KickstarterForum.org

[spiceup]

So many crowdfunding agencies... but who to trust?

[MiaModern]

So many crowdfunding agencies... but who to trust?

Most can certainly tell you who NOT to trust.

[karl321]

I got their spam messages. If you market your business via spam it's bound to be shite.

[hyperstarter]

How did they spam you and what message did they send?

I got their spam messages. If you market your business via spam it's bound to be shite.

[littleguy101]

I got their spam messages. If you market your business via spam it's bound to be shite.

This. I agree totally, and I am happy to see those with the same mentality. I think the community really needs to understand that any time you a approached by a marketing agency cold, without introduction, and there is no notarized guarantees on investment or written assurance, and that agency is not working on 100% commission, you just have to know its a scam.

Don't risk your lives on these agencies. You have been warned! Godbless!

[wgbriefcase]

I am happy to write a reply regarding lowkey's slanderous claims about Funded Today as I was the client specialist that interacted with lowkey when he explored the option of working with Funded Today. After reading my commentary it might seem a bit easier to understand why he says, "I hate Funded Today to the core." Many of lowkey's sentiments are due to the fact that he was very upset when I let him know that Funded Today would not be working with his project after we discovered that he was infringing on Cloop's XL patent that was live on Kickstarter at the same time. Kickstarter nearly pulled lowkey's project from their platform too. Cloop XL also had to report lowkey for egregiously posting on the comment section of their project to drive backers away from Cloop XL to pledge to lowkey's Kickstarter campaign which happened to be running at the same time. At one point the dishonest and slanderous claims that lowkey was making on Cloop's page led them to hire an attorney to send a cease and desist and threaten a lawsuit if lowkey continued to infringe on Cloop's patent. It comes as no surprise to me that lowkey would continue in his ways. Old habits die hard is how the saying goes. I stand by my decision to this day to veto working with his project when it was brought before our board of directors and I would do so readily again if presented with the opportunity. His demeanor and attitude are not conducive to the creative and loving environment that crowdfunding has come to represent.

I thought I could post some evidence and some reviews from creators. Since lowkey has never worked with us before he can't really offer an honest review on our services nor do I believe he is honest in anything he does.

Here is a series of testimonials from many happy clients: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyMlXU ... BWcRFCOpag

Here are some Kicktraqs of projects we have worked on:

https://www.screencast.com/t/nPsMVsRnFnM
http://screencast.com/t/w9m400FG5sY
http://screencast.com/t/Wy5E6hY0dg
http://screencast.com/t/1qlad3nYdaq8
http://screencast.com/t/aTzb0yghn09
http://screencast.com/t/48p1HZIr6

Here are some images within the backend of a recent project we are working on ERGO:

https://www.screencast.com/t/xzwIRhNG

Any of the links that end in fnd.to are directly attributable to Funded Today. If you google ERGO you can easily see that they tried to launch on their own and didn't do much at all, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70 ... s-best-bac but after consulting and working with Funded Today to relaunch we are on track to raise them nearly a million dollars. While we may not track for the entire million, we push enough traffic to get products to land on the top page of Kickstarter and by doing so they make thousands of dollars that they wouldn't have made otherwise. How does a campaign go from doing $2500 to raising a million dollars....Funded Today!

When you are the best at what you do there will be a lot of people out there who will attempt to slander, demean, and tear down, but the facts and numbers dictate the truth. Until lowkey understands this he will never launch a campaign that is original or raises astronomical sums of money.

Here is where you can apply:

https://www.funded.today/qualify?r=20

Check out what we have done for other campaigns:

https://www.funded.today/get-more-pledges?r=20

Oh yea, then why did Indiegogo strip Funded Today's partner page of all the funds you've claimed to raise? We are on to your scam!

[DaveGarber1975]

HyperStarter = HyperDrive in this context, I think you made a small typo as we too are not associated with FT or HyperDrive

Your jellyfish mascot always looks so happy. I want to hug it. I'm eager to see what cool name you choose for it.

