Khierstyn Ross has made a name for herself by successfully launching products and brands on Kickstarter. However, the crowdfunding landscape has significantly changed in recent years, particularly on Kickstarter. It is NOT the same world it was in 2019.

While the barrier to entry for launching a successful project has become higher, it's still a good fit for many clients.

In addition to helping brands on Kickstarter, Khierstyn is also a pro at helping companies grow on Amazon. She's mastered the art of launching new products and pre-sells on Amazon.

Here's a look at what we cover:

• What products do well on Kickstarter, and what products usually flop?
• What kind of $ do you need to invest for a successful Kickstarter launch?
• When to launch a new product on Shopify vs. Kickstarter.
• How to build a brand on Amazon.
• What kind of results should you expect when launching on Kickstarter?

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Mentioned In This Episode:

• Launch and Scale
• Khierstyn Ross (LinkedIn)
• Khierstyn Ross (Twitter)
• Brett Curry (LinkedIn)
• Brett Curry (Twitter)

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Transcript:

Brett:

Hello and welcome to another edition of the E-Commerce Evolution Podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, and today we have a return guest on the show and we're talking about what's new, what's working with Kickstarter launches, and also deciding to even want to do a Kickstarter launch because they're not just for people who are brand new or brands that are brand new. They can also be effective for brands that are mostly built on Amazon and want to build off of Amazon. And so can talk about lots of strategies and ideas and fun stuff. My guest today is Khierstyn Ross and she is the chief brand builder at Launch and Scale Launch and scale.co. And she's been on the show before. It was so much fun. I had to have her back. It's been like, it's been three years though, right? Khierstyn has been three years since we chatted last on the podcast.

Khierstyn:

I think so. It feels like yesterday. Yes. But I know you're one of my favorite podcasters, so I'm very excited for her

Brett:

Today. Awesome. We appreciate that. And we actually got to, so yeah, and the interview was maybe three years ago, but last year we got to hang out I r l as they say, as the kids like to say, in real life at Cap Con five, shout out to Ryan Daniel Moran. So that was cool getting to see each other in person. I know. But man, a lot has changed. A lot has changed since that first interview and what works and what doesn't. On, on Kickstarter, would you want to give a quick update? What, what's shifted, what's changed? What's working or not working on Kickstarter today compared to in the past?

Khierstyn:

Man? I mean everything and nothing is the same. Yes. I remember if you're watching this and you have heard me talk about Kickstarter in the past, you'll know I was like, everyone should do Kickstarter. And that I think was like 20 19, 20 20. And now that we're recording this in 2023, I've actually gone public to say that most people shouldn't be using Kickstarter. And I think that's a good follow up, a comment.

Brett:

It's a bold to say when you built your, I know you guys do a lot more than Kickstarter now, but you got to build your agency on Kickstarters. That's a pretty bold thing for you to state.

Khierstyn:

Yeah. But I guess the reason I did that was because I got to a point, I think it was November, 2022 or 21 that I went public on my birthday to say, I'm leaving Kickstarter. And that doesn't mean I don't do Kickstarter campaigns, but it was a bold statement because I felt that for the last few months we kept launching products based on the Kickstarter success formula products that should have worked. And late in 20 20, 20 21, we weren't seeing the kind of success with our students that we should have been seeing. We would be building the audience the way that you're supposed to. We would be doing engagement campaigns, we would be making sure they were great products. And Kickstarter campaigns for new brands started to not do as well as they used to. And that started me asking the question of, is it me? Is it us or it has something changed in the market?

So I ended up going public because I discovered that as Kickstarter has evolved over time, it's gone through some astronomical changes in how it's originally supposed to be used. And Kickstarter, for those that aren't familiar with it, it's the world's largest crowdfunding platform. And crowdfunding on Kickstarter means that you have brands like new sellers or existing brands that want to use Kickstarter as a platform to launch new products and get pre-order sales from backers or Kickstarter audience. Kickstarters become one of the prime methods of funding new products because it gives you a chance to get your inventory paid for without having to fund it yourself, which is like that right there. Sign me up.

Brett:

But yeah, it's this weird dynamic too, and I know I've got lots of friends that have done this where successful brand you, but they're launching a new product, takes quite a bit of capital to launch certain new products. And so they launch on Kickstarter, they get this, all these preys and I can fund the development and whatnot. And for whatever reason, people love the idea of funding a Kickstarter or some people do way more than doing a pre-buy on other websites or, I know it depends, we'll talk about the nuances there, but yeah, in some respects, people are more willing to do that pre-buy on Kickstarter than elsewhere depending on a few factors.

