] I'm following along. I'm actively engaged with this Cause we see that when people put their email in and say, yes, I'm interested. that leads to a higher conversion rate to backing a [00:17:00] project than just your social following that's when we're like, okay.
[00:17:03] These are numbers that are a little bit more Telling than just the social following that
[00:17:07] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: So that landing page, is that hosted on like backerkit. com?
[00:17:12] Maddy from Backer Kit: Yeah,
[00:17:13] Lafia from Backer Kit: So we have three platforms. We have backer kit launch, which is the email marketing platform. if you have an existing email list, you can upload your email list. we actually have tools because we've been in the game for so long.
[00:17:23] We had over 8 million backers in our database. we can compare your email list to our database and tell you how many backers have crowdfunding experience. if you're brand new and your followers have never crowdfunded, it's gonna be zero.
[00:17:38] But we can be like, you know what, you got a really strong email list, people are already familiar with crowdfunding. if they don't have crowdfunding experience, there's gonna be an additional step you need to teach your followers what crowdfunding is and what you expect them to do
[00:17:51] in order for them to fund your project
[00:17:54] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: So we didn't get into all this. What are all the different sites? Because BackerKit has, there's a landing page aspect, which is [00:18:00] essentially the crowdfunding platform. But then there's also a CRM. You have an email service provider
[00:18:04] The wonderful thing is like this last thing that we've built out this crowdfunding platform itself We're basically wrapping up all of the things that we've built before and putting it all together into this one thing So we mentioned our butter like Yes The way that backer gets started was this pledge manager sending surveys to backers post we've got that aspect. We still work with creators who are launching on Kickstarter and they still use us for the pledge manager.
[00:18:31] Maddy from Backer Kit: We've created back kit launch, which is, a way that you can collect your members, your followers. We have a little bit of analytics built in of have they crowdfunded projects before that we can recognize in our data.
[00:18:44] And then additionally from that, Launch Launch platform you can send out emails to your followers or members So let's say you had 500 people sign up for your teaser page or you know that first kind of [00:19:00] landing page Within backer kit launch you can contact those people and say hey, thank you all so much for the Original outpour of support our launch day is going to be this It would mean so much to me if you could share blah blah, you know It's just a way to keep in touch with your backers
[00:19:17] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: that's so incredible. Okay. Now for people listening in that are like, all right, maybe I want to try out this Backer Kit thing.
[00:19:24] Let's start with what email list size is the minimum for being guaranteed that this, Campaign is going to get funded and ideally within our 48 hours. If somebody's coming to you with their own email list, what size do you typically see has
[00:19:40] the most
[00:19:40] success?
[00:19:41] Lafia from Backer Kit: So it depends on how much your fundraising goal is. If you have a 500 fundraising goal, you're going to need X amount of emails. If you have a 50, 000 goal, you're going to need X amount of emails. And that email conversion is going to be 5 20%. So 5 [00:20:00] 20 percent of your email list will convert into pledges.
[00:20:03] if you're just buying email lists, which you shouldn't because that's illegal in many countries, you're going to have a very low conversion rate. But if you do the correct, lead generation and you're targeting the people that are going to be interested in your product, then it pushes up that conversion rate.
[00:20:17] Whatever your fundraising goal is, and whatever your average pledge is. So if you have a 25 plushie, divide that by your fundraising goal. You have X amount of people, and then that is your 5 20%. So then however much of 5 20 percent of a full email list is.
[00:20:34] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: That's very helpful. So no that's great. Is there also other aspects of marketing included in backer kit? So I go on there with my moodles plush and it's not
[00:20:44] yet in stores, even though this one is.
[00:20:46] And then I put it on backer kit and I have an email list of 5, 000 people and I'm hoping to raise like, I don't know, 10, 000 let's say. And thenare there other ways to market maybe to more people? Yeah, actually, let's say I'm [00:21:00] trying to raise like 100, 000, so I need more people on my list.
