KickstarterForum.org

I think funded.today is a scam. Most of what they do is formulaic with small variations.

A couple red flags.

NUMBER ONE: They want you to pay upfront. That's guaranteed profit right away. For them. They have no skin in the game and are playing with your money.

NUMBER TWO: They are opaque, which is the opposite of transparent. A secret sauce they can't share with how they generate traffic. Because anyone can do it, even you.

So what do they do:
1. A press release. You can write one up in an hour yourself.
2. Running an ad campaign on facebook. Again, maybe you can hire someone to manage this, but 75% of the money you spend should go to Facebook. A 25% management fee is acceptable.
3. Take a fixed percentage of your GROSS of what they drive. 35%. No thanks. Essentially they are using your product to make money for themselves. Their incentive isn't to help you, but make money for them. Avoid these types of businesses.

This just proves to me that there are tons of businesses out there trying to make money off us desperate creative & trusting types.

Funded.Today no thank you!

Did you use them on your campaign?

For the Number 1 point - all top agencies (and most others) require payment upfront. No one works for free, so why should people in the Crowdfunding industry.

For Number 2: Press Releases are needed (and a press kit), as it helps define your story which you can use in social media and general pitches.

Running FB ads is what they normally do, they spend their money (or yours if it's defined in the contract) to generate leads. Taking a % to test a campaign before they take it on is their policy, if you don't like it then move on.

I don't work for Funded Today but can't see where the scam part comes in. They might take a big %, but surely if it's in the contract and you agree with it...then what's the problem?

Just my 2 cents.

Payment up front isn't too bad, but not showing results and sharing information and methodology is the real problem.

thesteakmachine wrote:I think funded.today is a scam. Most of what they do is formulaic with small variations.

A couple red flags.

NUMBER ONE: They want you to pay upfront. That's guaranteed profit right away. For them. They have no skin in the game and are playing with your money.

NUMBER TWO: They are opaque, which is the opposite of transparent. A secret sauce they can't share with how they generate traffic. Because anyone can do it, even you.

So what do they do:
1. A press release. You can write one up in an hour yourself.
2. Running an ad campaign on facebook. Again, maybe you can hire someone to manage this, but 75% of the money you spend should go to Facebook. A 25% management fee is acceptable.
3. Take a fixed percentage of your GROSS of what they drive. 35%. No thanks. Essentially they are using your product to make money for themselves. Their incentive isn't to help you, but make money for them. Avoid these types of businesses.

This just proves to me that there are tons of businesses out there trying to make money off us desperate creative & trusting types.

Funded.Today no thank you!

Their one week testing period scared us to death! I mean it. Think about this seriously. You pay them $3500 up front and they reserve the right to drop your campaign within 7 days if THEY don't like the results THEY are trying to generate? You couldn't run even $1000 in ads in one week unless your target audience was the whole planet.

Richard

You should try to use your own resources for Marketing. A bit of planning, asking a few people around and get one person to help you out with Marketing guiding you through the process is probably the best thing you can do. Stay up to your values and do not be one "extra post on a twitter account" or an extra PR story. Take someone who actually believes in it, that's probably the best advice.

I used to work in an SEO company and there were a bunch of cases when they called and said something like this: "I have an online store, launched a month ago, we want a lot of sales. Tried context, SMM, nothing helped, now all hope for SEO. There is not a lot of budget, you need to do something at least.» In such cases, of course, you do not need to use the services of digital marketing. But I had a friend who decided to use it anyway and found a specialist on https://www.exleyco.com/blog/hiring-a-s ... consultant who explained and set him goals for the whole year ahead. He was helped by this consultation, but such consultations are not a mandatory process at the beginning of a business.

so many scams today, you don't know who to trust anymore

So true, scams are everywhere you look now. I think it's a "feature" of any niche, the increase in frauds is directly proportional with the development of the domain. I would have liked to be more careful the first time around, 'cause even if I didn't lose a lot of money, I was still at the beginning of my journey and it definitely messed with my head for a while knowing that I got scammed. For reference, I have a little online retail business, and I'm talking about the first time I reached out to a marketing company. Now I'm collaborating with a digital marketing agency in ahmedabad and it a whole another story. I can actually see the improvements in the statistics with my own eyes, and that's what you want from a marketing company.