Khierstyn:

Well, what's interesting is that Kickstarter campaigns have new products that aren't available anywhere else. So the difference with the Kickstarter traffic that you're getting is you have all these early adopters that are perusing the website for really cool innovative things that are not available anywhere else. And they're willing to take that chance even though there's a risk, they may not get their product for a couple of years. The, there's just something about being a Kickstarter backer and helping fund someone's dream. And

Brett:

You feel like you're an investor, right? You're committing buying something because you believe in it and you almost feel like you're an investor and yeah, you don't want it tomorrow or anything. You are, yeah, you're part of something bigger and something cool,

Khierstyn:

But there, there's just something special about that. And so Kickstarter's a really fun platform. You get high off the success of Kickstarter campaigns and doing it, but what has happened with Kickstarter, because it's such an attractive model for small businesses for financing without trading equity, is that it became this really, really oversaturated platform. And so you get to the point where with Kickstarter, there's so much attention for new products, for eyes, for launches that your product starts to get buried on their platform. And when you look at the strategy behind how to win on Kickstarter, you need to have the algorithm kind of pick up your project as a popular project and start to show you to more people. So if you're a Reddit user, it's kind of getting upvoted so that your post doesn't get buried in hundreds of other ones that'll never get seen by be one of the top ones.

It's the same sort of thing with Kickstarter. So when you look at the strategy that goes into setting yourself up for success, you need to have a pre-launch, which means you need to go in with an email list full of people ready to buy your product so that when you go live on Kickstarter, you have a really strong day one, and then Kickstarter's algorithm is going to be like, Ooh, that's a popular project. We should show this to more people. And then that's when you start to get traction and go viral. But the problem is when you have a platform that has become oversaturated, become so competitive, it means that what you as a creator have to put into your launch goes a lot higher. It means that the Firestone

Brett:

Fair to entry is much higher. You're competing in the big leagues, it's professional stuff now.

Khierstyn:

So layman's terms more competition, way more expensive to get started, way more expensive to get started. Suddenly you are risking capital for inventory and it means the price to play may not actually be worth it because a lot of campaigns end up leaving Kickstarter not able to buy their own inventory, which is a self-fulfilling problem because what if you do all this work, you're literally putting your startup at risk. So it's like it's a problem where we've seen campaigns just not hit the levels they want because that barrier has just been so high. So

Brett:

When you say someone's leaving Kickstarter, then are they going to a place like Indiegogo if that, I don't even know. I'm not paying attention to the space. What else are they doing if they're not launching on Kickstarter?

Khierstyn:

So if you're not launching on Kickstarter, Indiegogo is their little brother. So that's definitely a good possibility if it's a product fit. But typically what we do is we help people decide whether the crowdfunding model is right for them or if they just want to take a less risky approach and go to their own website. So we end up having a conversation with people who are like, look, if you're not Kickstarter, let's launch you on Shopify or even go straight to Amazon. But typically for us, we do brand building on Shopify if not,

Brett:

And I think that's the way to go. And what you and I were talking about for a lot of brands, a lot of companies, you and I were talking before we hit record, you're working with a number of brands where they've built their business on Amazon, they're 80 to 90% Amazon now they're wanting to build off of Amazon. And so in that case, you could look at something kickstart related, but likely Shopify. So I want to spend a little bit of time there because there was a period of time in OMGs growth where our agency, we were getting a ton of leads of people who said, Hey, we're 2 million, 3 million, 5 million, whatever brand on Amazon, but we need to diversify. We're nervous of having all our eggs in the Amazon baskets. We want to launch on Shopify. That's not always that easy though, right? There's like a different mindset, different pricing approach, different marketing model, different everything on Amazon versus your own store. So how do you help an Amazon brand or someone who's largely on Amazon, how do you help them achieve success off Amazon? And how do you navigate that Shopify versus Kickstarter discussion? Oh

Khierstyn:

My God, you've opened a can of worms here. Yeah.

Brett:

Yes. Sorry. That makes for good radio, good podcasting there.