[00:21:03] But Backerkit has all this data. Is there a way for me to be able to tap into that data in any way? Is there remarketing efforts that you guys do?
[00:21:11] Lafia from Backer Kit: We
[00:21:11] do.
[00:21:12] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: okay.
[00:21:13] Lafia from Backer Kit: So people can use our marketing services, but we only accept applicants who have an established email list.
[00:21:21] Let's say your friend that you were talking about, that's trying to brand her doll. And if her goal is 100, 000 and she has angel investors or private investors, she would want to spend that money on lead generation ads. So you are paying money for ads, promoting an upcoming event like crowdfunding or an upcoming launch of a product.
[00:21:42] And you're getting those email lists.
[00:21:44] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: I love email.
[00:21:45] I'm
[00:21:45] all about
[00:21:46] email.
[00:21:47] Lafia from Backer Kit: but you, you are paying for those leads. You're going to be paying a dollar, 2 per leads. But if someone has that high of a goal of a hundred thousand dollars, you are going to have to put money into lead generation.
[00:21:59] [00:22:00] And there are companies out there. Like launch boom is somebody we recommend. They do have a email funnel program and they also handhold and they help you out. But they do have an upfront, a high upfront cost. So if you have that type of capital, then you can definitely go to these companies and they'll help you with your lead generation.
[00:22:17] Maddy from Backer Kit: Back to the coaching and just like general things that we talk to you about when you're going to launch with backer kit One of the things we will talk to you about is lead gen and running your ads But the other thing that we do have for Larger campaigns or more experienced creators. Maybe you have crowdfunding experience You've done a campaign we do have backer marketing, as a service and love also that is the one application process that we have at backer kit.
[00:22:47] Lafia from Backer Kit: Can I add one thing? and we also have free resources. We love giving things for free. So we have a Crowdcast. You're more than welcome to go, I think it's like crowdcast. com backslash backerkit. Our marketing team just [00:23:00] did a four series webinar on marketing. If you're going to do lead gen or live ads for your campaign, again, the resource is free and they teach you everything that they're doing on their marketing side for you to go do it on your own.
[00:23:12] If you have a smaller budget, you just want to try out ads, go watch those videos and then test it out on your own.
[00:23:18] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: And what exactly does Backerkit Marketing do for the people that they do sign? So is it that you pay a monthly fee and then they execute all your marketing for you?
[00:23:26]
[00:23:26] Maddy from Backer Kit: Yeah, it's a little bit different based on whether you're looking at lead gen which is like that before you're even live stage and then the live campaign something that is really I think really valuable about backer kit ads Is That we will basically take on the cost of your ads up front then at the end of the campaign is when you would You know pay back your ad spend and then we do also have a commission the revenue that we bring in through ads, we've worked of creators and we [00:24:00] understand that's the position that a lot and so having the for us to spend and then charge after the campaign is over with a bit of commission is helpful. The thing that I want to forget is One of the biggest things that you as a creator if for anyone who's out there and also if you're going to be working with Packard kit is honing in on your return on ad spend number and we have some resources about how to Figure that number out as well But you really want to take a look at you know for every dollar I spend on ads How much do I need to be bringing in to still be profitable?
[00:24:36] And so that's really the number that we want to at when we are going to start spending on a
[00:24:41] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: Yeah, when I launched my digital products, it sounds very similar. So our ROAS, as they call it, is return on ad spends really important. It's if you spend 1, 000 and you get 2, 000 back, that'd be like a ratio of two to one or 200 percent return.
[00:24:53] So That's all you need to know about that. But this marketing side is really good to know because I do have another TCA student who's [00:25:00] actually speaking to another agency to run her ads and they'll do a percentage of her profit of what she gets from the campaign. And she also is considering backer kit, but I don't think she knew or I knew that you had a marketing arm.
[00:25:14] So it is really good to know that because she already has a very big following on social and they're very engaged. So the idea of her, launching it and having the marketing support in the same place as the actual launch support would be fantastic. And I have been helping her build her email list.
