Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome back to this YouTube channel. If it's your first time tuning in, my name is Salvador Brigman and on this channel we talk about crowdfunding, we talk about raising money for different types of projects, and specifically today we're going to be discussing science crowdfunding. So how you can raise money for financing academic research, financing other types of science pursuits and how you can do that. And the reason I actually decided to talk about this, sort of the inspiration behind this video, is I was actually on a science crowdfunding panel recently. We did a Google Hangout and there was a live portion, I was one of the panelists talking about this. And a lot of frequently asked questions came up. A lot of very common questions related to crowdfunding and also some specific ones. So if you're a scientist or you're wondering how to raise money, this is the video for you. I'm going to go through, number one, what are some of the misconceptions out there in the community? What should you know if you're actually trying to raise money from the crowd? Number two, what are some of the best practices for raising money? And number three, some of the big platforms out there, and also some of the campaigns that I think that you guys should know about. The first thing I would like to say is that the media has an amazing way of changing public perception. I know that when I first got into crowdfunding, I was looking at these thousand dollar and a hundred thousand dollar raises and I'm like, wow, it's like there's free money out there. It's like people are just giving money to crowdfunding campaigns. Unfortunately, that's not exactly true. If you look at experiment.com, which is one of the top science crowdfunding platforms out there, they have a really great statistics section where they break down a whole slew of statistics from campaign creators and donors on their platform. The one I want to highlight is the average amount raised by a campaigner on their website is around $4,000, $4,000. That's nothing like the a hundred thousand dollars that were led to believe by the media. In addition, the average donor gives up a little over a hundred dollars to a crowdfunding campaign on their platform. Lastly, I believe they've raised in total on their platform a little bit over 5 million to $6 million. And that's actually a very key number because I think that science crowdfunding is actually growing more and more. Scientists are really hit hard. It's a funding crisis in many ways. It's really hard to get a grant. It's really hard to get funding for the sciences. And those are funds that are poorly deserved. So more people are turning to crowdfunding as an alternative way to fund their scientific research and to fund their science experiments. You're not the only one. It is a growing trend. The other thing that I would like to say here is that there is a continuum here of science. So at the one end of the continuum, there is pure academic research. There's research for, I just want to learn something. I just want to know something. There isn't any kind of direct application. This is research for research sake. This is on one end of the continuum. On the other end, there's research that you can commercialize. There's research that if you put in some engineering, you can actually sell a product based off of that research. To give you an example here, if I invent a new chemical, and let's just say I discover that this chemical can bind two sheets of paper together and they stick together. I could call that chemical glue. And that glue, while initially when I discovered it, might not be ready to sell to the public, I can eventually get it to a point where I can sell that glue in a bottle and people will buy that. It will create revenue, it will create jobs, it's a sustainable business. So the more, or I'd say the closer that your project is on this continuum to commercialization, the easier it will be to raise funds. And that's because people can see that direct application. They can see what they're going to get out of it. This is one of the very big reasons why Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other rewards-based crowdfunding platforms have done so well. Products tend to do really well in the crowdfunding arena. When someone supports a product that they see they themselves want to exist in the world, and by supporting that product, they're eventually going to own this, that's a very big motivator for traditional crowdfunding campaigns. On Kickstarter, the average raise is about $10,000, but even for these product-centric campaigns, if you go on my podcast, I've had on many, many entrepreneurs who've raised six and seven figures on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. So if you have applicable science research, that's a really great subject, a really great reason to go with crowdfunding. That is not to say that if you are raising money purely for research, that you can't do it. And I'll reference here a London-based science crowdfunding platform called Wallacea. I think I'm pronouncing that right. These guys hosted a campaign where the researchers wanted to raise money to study the effects of LSD and how that affects the brain. So basically what they did, they launched this campaign and they ended up raising a little bit over 50,000 pounds for this research study. In U.S. dollars, at the current exchange rate, that's like 60,000 to 70,000 U.S. dollars. So you might be thinking, wow, that's really cool. How can I do that? One of the very key components of their crowdfunding campaign was that they really took to heart the fact that rather than just accepting money, you should give something in return. You should give a perk, a reward, or an experience that's going to make people want to give money to your campaign. So actually what they did, they printed out images of the brain, of what it looked like on LSD, and they included this as a poster. So if you gave money, you would gain access to rewards like this, and you could actually own it. You could display it on your apartment wall, or if you're younger, on your dorm room wall. Or you could give it as a gift, which is kind of cool. I'm getting excited even as I talk about that, because I am, like most people, I nerd out about science. It's kind of cool to me. Other things that they did, they would invite you to a lunch with some of the top researchers. You could really pick their brain. You could learn about their insights regarding science and science research, and you could learn their own stance. You could be invited to one of their seminars, where they're talking about topics related to the brain and psychology, and you'd be invited to the after party and get free drink tickets. So these are some really cool perks and rewards. And I like this campaign, because it underscores a different way of thinking about fundraising. I'll also link to this campaign both in the description and in this YouTube video. The reason that I like it is because all too often, science researchers are writing reasons why this study should be funded, and they're expecting other scientists to read that. It's very heavy jargon, it's very heavy science speak, and it doesn't appeal to the masses. I hate to say that, but the average person is not engaged in that way, and this campaign really cracked the code, and they figured out what would engage the lay science person, the lay person just kind of interested in science research. They figured out how to get them to donate and pledge. The last thing that I'm going to say here is, if you do want to check out some of the platforms out there, some of the major science-related ones, I will be including a link in the description of this YouTube video. Also link to that experiment that I mentioned. As well as, I put together a really great video on the dynamics and the reasons that people give to crowdfunding campaigns. These are some of the marketing secrets that I have discovered in the last three to four years. If you'd like to check out that video, learn a little bit more about the things that you need to do if you want to stand out from the crowd and get people to invest their time and their energy in actually pursuing your campaign, go and check out that video. I'll link it up as an annotation here, so you can also very easily click to it. I've gotten great response on that video. If you want to stick around before you leave, give me a thumbs up if you enjoyed this video. I'll provide a bit of bonus content here, if you will. One secret that I have with regards to launching a crowdfunding campaign, and this is kind of like a misconception out there, you think that people are just going to give money to your campaign. More often than not, what causes people to pay attention to what it is you're doing is a concept called social proof. What is social proof? Social proof is if lots of people are paying attention to something, you're more likely to also pay attention to that thing. If you're going to a party and no one's there, that's not really a party that you want to go to. If there are a bunch of people already there, you're more likely to accept that invitation and go and check out that party. Same thing with a restaurant. If there are a lot of people in a restaurant, it's bustling, it looks busy, you're more likely to look in the window or check out the menu. It really commands your attention in a larger way. When you are launching a crowdfunding campaign for science or anything else, if you create an artificial community in some ways, if you bring a bit of the crowd to crowdfunding, you're going to be far more successful. These could be friends, family members, people who have donated to your past fundraisers for research. These could even be colleagues. Getting these people to take action, give money to share the campaign, it's going to show activity on your campaign. That way, when someone actually comes and checks out the campaign, they're going to take a second to watch that video versus if they came to campaign, no one has pledged, no one has donated, no one has talked about this campaign, they're going to probably click off. They're not very likely to watch that video. There's no reason for them to spend that attention, especially when so many things online are vying for our attention. I hope you enjoyed this video. Again, my name is Salvador Brinkman. I urge you to go and check out that video I mentioned about marketing and crowdfunding. I think you'll get a lot out of it. Without further ado, I'll see you next time.