Khierstyn:

Amazon sellers are, and this is just a blanket statement, but the way to be successful in Amazon is have a good product that has high enough search volume that you can use PPC to target certain keywords to get people who are what we call high intent, who, for example, I go to Amazon because I'm looking for magnesium supplements. So I am looking,

Brett:

These are really popular now, by the way. Yes. A couple years ago, I never heard anybody talk about magnesium, and I'm a supplement guy. I take all kinds of crazy weird stuff that I experiment with where it's at. But the magnesium train that's that bandwagon I should say, has really been picking up steam lately. So what are the benefits? Why are you taking magnesium? Quick side note here.

Khierstyn:

So I take magnesium because I train for triathlons and I Oh, wow, find that my muscles really tense up without magnesium. And so mag, there's something about the magnesium that helps my body, my muscles relax. And it's like, for example, I have this chronic pain on my shoulder here when I'm biking for longer than 60 minutes, and for some reason when I take magnesium, my muscles relax and I don't have that level of tension again. So

Brett:

Crazy. So there you've heard it here, folks. If you're training for a triathlon, get magnesium. So there you go.

Khierstyn:

Yeah, it's great. That was awesome memory, great four sleep mean, but there's also different kinds of magnesium depending on the purpose you want.

Brett:

Yeah, that's what I've seen. We've got a couple of big things of it. My wife bought some for our daughters, which has a special purpose. I don't know what it is, but yeah, I've taken a little bit of it and it also seems like I have a bit of a calming effect as well, potentially.

Khierstyn:

Yeah. Yeah.

Brett:

Awesome. Well, people didn't tune in to hear us talk about magnesium, but fun little. I've loved that little wrap rabbit trail there, so that that's good. But yeah, so you were talking about someone who sells on Amazon, they're dependent on search volume. Is that still how people discover products on Amazon by search? And so people go to Amazon searching for something. So you mentioned going there for magnesium, so I'll let you pick up the story there.

Khierstyn:

I go to Amazon, I search magnesium supplements for athletes or whatever, and it takes me to 10 pages. I scroll through the first five listings, I look at reviews, et cetera. I look at ingredients and I decide that's someone who's called a, it's high intention because I'm going there for something very specific, typing in keywords, finding a product based on ads and purchasing it because of social proof. That's it. The seller on Amazon generally, unless if you have a backup strategy, you're not collecting the customer information, you have no relationship with the customer, potentially this magnesium supplement is something that's not even a custom formula that you've created. It can potentially be white label that you've just slapped your own label on, and it's a commoditized product. There's no differentiation outside of that. Not all Amazon products are like that, of course, but that's typically what I see the Shopify seller. Typically where they thrive is, and this is why I kind of have beef with a lot of drop shipping products because drop shipping products are just one of a thousand that everyone else is selling and there's no differentiation. Totally.

So the first thing we need to look at in terms of getting success on Amazon is how have you differentiated yourself? Shopify products are very different because it's direct to consumer, meaning you need to sell based on a relationship. So you're starting to build your email list, you're starting to differentiate yourself through focusing on a specific customer through helping feel people emote. What does that mean? Getting people to feel something when they're using your product? There's just a whole different kind of psychology that goes into it because it's really the difference between you ordering on Uber Eats your dinner versus you going into a restaurant and getting served by having the relationship with the waiter and hearing about the story of how the restaurant got started and the experience of it. It's like, am I making sense?

Brett:

Totally. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And what's really interesting, and then we consult with a lot of Amazon brands as well, or people that are building brands on Amazon, off Amazon. And I think really the path to success now to, regardless of where you're selling is you've got to build a brand, you have to, that's it, differentiate. There has to be some personality to your brand, and there's still money to be made just by succeeding off of all the search appointments on Amazon and people trusting Amazon and not knowing your brand. But really I think that's short lived, and then I think it's really hard to then go off Amazon in that case. And yeah, one thing, I actually posted this on Twitter earlier this year. I said, Hey, if you had to build a brand right now, would you start on Shopify or would you start on Amazon?

And why? And it was heated, man. There was people, it was like 50 50 split people you knowing and debating and hurling insults at each other and mashing of teeth and all kinds of stuff, like deciding which is better. But it really depends, I think, on what your skillset is. I think if you can build a brand on Shopify first and you can attract those customers and build a following and then go on Amazon, that's even better. But not everybody has that skillset. But really I think what you're also saying is, but if you do launch on Amazon first, you still got to build that brand building skillset to have any success off of Amazon.

Khierstyn:

Yeah, because I think there's really, you can go both ways, but if it were me, I would do exactly what you said, launch on Shopify and then go to Amazon. Because if you're a new seller, new product, I want to understand if I have three star reviews on my product, I want to understand how much my customers love and do a controlled experiment, get that feedback, and then go to Amazon for round two, because I have to make sure that I have

Brett:

When you're there, reviews. Yeah.

