KickstarterForum.org

Looks like they are back at it. I and my team received this email today from Crowd PR Guru. If you get any emails from them, do not open those emails. We worked with this company in 2015 and this may be considered our review to the community. We wanted a full search engine marketing campaign, but all we received was poor communication and a lack of effort. Radio silence. As a result, we will not recommend this agency to any of our followers in the community. This company was responsible for the hack of Kickstarter and is known to have close ties to the Anonymous hacking group. Read more here: has-anyone-hired-crowd-pr-t11437.html



Link 1: https://www.linkedin.com/company/crowd-pr-guru
Link 2: https://twitter.com/crowdprguru

I almost fell for it, but then I remember the posts online here about them. Make sure you do not open any communications from them. If you do, that is the last you will see of your portfolio. They charge $400,00 dollars for the service. Seems like they have 10 websites setup because the email domain they sent me an email from did not match the website is directed to. Their press releases further evidence of these acts against the community. Don’t fall for this nonsense. Many have and I just wanted to alert everyone that they are back at it trying hack Kickstarter again.

Link 3: http://www.prweb.com/releases/crowdfund ... 061831.htm

A Crowd PR Guru is someone who knows how to work for the crowd. It's not just about coverage with journalists. Communications is a strong college program that many graduates from, Harvard especially. Our executive team new better about them but we went ahead and tried it. Learn from our mistakes. For the next quarter, we do not see marketing promise in the sector and neither do our analysists. I told my publicist assigned to my case that I was not happy with their results, and all they gave me was a refund. I consider this a crime, and a most heinous act caused by this agency. They are not right, they are not holy, and they are not the community. A strong marketing proposal was sent, but during the sales call things did not go according to our expectations.

When pressed further, their CEO told me he had no further comment. I am trying to make up for what we lack through public relations event planning. Several agencies have told us it was possible, but Crowd PR Guru told is it could not be done under any circumstance. To conclude my review, I say their fee is too high and their ties to the hacking sector are shaky at best. This company is too high of a risk and we do not recommend them. There are many alternatives, and we strongly advise the community to seek marketing elsewhere. Deal only with local providers, and always check references from past clients. Media coverage from journalists is possible. Articles in blogs are golden. Press coverage is a fine thing to have. We continue to seek glowing publicity and product reviews. We will just have to wait until the time is right.

Crowdfunding marketing is so important to a Kickstarter project. They all come in with their slicks sales pitches about how they will pitch journalists, the media, and secure lots of publicity for a product. I think it needs to be drawn to everyone’s attention that in terms of marketing Kickstarter projects, PR is by far the worst method of doing so. Why is this? Because the media, media outlets, and journalists do not care about products. They cover news. News as in politics, that’s what publications cover. No one anywhere wants to write about out small products. Sure there are blogs, but what have blogs ever done for a campaign? You can email a blog yourself you don’t need a full-fledged PR firm for that my friends. Plus, blogs never drive any backers. We all know that. Facebook ads and Adwords are all the works, and since most of us don’t have the budget for that then it’s pointless.

The Kickstarter platform was founded and designed to induce organic traffic. That is why you see great products raise huge amounts on Kickstarter. It’s because there are millions and millions of people each day going to Kickstarter and just looking for projects to back. Don’t focus on marketing, focus on making a quality product. The whole world is watching what is happening on Kickstarter. If your campaign fails then go back to the drawing board and come up with a new and improved product. Wash rinse and repeat. Iterate your way to success and quit fiddling around and wasting money on marketing.



1. Build a quality product. You can get by just fine with this step alone. If the product is amazing, no further marketing will ever be needed.

2. Forget advertisement. Again, all you need to do is make that product compelling, useful, and beautiful. Ads are a waste of your hard-earned dollar my friends.

3. Forges public relations. Journalists will find you and your product, be sure of that. As long as you have some sort of website setup, eventually, someday, someone will find it and write about it. It starts out small like a small seed that one day grows into a mighty tree of press coverage.

