Masters of Crowdfunding

Trapper and Jeff are the Cofounders of Modi Boxi, the most versatile 3D printable storage solution for tabletop gamers. Their FIRST ever crowdfunding campaign raised $410,148 and is the largest Digital File campaign by total number of backers.

Episode 13: Host Mark Pecota is joined by Eric Garcia Casanova. Eric is the co-creator of FILLER - a storage system for pocket board games. They recently finished up their Kickstarter campaign working with LaunchBoom and raised over $160K.

Before FILLER, he was focused solely on creating products for others at  MorontaCasanova Design Studio where he is the co-founder and product designer. FILLER was his first foray into creating his own product, and in this episode of Masters of Crowdfunding, Eric shares how he did it. Enjoy.

Episode 11: Host Mark Pecota is joined by Jamey Stegmaier. Jamey is the co-founder, President, and Game Designer at Stonemaier Games. From 2011 to 2015, he launched 8 Kickstarters, with the last one, Scythe, raising over $1.8M. He’s launched many more highly successful games since 2015, but didn’t use Kickstarter as the launch platform. 

In this episode, Jamey shares how he went from a full-time job in operations to building one of the most well-known board game companies in the world.

Episode 10: Host Kevin Liang is joined by Mikey Gilder & Andy Flynn. Mikey and Andy are two of the founders of Legends of Avantris – the creator of The Crooked Moon, which raised over $1M in the first 6 hours of their Kickstarter campaign. The campaign went on to finish at over $4M in funds raised on Kickstarter.

In this episode, Mikey and Andy share their philosophies behind community building, facing their fears and what it looked like behind the scenes of a $4M crowdfunding campaign.

Episode 9: Gal Butler is the 17 year old creator of Wayv Bowl, a foldable and stackable magnetic bowl that raised $111,207 on Kickstarter.

In this episode, Gal shares his thought process in de-risking his product launch, what gave him the conviction to continue working on the product for 2 years before he launched his campaign and the sacrifices he had to make along the way. Gal also talks about the balance between de-risking the project and imperfect action, which I think any product creator can learn a lot from.

Episode 8: Dusty and Amy Droz are the husband and wife duo and co-founders of Dux Somnium Games. They launched their first game, BOTANY, on Kickstarter in May where they raised over $100 thousand in the first 24 hours and went on to raise over $1 million by the end of the campaign.

Hitting the million dollar milestone puts them in the top 0.13% of all Kickstarter campaigns ever and they did it on their first try! 

So in this episode, Dusty and Amy graciously share the story of BOTANY – the ups, the downs, what worked, and what didn’t. It’s a fascinating tale that will leave you with many lessons you can apply to your own launch. So without further ado, let’s dive into today's episode with Dusty and Amy Droz.

Episode 7: We have the creator of Ascendancy, a tabletop game that as of today has raised $476,557 with 3,381 backers on Kickstarter. Matthew Meeple is the creator and we have him here today to share with us the story behind how he created the game, and also his background and what led up to the creation of the game.

Episode 6: Kian Golzari is a sourcing expert who has been living and working in China since 2010. Visiting over 500 factories and has sourced over 2,500 products. His global client list includes the NBA, Olympics, United Nations, retailers across the UK and the US, as well as e-commerce stores.

He has won numerous international awards, including the Sunday Times Fast Track Award for Top 100 UK Companies in Expert Growth. Kian is the sourcing expert here at LaunchBoom, and you can learn more about the SourceBoom program at SourceBoom.com.

Episode 5: Gareth is the Founder of Rockwell Razors, Lomi and many other consumer brands. As the CMO of Lomi he generated over $100M revenue in 2 years. He is also an angel investor, board member, and partner in several other technology companies, agencies, and local businesses.

Episode 4: In addition to being the CEO of Kickstarter, Everette is also an entrepreneur passionate about art, supporting creators, and helping people bring their dreams to reality. He is experienced in building and growing successful businesses as a CEO, chief marketing officer, and as a founder himself.

Before joining Kickstarter, Everette most recently served as the CMO of Artsy, the largest online marketplace for buying and selling fine art. During his time at Artsy, he was recognized by Business Insider as one of the World's Most Innovative CMOs and named by Forbes as one of the World's Most Influential CMOs because of the record revenue growth, brand awareness, user engagement and product innovation during his tenure.

Everette also serves on the Chisenhale Council for Chisenhale Gallery and sits on the advisory board for the organization: Art at a Time Like This.

Kristie is currently launching a new property with LaunchBoom using Crowdfunding.

Episode 1: Alex Lieberman is the Cofounder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew, a 9 figure media property with over 4.5mm subscribers that sold to Business Insider. Alex is a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient and has been featured on publications such as Entrepreneur.com, The Information and one of my favorite podcasts, How I Built This. He is also a startup investor, the host of “The Crazy Ones” podcast & 60 Second Startup.

Alex is beginning his foray into physical products and preparing for his first physical product launch with a version of backyard axe-throwing called "The Plunge". 

Welcome to the LaunchBoom Podcast. This is where we explore the journeys of creators, founders and entrepreneurs journeys in their product launches.

This podcast is hosted by Kevin Liang, LaunchBoom's Product Launch Director.

In the international best seller, Good to Great, Jim Collins and his research team reviewed in depth 6,000 articles, generated more than 2,000 pages of interview transcripts and created 384 megabytes of computer data in a five-year project to dissect what specific characteristics made good companies great. 

In his 2,000 pages of interview transcripts, these were some questions that were asked consistently:

What was happening when you were there during the pivotal moments?

How did you know, what was the point of breakthrough?

The executives responsible for the “breakthroughs” repeatedly responded with: 

“I don’t get the question. There was no miracle moment. There was no breakthrough. It wasn’t as dramatic as it sounds. It was a gradual process. More of an awakening that happened in steps.”

The way achievement is viewed from the outside is different from the way it actually feels on the inside even though you can see the inflection point from the outside looking in.

It’s a series of continuous good decisions, supremely well executed, disciplined thought processes that added up one upon another that over a long period of time created a great result.

In this podcast, we explore the mental models and processes these individuals use daily. In other words, how do they think? How do they deal with fear + doubt? What are the things they do or think about on a daily basis that lead to positive results over time. 

I’ll wrap up with a quote from the author of one of the most impactful books I’ve personally read: Steven Pressfield. He says:

“Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”

-Steven Pressfield