Khierstyn:

And if you go to Amazon with a subpar product ev for a new product, and that's listing goodbye three stars, you're not selling anything.

Brett:

Totally. Totally. So that's awesome. So then as you're kind of having that discussion with somebody, when does it make sense for someone who's selling on Amazon to then use Kickstarter as one of their first things off Amazon? Well, when does that make sense?

Khierstyn:

Yeah. So there's different levels. The timer we've taken Amazon sellers to Kickstarter are twofold. One is when they already have a thriving Amazon business in one space and they decide to launch a new brand on Shopify. So they're starting for a new brand and they want to launch it on Kickstarter. We did this with Kelly Waits where they were multiple seven figure seller in one spa in strength training and stuff like that. And then they launched Fitness Bengals for women. They wanted to create a brand around that. So they went to Shopify to launch that. We did that with another Amazon seller who saw a new product market for, and I thought he was crazy when I first talked to him because he was launching a beard straightener for men. And I was like, he's a

Brett:

Straightener. Interesting.

Khierstyn:

And being an Amazon seller, he was so an he's so analytical, and he was like, look, we've done the research. Thousands of men buy women's hair straighteners to straighten their beer because there's nothing available. And so he sold me. I was like, okay, well, clearly I'm not your demographic, but he took, well, he again had a thriving Amazon business and decided to go to Kickstarter to launch ABER Light Pro, the new beard brand. And so that's like case one Amazon seller knows the ropes, wants to build a brand. We also have the other side where you have an Amazon seller that gets on Amazon and is ready and is profitable, has a kind of figured out and wants to then become available on Shopify, and they start to do a brand extension to start going multi-channel by building out their email list, their customer relations, getting super clear on their avatar, et cetera.

Brett:

Nice. And so let's talk about that a little bit. You know, talked about the barrier to getting launched on Kickstarter has gotten harder. Yeah. Well, let's say I'm, I've got a brand and I'm launching a new product and I want to use Kickstarter. What kind of email list am I needing to build? What kind of sales volume or interest volume am I going to need to get in that first one to two days or whatever, whatever that timeframe is? What does that look like now?

Khierstyn:

So if you're a new brand and you want to invest the money, we are working with a factory right now out of China that is building a North American brand, super cool case study. And I did the hard sell, not to do Kickstarter for them, but they're like, look, we want to raise $250,000. We have the capital, we want to do Kickstarter. I was like, cool. All right, you've passed all the tests, let's go. So getting them to do quarter million dollars, we are building their list up to about 10 to 15,000 people from zero.

Brett:

From zero, largely through Facebook ads, Instagram ads, things like that.

Khierstyn:

We're doing TikTok to Google, Facebook, but our top of funnel activities are going to be your Facebook, Instagram with remarketing. But anyway, so say 10 to 15,000 people on the list, building a social media following with that. And if we assume that our cost per lead is about $2 50 cents pre-launch for a qualified lead, then that is going to yield us about, on the first 36 hours, we want to be hitting about 20% of our overall goal. So I don't know what the math looks like,

Brett:

So Well, 20% of two 50 is 50. Yeah.

Khierstyn:

Yeah. Well, there you go. Yeah. Math is not my strong suit.

Brett:

Calculators are four and computers and all this,

Khierstyn:

And I'm charging my phone. But yeah, that's like we work backwards and we have a full cash flow forecast that we essentially after doing a, we'll do a market test before we onboard someone for a full launch. And based on that, we establish what the cost per lead is and then use that to build out a full launch projection in a marketing budget. So you can say, all right, if you want to go for 250,000 for a raise, this is what your list has to be. These are the average conversions we're expecting and this is what that expected investment's going to be. So

Brett:

Nice. Nice. Got it. Okay. But man, that's pretty good though. So you're getting leads, you're getting email captures for $2 and 50 cents. Yeah. So you're spending 40 K or whatever the case may be to get 15,000 email addresses, and that's enough then to get you started on Kickstarter. Yes. And then really the Kickstarter machine, the algorithm getting listed and stuff, that's what takes care of the rest basically.

