“The great power of crowdfunding is that you have a new idea and you get to bring it to market and people vote with their wallets. They say ‘Yes, this product should exist. I’m going to preorder this because I want this product. And if people don’t take out their wallets...then you know you have to go back to the drawing board. Crowdfunding is absolutely essential for both the inventory as well as to do research and development on future products.” - Katherine Krug, Betterback. Katherine Krug, inventor of BetterBack, is the latest Go Time Guest to share the secrets to success. BetterBack is currently running on Indiegogo and has raised over $1.9 million. BetterBack’s incredible success can be attributed to Katherine’s experience as an entrepreneur, her ability to identify and thoroughly develop solutions based on customer/market research, and her approach to sourcing reliable manufacturers. In this episode of Go Time, we dive into how she brought her idea to life and her tips for planning a campaign, creating momentum and manufacturing. Resources: The BetterBack Website getbetterback.com Katherine’s Campaign Checklist http://bit.ly/2d7dK9Q On planning a campaign: “I recommend being super systematic. Get a whiteboard and map out your assumptions. What has to be proved true for this to be a success?” On creating momentum: “Day 1 of my 1st crowdfunding campaign I had a mailing list of zero - I had convinced 120 of my closest friends to pledge $1 the first day of the campaign just to get some activity going, and that's what I had. I just hustled hard every single day of my campaign to start something from nothing - now we have 60,000 people on our mailing list." On budgeting: "I actually recommend lining up your manufacturing before you run your campaign, otherwise you have no idea what your costs are, what your manufacturing, shipping, etc."