Ajolla uses an all-or-nothing funding model. If your campaign doesn’t reach its goal, then funds don’t get collected, and no money changes hands. This minimizes risk for entrepreneurs — imagine ending up with only $5,000 and a bunch of people expecting a $50,000 restaurant! All-or-nothing funding makes it easier for customers to purchase from your campaign with confidence that you’ll be able to get the job done.
Your funding goal should be the minimum amount you need to make what you promised and fulfill all coupons. The first step to setting that goal is figuring out a budget.
Write down every possible expense — even less obvious ones, like shipping tape and bubble wrap. For larger expenses, research the best price. Total everything up. It’s okay if the number is bigger than expected: even if your project feels simple, it’s best to make sure every step is accounted for.
Ajolla is a great way to share your ideas with new people. Still, most of your support will come from your core networks, and the people most familiar with your work. Consider the audiences you can tap into, from friends and fans to online communities, and make a conservative estimate of how many customers you can realistically bring in.
If your campaign is successfully funded, ajolla applies a 8.5% fee; our payment processors fees are included in this 8.5% fee. Every project’s tax situation is different, but that may affect your needs as well. More than anything, you’ll want a little padding in case of unexpected costs or emergencies.
Your funding period can last anywhere from one to 365 days. Ajolla offers a longer fundraising deadline because we operate as both a crowdfunding platform and a marketplace. This also caters to the unique natures of different businesses, some need more time others need less.
You can’t change your funding goal once you’ve launched. But once that goal has been reached, some campaigns add incentives — like new features, colors, or gifts to customers — to hit even higher funding milestones. These stretch goals can work for some — but they can also be challenging. They’re a better idea when they improve the work (like adding more levels to a video game), instead of creating something entirely new.
Unexpected popularity can be a nice problem to have. But when you designed a budget to make 100 of something, it’s tricky to suddenly have 10,000 purchases! If you feel like you’ve hit your limit, you can always cap your coupons. You can also stagger release dates — cap the original coupon at a number you can handle, then add more with a later delivery date, so you don’t have to do everything at once. Let customers know in advance that the demand might affect your schedule.
Your campaign’s dashboard gives you an at-a-glance view of everything that’s happening: your funding progress, where visitors to your campaign page are coming from, a breakdown of which coupons customers are choosing — even a complete feed of all project activity.
Your customer report is where all information about your campaign’s customers will be neatly organized. Everything from the coupon that they chose to any messages that you’ve exchanged will be documented here. And once you send out coupon surveys, customers’ responses will ALSO be documented here. The report can easily be downloaded as a CSV file.
Google Analytics opens up a whole new world of trusted, powerful tools, from custom reports and dashboards to the ability to track how many visits to the campaign page are converting into purchases.