Khierstyn:

And if you look at the breakdown of a hundred percent of funds at that volume, you're expecting Kickstarter's audience and give you about 20 to 30% of your total pledges. And then the rest come in from pre-launch if you're using an amplification service like gel op to advertise your campaign to their backer audience, it's pr, it's word of mouth, et

Brett:

Cetera. What was that? Wait, what was that tool you just used? I'm not familiar with that

Khierstyn:

One. I also gel OP is

Brett:

Gel op. How do you spell that? Yeah,

Khierstyn:

J E L L O P.

Brett:

Got it. So you can market your launch on that, and then you got influencers and people that may grab ahold of that and start promoting it and talking about it and stuff. So

Khierstyn:

I love Jello because the results just speak for themselves, but they are a marketing agency that specializes in Kickstarter launches. But the difference is that where we are a marketing agency that helps people build up for a successful Kickstarter campaign by doing the pre-launch, the marketing, we start the fire, and then J Op is a great, what I call an amplification service because in exchange for say 15% of the pledges that they bring in, they're going to take over as your Facebook advertisers and market your project to their database in exchange for a commission.

Got it. With that. Got it. So we tend to, because if you really look at how Kickstarter marketing companies are built, a lot of them take, and it's completely varies, but they'll take 10 to 20% of your raise total because they're marketing your project to this huge backer community. And a lot of the big agencies have that. And I decided early on that I didn't want to be doing that. So we would rather just come in and help people start the fire and partner up with a company like Jup during the launch if a company wants to take it to that next level.

Brett:

Nice. Nice. Very cool. Yeah. Okay, great. And then do you ever do a combo where you're doing some stuff on Kickstarter, some stuff on Shopify? If so, what does that look like?

Khierstyn:

Yeah, so not at the same time. Kickstarter is very clear that they can be the only place that you're selling the product. Got it,

Brett:

Got it.

Khierstyn:

But what that will look like is if you do a Kickstarter launch, you can then after your 30 or 60 day campaign finishes, you can continue pre-orders on Shopify.

Brett:

Nice.

Khierstyn:

Okay. You want to do that.

Brett:

Are there times in when you just recommend, Hey, let's just do a big pre-launch on Shopify, and I know you don't get the boost of all the eyeballs that are on Kickstarter. Maybe you can't use gel up in that case and stuff, but when do you advise someone just to do your next product launch on Shopify, even if you're trying to get a lot of pre-orders and maybe even trying to fund the product development and stuff?

Khierstyn:

Yeah, great question. The questions I ask to make sure if Kickstarter is the right fit for someone versus Shopify is the first step I look at is the product. So more and more now you have to look and see if you're essentially launching products around for the Kickstarter audience. So because you're in large part needing to make sure that you're getting a huge 20% of your pledges come from Kickstarter, so you should make sure it's a product fit for them. So I look at that and if I'm like, okay, design projects, tech, gaming, those tend to be the big categories. So if it's a product fit and has a great track record on Kickstarter, Kickstarter can be an option. Cool. Question number two, what are you wanting to invest in doing a launch? Okay, so that's where when we looked at the numbers of say the factory that is spending $60,000, $70,000 in pre-launch between the video ad spend, marketing fees, et cetera, to yield 250,000, they're willing to pay that price because they want the big social proof, they want the big list. But I tell that to eight out of 10 entrepreneurs and they can't stomach that,

Brett:

Right? So that's a big investment because there's no guarantee you'll build the right size list. So no gear, there's no guarantee it'll get funded. So it's a pretty big chunk of capital to put out there.

Khierstyn:

Yeah. So that's question number two is like, look, this is what it costs to go to Kickstarter. What kind of a launch do you want? And if they're like, that's my marketing, and

Brett:

Is that kind of the normal, is it like 60 K to launch on Kickstarter? I'm assuming you probably do it for a little bit less, but what is the threshold there to get launched on Kickstarter?

Khierstyn:

If we say the average that you want to go for is six figures, assume you're going to put in about 40 if you're starting from zero. Okay.

Brett:

Yeah. Got it, got it. Okay.

Khierstyn:

And some people are like, cool, I have investors ready to go. But if you're that Shopify brand that you're serious, but you would rather have a smaller launch than what I would advise you do is instead of spending 40 k building up an email list that you can't convert for three months as you're building up, and if you want to go straight to Shopify and spend your money to get orders right away, then we recommend that you do a smaller controlled launch and do a pre-order campaign on your own website.

Brett:

Got it. At that point. And then how any tips or suggestions or Shopify plugins or something to make that pre-order successful because they're some people that don't like to do, but are you positioning like this, you would a Kickstarter launch and try to build a ton of excitement around it, but you're doing it all through Shopify instead of Kickstarter?

