How to raise money to launch a movie, video game, or small business in 2020
If you want to learn how to raise money to launch your own movie, video game, or small business idea—this is the interview for you.
In this interview with John T. Trigonis, he’s going to teach you how to create a money-making crowdfunding campaign, step by step.
John T. Trigonis is one of the smartest, most accomplished creatives I’ve ever met. Here’s a quick rundown of John’s accomplishments:
Author of Crowdfunding For Filmmakers: The Way To A Successful Film Campaign
Crowdfunding Campaign Advisor on movies like Super Troopers 2, Code 8, and Con Man
John has helped creative entrepreneurs—people just like you—raise millions of dollars.
After you listen to this interview, you’ll know how to raise money. I sincerely hope you use this information to create new, ambitious opportunities for yourself.
Enjoy the interview.
What are the rules for creating a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2020? And how have the rules changed since you wrote your book Crowdfunding For Filmmakers in 2016?
John Trigonis: We have to be more innovative than we've ever been before. There are so many people right now crowdfunding for something. It's a major institution right now. So now that everybody's kind of doing this stuff on a regular basis, we have to make our campaigns more exciting, more interesting and not just run of the mill.
There are so many more $5,000 campaigns, $50,000 campaigns, and $150,000 campaigns out there than there ever was. And if we want a piece of that package, we have to be able to navigate that landscape in a way that is not the standard, “Hey, I need money for my film.” We have to get creative and interesting.
Because asking strangers to donate money has become ubiquitous on Facebook, do you think that has made it even harder to crowdfund?
John Trigonis: Hundred percent. I would say because of Facebook implementing their crowdfunding element for birthdays and stuff like that, we all know about it more than Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Seed, and Spark, all those others. Now the general public understands crowdfunding.
Now the other side of that is when you look at the fundraising on Facebook, it's all causes pretty much. It's all goodness of my heart stuff. So that is making it more difficult for people to stand out when they want to raise money to make just a simple film because there's no heart-string-tugging cause behind that film.
It's a film, it's a product, it's to get this artist to create this film, but there's no cause behind it. So a lot of people are now saying, “Well, you know, I'd rather put my money to a cause.” The general public is saying that.
We should thank Facebook for opening crowdfunding and online fundraising to the masses, but at the end of the day, we filmmakers and creators have to be more niche, especially when we go after our targets.
What are your 5 steps to creating a successful crowdfunding campaign?
John Trigonis:
Step #1
You've got to build your audience. Now it's easy for me to say that. It's become much more difficult to build an audience because people's attention spans are just everywhere all the same time.
You've got to start your crowdfunding campaign earlier than ever. I would honestly say six months minimum. I don't care whether you want to raise 5,000 or 500,000. It’s a 6-month minimum to find, build, and engage with your audience.
If you're a filmmaker, you better be ingrained in that community. If you're making a comic book, you better know artists and writers, and you've got to have all their Twitter handles ready to go, and you've got to be talking to them every day.
If you're a game developer, you better be Hashtag Game Dev every day to get into those worlds so that when you do launch a campaign, six months later, they will be like, "Hey, this guy's cool. I've known him for a while. I'm going to support her project immediately."
Step #2
Assemble a team. If you can't design, find a designer. If you can't write, find a writer.
Step #3
You've got a double down on rewards for your backers. Make it all about the backers cause they're the ones giving you the money.
Step #4
Set realistic goals. Look at yourself in the mirror. That's what we got to do as creators. Look at your networks, look at how much of an audience you've built up over the last six months. Ask yourself how much money can you realistically raise.
Step #5
Soft launch to friends and family first. That is still something that has not gone out of fashion.
You wrote a book called Crowdfunding for filmmakers. Can you explain the process of writing a book and perhaps give some tips and tactics for aspiring writers?
John Trigonis: It was something I had to learn about because I didn't expect myself to be writing a book, especially something about crowdfunding. I got that book deal just by pitching it to my modest Twitter following of 250 people.
A good friend of mine, Tyler Weaver, wrote a cool book about Transmedia storytelling. He's kind of somebody that I was looking up to at the time. I still do. He's a cool dude. And I noticed that he got it published through Focal Press. So I realized that somebody from Focal Press was following me. So when my fiance gave me the idea to write the book on crowdfunding so I can get back to being creative, I said, all right, let me pitch it to this girl who's following me and see what happens.
I sent the pitch and she gave me an email address to send a proposal. So that's the first step––you've got to write a proposal. And that is a bit harder than writing the actual book, but once you have that proposal written, you've got the entire book in your head outlined and ready to go.
Are book publishers reluctant to give advances
John Trigonis: I don't want to pretend to have the answer to that. I think a lot of the smaller publishers, like boutique publishers, don't because their mentality is we want content. They want content in the form of books, physical and online, digital books. And the more they have, the more chances they have to make money from those books. The author gets whatever, 10, 15% depending on what's negotiated.
As jobs continue disappearing due to automation, do you think more Americans will be forced into freelancing?
John Trigonis: I think they're going to be leaning towards freelance because they're younger, they're millennials. They understand this world in a way that my generation and our dads and moms generations definitely did not understand: That life is more important than work.