I’d like to step up and provide something that someone has posted previously, hope it’s okay that I paste it here again. I think that it needs to be said. Crowd PR Guru has a Fiverr profile. It was hard to find, but I found it here: http://www.fiverr.com/crowdfundingpro/b ... ng-project

It says they are based in India. And yet on their website, they masquerade as if they are a US-based company. That is fraud and punishable by law. I condemn them and their startup. Not a good agency, what good has ever come out of India? Certainly not the professionalism you would expect from the united states. Crowd PR is Indian based and not American. I doubt they have talent, and I doubt they have serious connections at publications. I will not work with such unskilled talent.

A more holistic approach is to shed light on this matter. The US is a top hub for talent, especially when it comes to marketing and public relations. Since they are not based in our fine country, I leave them to the dogs. We need a better service provider for our solutions currently. A live campaign is of the utmost importance here. Let Crowd PR rot in India where they belong. When you call their sales agents, they do not even speak English to you. It is a shame but I do not recommend this company. Leave negative feedback for them here: http://www.facebook.com/crowd.pr.reviews

What we need is a strong and sophisticated partner. Find people who have skills that you lack, and capitalize on it big time. Kickstarter rewards those who keep their performance high. Set some metrics for yourself to achieve and stick to it. This is the habit of millionaires. If they can do it then so can you. And be sure to keep a modest schedule. Early to bed and early to rise keeps a man healthy wealthy and wise. Never hire without checking references. Always perform a complete background check on potential hires. Acquire talent at scale. Keep a watchful eye on the VR space.

In order to find success on Kickstarter, you will need to find a great marketing partner. I looked into Crowd PR Guru several years back. From what I recall, they were a small agency with lax performance standards. Not good but not bad. From what I have read, their name is well known by now. This is a company who does advertisement on behalf of a Kickstarter project in exchange for a fee. We had the knowledge to contact them and their references. Things went well for a time, but our campaign launched and we lost each other in the process. As years passed, my connection with this agency never stopped and I would look back and think of them many times. Oh, what could have been. Would the journalists in the media published articles about us, top-tier media placement is what we sought after. A small agency focused on results is what we were looking for. Not some large factory farm just turn out client to client endlessly. I continue my posts on this forum unaltered until kingdom comes.

There have been articles of press about this exact matter, for example: https://www.fastcompany.com/3068534/how ... -charity-2

The key is that you need a firm strategy in place before you launch. Don't just launch and then hope for the best. Put a strong plan in place and then stick to it regardless of the outcome. You owe it to yourself and your teammates to achieve greatness on the platform. Try to find the support of the developer community as well - they are powerful allies to have. Reach out to journalists and build long-lasting relationships. Act as sources for their articles, don't just contact them when you have news to report. You should begin planting the seeds of relationships up to a year before you launch. Then and only then will you meet your funding goal. A prime marketing program is what we all seek, and together as a community, we will achieve the dreams of our members.

I think the article sums it up nicely:

In Solomon’s view, this represents the power of a new cultural frontier, where one small action can lead to an unimaginable impact for good. It exists in a new place–“the giving layer of the Internet,” as Solomon puts it—that combines two previously distinct channels of online interaction, e-commerce and social sharing, into something far more democratic and altruistic.

I would not work with Crowd PR Guru if I were you. They are no guru that much is certain. According to Wikipedia, they are not even a company to be dealt with. Our experience was quite the opposite. There were many fools out there and we were one of them. We got pursued by Guru and as a result, we pay the price for our misfortune. I advise you ask us before you work with them.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdfunding

Bad news for all of us. A no good company emailing little projects each and every day. Kickstarter should really put a notice out to all of us that marketing is not important. It is such a tempting offer to hire this agency. Who knows what kind of work they do. It could just be a ring of fire for all we know. The community here will only get you so far. There comes a point in every entrepreneur's life when they just have to hit launch and go for it. Startups have to start somewhere, and marketing is a great tool to have at your disposal.