Khierstyn:

So couple ways you can do that. It's less about the apps you use unless if you want to stage a crowdfunding campaign on your own website, there's an app called crowdfunder on Shopify that you can use. So that is a good one. We typically haven't replicated crowdfunding on Shopify sites. Just, I don't know why we just haven't, but the typical, I think that there's more flexibility with your Shopify launch. So we just finished one where we had a $20,000 first month for a baby product. Now we decided after doing market testing with MoVI that we didn't want to go to Kickstarter because it's a baby product for newborns that can only be used in the first 12 months of life. And when we look at the Kickstarter demographic, it's just too narrow of a niche to get the volume that we would hope on Kickstarter. And if MoVI had gone to Kickstarter, they would've ended up driving 95% of the sales. So at that point they're like, we would rather just launch on our own website.

Brett:

That's great. So yeah, so talk about that for a minute. Who is the Kickstarter demo? Does it skew slightly mailed? I know you said tech and electronics and stuff like that are big there. What does that demographic look like?

Khierstyn:

Expect it's like 25 to 45 ish. They're early adopters, which can literally be anyone at this point, but 25 to 45. So you're looking at that millennial crowd, you are looking at people who like gadgets household, it is like a split more 60 40 these days of male female. But when you look at is my project, is my product even like a fit? I would just go to Kickstarter and in their search bar type in, okay, watches. Oh, watches are a great category, coffee maker. Oh, awesome. Diapers

Brett:

Less. Nope,

Khierstyn:

Nope.

Brett:

Who wants to fund the diaper? You want to wait till the last possible minute to buy diapers typically, unless it's watching your baby for you or something. Yeah. So that totally makes sense.

Khierstyn:

So something that they're products that servee a wide market. There's an insole that we worked with that helps with knee pain. They wanted to go to Kickstarter, but we're like, ah, I don't know if that's the demographic. So we did a market test and turned out that we were right with their demographic. It was like 55 and up people who suffer from knee osteoarthritis. And that's just too specific. And the demographics are just too old for us, too old. I say old, but it's just too old for the, it's totally

Brett:

Good. It's audience, it's not a match, it's just not a fit. The millennials on Kickstarter. Yeah, yeah.

Khierstyn:

Got it. Exactly. Got

Brett:

It. Okay, cool. So what are you doing to overcome any, so let's talk about, again, launching pre-orders on Shopify. What are you doing to overcome that resistance that some people will have to pre-ordering stuff?

Khierstyn:

Great question. So full transparency number one. Yeah, it, it's really interesting because we had two launches last month that were really good. And then one of the products keeps selling and the other stopped. And when I looked at the websites, the big difference was transparency in shipping. So for some reason, one of the launches decided to not put a pending shipping date on their website while the other one did. And so when I was like, oh, I think know what happened, you need to be be very clear with people ships in July. So number one, you need to be upfront and make sure that people know what to expect. Number two, don't start taking pre-orders until you are confident in your manufacturing timeline. I mean, you started manufacturing or it's on a boat, you need to be confidently eight maximum 10 weeks away from being able to fulfill.

Brett:

Got it. So that's the threshold any more than eight to 10 weeks and not going to happen.

Khierstyn:

We have one product right now that we keep pushing off the launch date because the, it's just like to get to that point where they're finally starting production, they're just like, the sample has to be finalized or there's one little step before we can start production. And we're like, no, we need production to be locked in because last thing you want is to have to tell people five times, really sorry, customers were delayed again. So if you could be as close to the process, better off to keep, just get to market faster and stuff,

Brett:

It really makes sense. There was this coffee maker that was really successful, I think it was on Kickstarter, and it was kind of unique, used centrifugal force to brew the coffee in, you know, could program it and then connect it with Alexa and all these other things. And I was so excited about it and it, it'll do a full shots of espresso or do a single cup of coffee or do a full pot of coffee, super versatile. But they kept having a push back the shift date four or five times something. I mean, I'm just making up a number, but it was a lot and people were losing their minds. It was so unique, so interesting that some people were sticking around, but a lot of people weren't. So yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. For most products. People are not going to want to get the date pushed back any, that's certainly not a few times. So yeah, do this when you're confident that you know what the ship date's going to be.