[00:25:31] I know it's the first thing I ask people. I'm like, okay, great. You have all these followers, but how many emails do you have? And they're like, what? No. Like you have to have email. Like you can't control when you talk to them if you don't.
[00:25:41] Maddy from Backer Kit: to, that you echo these things. to your point like you really can't control like how much you engage with them or if your things are going to be seen
[00:25:49] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: A hundred percent. Yeah. And I actually tell people now also text message if you can get their phone number to text follow up that is from my business. Whenever I do product launch I [00:26:00] will see that I'll get a lot of sales when I send that last text reminder. By the way, we're closing doors, tomorrow because people just forget you're bombarded with so much information.
[00:26:11] You just forget, you don't know that you have to it. This was super helpful. Is there anything about backer kit that you feel we didn't touch on that you want to share with the listeners today?
[00:26:21] Lafia from Backer Kit: I
[00:26:21] will make my closing statement. Backerkit,
[00:26:25] I love working here. I'm coming into my fifth year. We're a very small company. We're like 50 employees and the majority of us have been here for over five years. And it's because for me personally, it is so fulfilling to work with creatives across the boards from enamel pins, comics, tabletop games, you name it.
[00:26:45] We've seen some wacky things come across our inboxes and All walks of life and everybody needs help and I go home at the end of the day and I'm like I just helped a bunch of people make their dreams come true there's so many [00:27:00] resources on the internet. so many youtube videos so much information just coming from different directions And it's so hard to go through it on your own To figure out what you are good at what you're not good at to have a friend at backer kit Knowing that The platform that you're using you can email and I will respond within 24 hours a real human being will respond to you in 24 hours if you need a meeting a google meet I will hop on a google meet with you and help answer your questions Just to have that support like I run an etsy store and I can't email etsy Nobody's ever gonna reply to me as a real human being
[00:27:32] Because this is hard, it is just that heart to heart connection of helping somebody, and then that person getting to do what they love to do.
[00:27:40] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: Fantastic. And Maddie, What would you have to say?
[00:27:43] Maddy from Backer Kit: God, there's So much to say. I can't wait to talk to you about your project, your dream, your next big idea. Just Lafia we just live for that here. We are so excited to support the big dreams, [00:28:00] the ideas, the one in a million Thoughts and so yeah, if you're listening and if you're even at all interested or if you have any i'd absolutely recommend checking us out contacting us.
[00:28:09] We are the other thing that I wanted to say it was as y'all I was Another one of these podcasts you did and in the very beginning asked what's something about the toy industry that surprised you the most and I'm newer to the world that is like and not new in the sense that I've never done anything creative in my life.
[00:28:29] But the thing that I would say for that question is, The vastness like the amount of people that have these ideas that want to take these leaps that Really want to tap into like what's their next creative idea? So also thanks for being a part of this community and to Keep engaging with the community, building the community.
[00:28:50] There are so many of you out there And gosh, does that make the world like much a cooler place to be in?
[00:28:58] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: I didn't even think of you guys as in [00:29:00] the toy industry
[00:29:00] specifically. So I did ask that question, but now I have to ask. I have to ask love.
[00:29:05] I have to love The thing that surprised you toy industry was
[00:29:10] how expensive that mold was for that doll? that
[00:29:15] Lafia from Backer Kit: blows me away!
[00:29:16]
[00:29:17] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: The mold can be 50 to 75, but it's not always. It depends on the
[00:29:20] detail
[00:29:21] and the number of
[00:29:21] Lafia from Backer Kit: You're saying thousand just for the mold?
[00:29:25] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: yeah, dolls are
[00:29:26] expensive.
[00:29:27] Lafia from Backer Kit:
[00:29:27] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: I did just get a quote for this tiny toy car. It's like this big, like what I'm showing them is about two and a half inches big and the mold cost for each car is like 5, 000.
