Funding An App On Appbackr – Interview with Brad Mills
Crowdfunding
November 30, 2018
Brad Mills and I sat down (I was seated, not sure about Brad) to discuss Appbackr and the campaign he launched on the crowdfunding platform for his game Ligtspeed Getaway. It was really interesting (and entertaining) to listen Brad talk about his experience, from why he chose Appbackr to some great tips about how he succeded to raise almost $4,500. Make sure you listen to it if you choose to use crowdfunding to finance your app!
Audio Interview
Questions & Key Points
Rather than a transcript for the interview, here are the key points that we talked about. You can listen to different parts in the audio section by using the timed comments on the player.
For starters, can you tell us a few words about you and your app?
Summary: Lightspeed Getaway, currently in review by Apple. It’s a game around an “outer-space police chase”.
Brad Mills is an entrepreneur, a film maker, an online marketer, and always trying to learn and grow. Or procrastinating!
Why did you decide to start a campaign on a crowd funding platform? Why Appbackr?
Summary: Brad is pretty spontaneous, and found Appbackr through a quote on someone’s website. He knew Kickstarter and is a big fan of crowdfunding. He actually raised $50,000 using Facebook to do a feature film, before knowing about Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
When he saw Appbackr he had to try something: it’s good for promotion and it takes away the fear of risk. If you launch and it fails, you don’t miss a mortgage payment. The next day, he had a campaign on Appbackr.
Since you’ve tried it, what would be your advice regarding posting an app on Appbackr?
Summary: He hasn’t gone completely through the process yet: the app is not released yet and he hasn’t started paying back backrs.
The unique thing about Appbackr is that for backrs it’s more of an investment than a donation: they can actually make money.
Brad liked the fact that he didn’t need to do a promo video for his app to start a campaign on Appbackr. He posted up some screenshots of the game, wrote a little story. You don’t need to say it’s for an app since it’s that’s what the platform is all about. So the time invested at first was not that much.
Some tips about getting backrs:
- Put 4 or 5 nice screenshots from your app/game, as well as some nice screenshots of something you’ve already done. If it looks professional or a fun game/app, it will give you credibility
- Write a good copy. Although people probably don’t read it all, it’s really important. Make the first paragraphs or two really interesting. He decided to do some free-form writing and do something funny
- Although it can help, having a video is not a requirement.
- When you get some interest from people, start doing videos to tell people who you are, what you’re going to use it for, your plan, etc. The videos are not necessary but important for building your audience to inform both your backrs and potential backrs.
What did you do to promote your Appbackr campaign?
Summary: On Appbackr like in life, you have to hustle. Even if you get featured on Appbackr it won’t be enough. Brad saw some campaigns with only $50/$100 people backing them, even after a push from Appbackr (compared to Kickstarter or Indiegogo).
You want to go to your network, be honest and ask them for their help. Get them to give you that little initial boost. If you’ve already proved you can make some money or successful with apps, it can even be presented like an opportunity for your network.
Brad has some following on Facebook and was able to raise about $1000 this way. What really helped him was that he really hustled: he stayed up researching who was usually backing apps. He went through Appbackrs’ list of previously funded apps. He sorted the backrs of about 50 apps by the most amount of money donated. He looked at their profile and if they had backed more than 2 apps he would contact them by any form (twitter, facebook, etc.) asking them for their input and advices on his Lightspeed Getaway app campaign since they had experience. Don’t just ask for money! That was probably the #1 factor to being able to raise the money.
What have been the results so far? Would you start another project on a crowd funding platform?
Summary: Brad is planning on doing other Appbackr campaigns. He started wanting to raise only a thousand bucks for some promotion, and when he got it he extended the goal to raise more. He really spent time on the campaign during the first week and after he raised $4,500 he was happy with it. It was a big success to him.
Would you do anything differently?
No, it was an easy process and he didn’t spend too much time on it. He got to know some really interesting people.
What are the next steps for Lightspeed Getaway?
World domination! He plans to get it to a couple hundred thousand users and pay back everybody. He wants to wait until this campaign is finished and use its success to bring credibility to his next campaigns.
Some extra stuff we talked about: although you have to give back more than what backrs gave you, you get new people following what you’re doing, backrs talking about your app.
Go to About.me/bradmills for more information on Brad.
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