Khierstyn:

Yeah. But surprisingly you don't get a lot of refunds and this nice plus depend on you being good at communicating delays and how you deliver it. Yeah, of course. But those are really, what are

Brett:

You doing to, are you discounting so that someone wants to buy now? And if so, how much to get someone to say, Hey, you are, you're doing a pre-order shipping in July or whenever, but you get these perks, these benefits, these bonuses, these discounts, what does that usually look like?

Khierstyn:

So people need a reason to buy now. And so I think the pre-order offer is really important because why would I buy now when it's higher risk wait and supposed to wait? Exactly. So there's a couple things you could do. We typically do a larger discount than we would typically expect. You can get super fancy with this, but one that we did for MoVI was 20% off and we kept it simple. You could do things like offer a free accessory with all pre-orders, do something more of value to entice people to buy during a pre-order stage. It's slightly different from a Kickstarter sales strategy because on Kickstarter you have the ly bird rewards where you have 50% off door Crashers special if you buy in the first day. And then day two is a different offer. And then it's it, it's just different. But I like having pre-orders say the first week you get a certain discount, et cetera.

Brett:

But so even if it's on Shopify, you making the offer, the pre-launch offer a little bit different from week to week to again, build some urgency there

Khierstyn:

If you can do that. Otherwise you will see your sales are going to be big in the first week and then nothing for two or three weeks until Mother's Day comes up. And then you do another sale and then your sales spike. People do need a reason to buy and your sales cycle will ebb and flow, but you can help people by giving a good pre-launch offer.

Brett:

Very cool. Very cool. That's awesome. Any other guidance or tips on, do I really focus on building with Shopify or building with Kickstarter? We covered a lot of ground, but any kind of final thoughts there or final tips?

Khierstyn:

If I were launching our next product, I would start on Shopify. I would build an audience. I would keep our costs down. I would do some paid ads. I would scale that way. And then after I have a bit of an audience, I would go to Kickstarter for product two, product three. Got it. That's what I would do. I wouldn't start with Kickstarter unless if I were a funded startup, had something truly unique and stuff. But I prefer just to go direct and ask for the sale because when you close and you ask people to buy your product, that's when you're going to get the most objections. That's when the most learning happens. And that's I think how you're quickly able to figure out how to make something work as opposed to a slow build of a Kickstarter in the beginning.

Brett:

Yeah, I really like that. And we're seen it successful. And again, don't, we're not involved in Kickstarter campaigns, but have had a few clients who very established multiple seven figure eight figure brands, but they launch a new product and they've got a huge audience and a huge following and they want to do the Kickstarter thing. It creates a buzz, it creates excitement. Great. They get some funding and that works, but they've got a hundred thousand person email list or whatever and so they can make it happen. Do that. Yeah, pretty easily. Yeah, totally makes sense. Awesome. So Khierstyn, if people are listening to this and they say, man, I want to know what launch and scale can do for me. I want to know what Khierstyn and team can do. Talk a little bit about your agency, what you guys offer, and then how people can get in touch with you.

Khierstyn:

So we are full service agency. What I mean by that is we hyper focus on early stage brand building. So if you are a seven figure Amazon seller and you want to get stuff to work on your Shopify site, we specialize in helping you figure out how to get the fire going. So we do it through paid ads, conversion rate optimization, and email marketing to essentially handle all sides of the funnel so that we can start to build your audience and go from there. So that's number one. And if you're looking for more like mentorship, et cetera, we do have online programs to help

Brett:

With Nice two. And is all of that available to learn more discover@launchandscale.co?

Khierstyn:

Yes, it is what groups

Brett:

As well? Okay.

Khierstyn:

Yep, you got it.

Brett:

Sweet. Is that the product Launchpad? Is that the training?

Khierstyn:

Yeah, product Launchpad is our, and we actually have a $1 trial on that. Look at

Brett:

That $1

Khierstyn:

Trial can try before you buy. It's a no-brainer deal. But yeah, we find our sweet spot is agency. When we work with founders who are serious about building brands, I absolutely love it. So we work with all kinds of products. It's super awesome.

Brett:

That is a ton of fun. And you got a podcast as well, right? Are you still Podcasty or did you switch to the YouTubes?

Khierstyn:

So the podcast is more where we, YouTube is number one and we end up publishing most of the audio to the

Brett:

Got it, got it, got it. So you're you, youre for YouTube first and then the

Khierstyn:

YouTube's not baby. Yeah.