[00:29:38] Yeah, it can be a little pricey, but for those listening, I'm looking on backerkit. com and just in a quick scroll, I see there are campaigns as low as 714, on Backerkit. So even if you're just looking to raise a little, you can raise it here, but then there's campaigns 150, 000. Wow. My emotional [00:30:00] support Sugar Bell Pals. They raised 150, 000 of their 15, 000 goal. Wow. Incredible. Okay. With a campaign like that, do you see any markers that let you know that campaign was going to blow it out of the water?
[00:30:14] Lafia from Backer Kit: I worked a little bit with them, and right now, plushies are doing really, well, and I wasn't the one that checked out their mailing list, but something about the creator was like, they did, the first five steps absolutely perfectly, and they came in with a
[00:30:28] large email list, and that's how we helped them not get out of
[00:30:30] the ballpark.
[00:30:32] Maddy from Backer Kit: I also will say for they, I follow them on Instagram, they're very active on socials. So I think, it's not that socials don't mean anything, right? If you have a following on socials, recommend them to do And I also do think that this was a cross collab campaign. So this was one of those collaboration campaigns where ran a campaign and basically connected it to another creator's campaign. And so if you backed this particular campaign and the other [00:31:00] campaign, basically a little reward.
[00:31:01] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: So I've got to float this as
[00:31:03] an idea for people, especially
[00:31:04] my TCA students. They're always working together. They become good friends going through the program. If they want to launch something the same time together to help each other reach their goals by having something special like that, like a joint gift.
[00:31:18] That's genius.
[00:31:19] Lafia from Backer Kit: Yeah. and, that's
[00:31:20] exactly what the topias are. We connect to, you have to be a partnership in the topias. And then we do either, you can do your own group launch if you want to have more than two people. And then we have the cross collab with just two projects. So if they could both come to us, they're like, Hey, we'd like to connect our projects.
[00:31:36] And then we give you the instructions on how to do that. And you support each other and give a freebie when people back
[00:31:41] both projects.
[00:31:42] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: Okay, before I ask you where people can reach out to you to learn more about the Topias and to get involved with Backerkit on their own, I want to ask you both my favorite question and that is what toy or game blew your mind as a kid, Lafia?
[00:31:56] Lafia from Backer Kit: I just turned 40, so my childhood was so long [00:32:00] ago, Okay, this one not necessarily blew my mind, but it was just I had to work for it. I had to mow lawns and do chores. It was a super soaker 100 and I think it held like at two gallons of water and this was back in like 1994. I know that's not mind blowing whatsoever but it was just one that sticks out because I had to work for it to get the money to buy that toy.
[00:32:21] So it just meant that much more to me.
[00:32:24] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: And okay, Maddie, what about
[00:32:26] you?
[00:32:26] Maddy from Backer Kit: Oh gosh, I don't know. I was an outdoorsy kid a lot but one of the toys that I never had at my own home, but anytime it was at someone else's house, I was like we have to play this game because I It was Battleship. It was just like playing Battleship was so
[00:32:46] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: so classic.
[00:32:47] Maddy from Backer Kit: I just, I didn't have it as a kid and I just was like, I don't know, like the technology for the I You're like mapping my ship on the sea and trying to drown it? Like, I don't know. It's very, very [00:33:00] cool.
[00:33:00] Azhelle Wade | The Toy Coach: So now for all the listeners who want to be your friend. They want to work with you on their backer kit. They want to be in a topia. They want to earn 150, 000 in their crowdfunding campaign. how can they reach out to you?
[00:33:11] So you can visit us at backer kit.com or email us at crowdfunding@backerkit.com. That'll come into our main email box. And again, we'll respond to you within 24 hours Monday through Friday. Oh, awesome. Okay, this was so fun. Again, go to backerkit. com.
[00:33:30] if you happen to be driving or something and you can't write down the email addresses or the website, you can always go to the toycoach. com forward slash podcast. Look for this episode and the links will be in the episode show notes as always. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today.
[00:33:45] I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one Until next week, I'll see you later, toy people. [00:34:00]
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