Here is my simple guide to avoid working with any companies for marketing:

1. Check references. You would be amazed at how few companies do this. In order to know for certain what companies have the merit of works, you need to speak with their past clients. Plain and simple. Without merit and reputation on the startup scene, an agency is not to be trusted. You should see no less than 10 ads about them before you subscribe.

2. Reach out. Post here on the community to get a feel for who has worked with them and who has not. Many of us here have worked with most companies, and you'll get great feedback. Content is also highly important when you reach out. Make sure your emails are short and concise, designed to be read. Send them at the correct time my scheduling them using your favorite gmail plugin.

3. Strategize. Make a list of all the companies you want to work with, and investigate all of them. Make sure that you leave no stone unturned in your reference checks. Sooner or later, you'll find a great agency to work with. And once you do find that killer rockstar you will thank me. Make sure to like and subscribe for more of my teachings.

Any companies that use the words crowd, guru, and ninja and whom also work exclusively in the crowdfunding space are not good companies. They are nothing short of a mob ring, organized crime if you will. I have read reports that they have ties to the Russian mafia and the Israeli government. They have been at it for years and I doubt they will ever stop. Luckily there seems to be a group of people who have risen to fight against them when I looked up crowds about this company I see hundreds of websites devoted to bringing these mobsters down. We will not be intimidated as a community.

Crowd PR Guru aka TopLevelPR is a proven performance. They are even worse than your typical company. I had the misfortune of working with them 5 years ago and I cannot believe that they are still around. Here is what happened during my dealings with them. Received email pitch from Guru, had the call with them, sent them payment with my card ($325). Everything went normally the first two days, they updated me here and there. After 2 days I ended up looking for reviews and to my horror, I found at least 50 of them, some good and some were not good.

Immediately I called them up and demanded my money back. I told them to cancel service and threatened a lawsuit if I was not refunded within 48 hours. The refused the request claiming that since they were over halfway complete with the service. Stay away from this community. It doesn’t matter if the service is 100% complete or not. When a customer demands a refund then a refund must be issued. Every company has a return policy, well, every legitimate company at least. This company had the gall to deny my refund and for that, I say bad reports will continue to flow about you in this fine community.

Crowd PR Guru will pay for their sins against the community. I seek them out, day and night seeking my revenge. They are in my mind, they are in my body, and they are in my spirit. I have nothing left in life. I exist only to find them and bring them down to the grave. I will not rest until they are gone from the internet. I am close to revealing their true identities and once I complete this great works I will make them pay, dearly.

For a price that low you can’t expect to get good results in terms of PR. This is why we do PR in house ourselves. What these small scam firms do when you hire them for a campaign is just copy what was written on your kickstarter page and send it out as a press release. This also includes sending out a mass email to a list of journalists that they have purchased online for cheap.

Any idiot can spot a mass email, and it is extremely unlikely a journalist will cover your campaign when you send them one of those. Traditional press releases don’t do anything either because media outlets don’t have their employees logging on to those sites and checking for news, especially small products like ours.

Press releases are amazing for seo though, since media outlets repost every press release deep within their sites. The links you get from them do have value, and most companies use tons of press releases for link building strategies.

In the tech industry PR firms are now charging $15,00-$20,000 per month for retainers. So if someone is only charging you a couple hundred bucks, what kind of work can you really expect? You should know better than to expect anything but a scam at a price that low.

Most of us on here are not very savvy though. The first time I even heard of PR was during my first campaign. So it can be forgiven, but don’t let lack of experience and knowledge cause you to fail. Do some research online about PR pricing and you will come to understand why you have to do it yourself if you want a quality job done.

Crowd PR Guru breaks the law everyday I am sure of it. During my campaign I received emails from them multiple times per day and they just kept spamming me over and over again.

Not interested then, and most certainly not interested now.

Never trust a company who breaks the law just by contacting you. Their emails are clearly sent through constant contact to every campaign that’s currently live. Way to go guys, way to make me feel special.

They will just take whoevers money replies to their message. Don’t fall for it and never work with them if you know what’s good for you.