Brett:

Got it. It. Excellent. Any YouTube tips for the people at home? Cause I know there's some brands, I do hear this more now where people are wanting to, I just opened your YouTube channel, so I just heard you come through the computer here. But any tips on YouTube? Someone brands wanting to build their presence on YouTube organic, any tips or suggestions there?

Khierstyn:

YouTube shorts.

Brett:

YouTube shorts.

Khierstyn:

But on video, actually, this is a question for almost a question for you, but yeah, terrific. We get most of our traffic from YouTube because we go heavy into search volume or and seo. So if you are a brand, some of the easiest and best content you can do is being where people are searching for. So probably my best YouTube tip is if you are, we're launching a product to help women with bladder incontinence. So if she can create videos on what is bladder incontinence, best tips for bladder incontinence, pelvic floor exercises four. So what I'm doing is I'm looking at the problem my product solves and getting into the mind of my customer to think what are some things that content they're searching for to solve that problem. And by you building a content strategy and videos that answer that question on YouTube, you are able to get in front of them.

That's probably, I love YouTube so much because you can essentially plug yourself into where people are by being smart with search as opposed to TikTok, which is more trends and lifestyle things. I think that there's like, if you want predictable traffic, getting onto the YouTube bandwagon is probably the best thing. But I actually don't know if you can answer this, but our long form videos, we have the keyword research and titles, we've kind of figuring that out and that that's good for us. But short form videos, do those play heavily into SEO these days with that search intent? Yeah,

Brett:

So that's a great question. The short answer is I'm not sure. So I'm a YouTube ads guy, I understand organic to a certain degree, but I lean on friends like Liz Jermain who's been on the podcast a couple of times. I know for us we, I've been posting YouTube shorts mostly just clips from the podcast or clips from me speaking at events. And they've done pretty well. They've done pretty well on YouTube shorts. I do love the fact that YouTube organic grows over time and one video can be better a year from now than it is today even, and still generate leads and stuff where there are very few things probably that have the rapid scale potential that's available, the viral factor that that's there with TikTok, but it's usually kind of a flash in the pan, right? You got to keep cranking out content all the time.

Yeah. So what I've heard though is you kind of need to do both the long form content and something that's going to be keyword optimized where it's showing up in search, other content where you're just, you're falling kind of a series of ideas. And so then it's showing up in the recommendations engine and then you pull from all of that to create shorts and then the shorts can kind of feed everything. So that's kind of my understanding. Yeah. But again, I'm just kind of saying what other people have taught me. I'm not an expert on YouTube organic.

Khierstyn:

Yeah, I think this is definitely do your research, but I saw Neil Patel, he's the SEO guy. He

Brett:

Is the SEO guy. No doubt.

Khierstyn:

I did see a short about how when you start to type in things in Google, short form videos are starting to show up as answers to that. So actually

Brett:

Interesting. Yeah. Shorts are showing up in the search. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense, especially if you're answering your question. If I get that question answered in under 60 seconds, that's better than watching a full format minute video or something. Even though Google's getting pretty good, I like just saying, Hey, your answer is starting at this point of the video, and they'll just show you that, which is great. But I love the idea that that shorts can be answers to questions as well. So it

Khierstyn:

Means from that smart, I would assume that having SEO in your short strategy is probably the best way to get qualified traffic. Because our best customers come when they're searching for something. So we have a client who is doing so well, but on YouTube shorts, et cetera, but she sells a mindfulness journal, and that is she can easily tap into what is mindfulness, breathing tips for meditation. She can whatever it is that her target audience is search searching for, she can build content around that show up in their feed, they find out she has a journal, they buy the journal, and it's just, those are probably the best leads because you end up nurturing and qualifying through your content as opposed to dancing on video on TikTok. And they're like, oh wait, you sell journals?

Brett:

Yeah, okay. It's like, yeah. Or they don't even notice. They don't even notice your name or anything. They just see you dancing and they're entertained. But that's it. Yeah,

Khierstyn:

I love TikTok, but in terms of search intent and getting organic traffic through a good content strategy, that's probably where we really shine with that.

Brett:

Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense. Cool. So you can find it all out and more@launchandscale.co. Khierstyn has been a ton of fun, really enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the time. And until we do this again,

Khierstyn:

I know. Well, thank you for your time. This was awesome.

Brett:

Absolutely. And thank you for tuning in as always. We'd love to hear from you. So give us feedback on this episode. Give us feedback on the show in general. We'd love to get that five star review on iTunes if you feel like we've earned it. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

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