[DaveGarber1975]

If you google ERGO you can easily see that they tried to launch on their own and didn't do much at all, https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70 ... s-best-bac but after consulting and working with Funded Today to relaunch we are on track to raise them nearly a million dollars. While we may not track for the entire million, we push enough traffic to get products to land on the top page of Kickstarter and by doing so they make thousands of dollars that they wouldn't have made otherwise. How does a campaign go from doing $2500 to raising a million dollars....Funded Today!

Yes, ERGO's re-launch went amazingly well. I remember watching the glowing video testimonial that Marina produced for Funded Today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_-96EqACMQ

It's now one of many reviews that appear on this new website, for those who may be willing to consider an alternate perspective about this agency...

https://www.fundedtodayreviews.com/

Obviously, other creators have suffered not-as-good experiences, investing thousands while getting few (or no) pledges in return. But that's arguably due more to other factors than to Funded Today. Crowdfunding marketing isn't magic and, ultimately, all that it can do is to cost-effectively identify the right sort of people and then persuade them to visit a campaign page and give it a chance---and, after those people arrive at that page, it's up to the page to the sell the product to them. And, if the product isn't all that appealing, or if the page doesn't do a very good job of presenting it, then what can a marketer do? Even the best marketing can only do so much for a figurative Edsel. My experience leads me to firmly believe that a product/service is the single most important factor in any crowdfunding project's succcess, its presentation (through its webpage) is arguably second, and marketing is perhaps third at best. It's true that skilled marketing can sometimes figuratively breathe new life into a largely-overlooked project by effectively reaching out to exactly the right sort of people who would appreciate it, thereby helping it to get funded (whereas it would not have gotten funded otherwise)---I've definitely seen this happen before; but it's more the exception than the rule. Usually, if a project can't attract pledges without marketing, then it can't attract many pledges with marketing, either.

In any case, I encourage people to keep a balanced perspective about this matter. I wouldn't call Funded Today a scam. Perhaps it could use some improvement at times, as can we all, and it's definitely had its share of dissatisfied clients, but it's had a lot of highly-satisfied clients also, and they also count for something.

[DaveGarber1975]

Lowkey, if Hyperdrive didn't work with Funded Today on their Kickstarter project, why would Daniel Chin of Hyperdrive allow Funded Today to post their badge on his campaign page. Your story doesn't seem to add up because I went to the Kickstarter page and right there at the bottom of the page is Funded Today's logo.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hy ... =discovery

I highly doubt a creator of a 1.8 million dollar Kickstarter campaign would allow an agency to post their badge if they didn't make a very substantial impact. I would advise that you review your "alternative facts" until you provide some links and proof behind the outlandish claims you make.

Great point.

More recently, Funded Today worked with The Side Winder. It seems that this campaign (unlike some others) responded not just well but unusually well to Funded Today's advertisements, enough that someone actually posted this chart on Funded Today's Facebook page...

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=749031031955778

Its creator Logan Bailey apparently felt pleased enough to place Funded Today's badges on his page...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/34 ... escription

And, afterward, he shared a positive video testimonial about his experience for Funded Today's YouTube channel...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZfxR4lw9II

So, it seems to me that Funded Today has worked well for some folks like Logan. Yes, others apparently risked paying the same fee as Logan did to put their campaigns through the same testing process---but then endured very different results. But, again, that's not necessarily Funded Today's fault. If you hire a seasoned expert to market a page, and they make their best good-faith efforts to get the right sort of people to that page who will pledge, but the pledges simply never come regardless of what they try, then what more can you reasonably expect of them?

If those hired marketers guaranteed you success, or if they lied that their testing fee was refundable when it wasn't, then that's a different matter entirely, and I can understand why some would feel scammed in response. But I see no credible claims of such wrongdoing, myself, in the case of Funded Today---just some creators who feel unhappy that they (non-refundably) hired some of the best marketing available to attempt to help their creations, only to discover that those creations weren't as marketable as they'd presumed.

[DaveGarber1975]

Anyway regarding Ergo, we actually spent time with them before they relaunched and went through everything they should do next with their campaign, so I think we deserve a bit of credit too

Credit acknowledged.