Heroes & Friends: The next level for the crowdfunding landscape
3 Things that we can do for your project’s growth.
Do you know this feeling? You’re wrapped up in a vivid conversation with friends and get fired up about a great idea? You get home and can’t wait to start? Or have you been working on a new business idea for months and need a new pair of ears and first supporters?
Effectively following up on an idea often feels daunting and impossible at first. You go from feeling enthusiastic and that everything was within reach for a moment, to feeling overwhelmed when you realize the amount of steps it will take to get to your goal.
The classic way to turn the initial fruitful idea into a project is to sit down, write the plan out and then — in a lot of cases — start looking for means to realize the plan:
“We need money before we can start”
Traditional partners come to mind: Banks that need to be convinced, decision makers that seem inaccessible, or crowd funding middlemen that need to approve the fit to their criteria.
It becomes complicated at first! You need to win people over with what is still a fragile idea, and you will most likely realize how hard it gets to keep the energy going.
What would moments like this look like if these ideas would be easy to follow up on? What if we can turn 10% of all big ideas into reality?
What most of us need most of the time is focus. Instead of working on a plan to convince other parties, you focus on progressing your actual idea towards realization; in your own speed; spreading it to the people that actually matter.
This requires you to be in control of your project speed and plan, it requires easy outreach to like-minded people, and easy ways to keep your supporters involved.
So, what are we waiting for?
Every journey starts with the first step, and with our product the first step is now moving down hill. Our goal is to eliminate all the reasons not to move on your project.
So we put together our three Cs for you that will convert your silent brainstorm into reality: Control, Campaign and Contribution:
I. CONTROL
When using Heroes & Friends, you walk to your own project beat.
Heroes & Friends may seem like just another crowd funding website. But it has some striking differences to what you know from traditional crowdfunding sites: It enables you to determine your own speed, and gives you the freedom and the control that you need in the early stages of your project
Heroes & Friends allows you to start your project immediately. No application process, no predefined fixed goals or timeframes to realize your plan. We know that each plan is different, and that there are a hundred ways to move a mountain. We want to accommodate all of them:
- Maybe you want to start out small with a small budget and a reasonable project aim? Just to test the waters?
That is a fine way to go. You can state your initial plan, and if it goes well, adjust your ambitions along the way. Increase your plan and budget, or adjust the in kind requests you have as they emerge. - Maybe you start your project, and on day three you run into someone who teams up with you?
Developments in your project suddenly start speeding up?
Tell everybody about it by spreading these developments through your campaigners! You can increase and decrease the intensity of your campaign as events in your project unfold. We don’t impose a time limit, nor a strict campaign schedule. Because we don’t claim to know the dynamics of your project reality. - Maybe you receive some help from unexpected sources? Your friends friend turns out to be a great accountant? Or your sister’s best friend insists on contributing financially?
Great! All help is welcome. With Heroes & Friends you can simply add any donation you’ve received outside your page to your balance, and incorporate any in-kind help in your project’s story. Your project is bound to take unexpected turns, and so its online reflection on Heroes & Friends flexes along with it.
Each development, each donation enables you to do more, moves you towards product-market fit through community-centered feedback.
With Heroes & Friends, YOU are in control.
II. CAMPAIGN SUPPORT
With Heroes & Friends you easily amplify your message to new people.
Now this: you made it from that initial idea in your head to the starting realities of a project in the making. You told a few people about it, got some positive reactions, people keep telling you “great man, if you ever need something I can help you with don’t hesitate to ask”.
But you can’t keep asking the same people over and over again. You need new ears for your ideas.
Here’s where your campaigners come in:
- With a Heroes & Friends page you can ask all these people that were enthusiastic about your plan to become useful in making it happen. They can become campaigner for your project, so that when you have updates or new requests that you would like to share with a fresh audience, they will help you do so immediately. It is an easy contribution for them to make, and a valuable resource for you. You can act on their enthusiasm right in the moment of your conversation and involve them in your project.
- By rallying for campaign support with all the people you meet, you collect a powerful amplifier for your future messages.
And along the way you keep all these contacts you make connected to your project. The number of campaigners of a project is closely correlated to the amount of viewers that project attracts. \ - And? Regular campaigning has the same effect as a series of instantly shared messages on a topic: it sparks and KEEPS curiosity with readers.
Here is a simple fact from our tech front: We see that campaigned project updates can draw as much traffic to a project as a mention of the project in a well read blog or news website. Cool, right?!
III. CONTRIBUTION
Heroes & Friends allows you to share your journey and reap the unexpected benefits.
So let’s say you have figured out how you are going to get your new education app of the ground. You have estimated the budget you need, you have buy-in from a lot of beta users at schools and along the way you have collected 25 campaigners — other parents, teachers, some children — who are eager to spread your story to their friends.
And they want to hear about your progress, about how you’ve reached a certain milestone (“the school board is in!”). People are curious. Keeping your fellow supporters updated builds trust in you and your project.
By sharing your plan, and explaining how you are planning to move forward, you engage people in your goal. “First, find a new school to store test the app.. Then organize a community event in the school where all children and parents come together for a fun afternoon and learn more about us.. Maybe do a creative workshop with the children?
Sometimes projects become rapidly clear in all its details. In other cases the plan unfolds to you gradually, as progress is made. In both cases people are curious to read along, and to be witness of the project’s developments:
- Heroes & Friends allows you to adjust and elaborate on your plan as you progress:
The tool is meant to accommodate and show the changes that occur along the way to success. - What happens when you share the plan instead of the goal, is that it becomes transparent:
People can now start thinking along with you. You show what you need the budget for that you are asking, and people might suggest support offers that you thought nobody would be prepared to offer. - Heroes & Friends enables you to find these people and to easily orchestrate the support they are offering you to move your project forward:
Your project thus quickly becomes a journey, shared with like-minded people, and accelerated by the powers and skills of others.
So here we go, we hope this helps you to plan some of your next moves effectively. And if you know someone who could use it, #beheroesandfriends and share it forward :)
We look forward to welcoming your next project (yep,it’s free!) !
Please let us know how we can help you anytime — Ping us at: contact@heroesandfriends.com
