1. Make a Plan called "Why I Will Succeed"

Create goals and stick to them. Use them to motivate yourself and others. Here's a few example questions for you to get yourself started:

• My Crowdfunding Site is filling ____ need(s)
• People who use my crowdfunding site will have better lives because ...
• People will want to share and use my crowdfunding site because ...

2. Branding is Essential

Make sure you put the time and thought into your branding. A good name, logo, and design can make all the difference. And once you decide on these, it can be hard to change them later.

3. Build Your Site

Fortunately, CrowdfundHQ makes this really easy. Instead of spending $15 000 or more to develop your own site, go ahead and start a free site with CrowdfundHQ.

4. Recruit Guaranteed to Succeed Campaigns

Now that you have all your branding and content set-up, recruit some friends to post campaigns that you know will succeed. Go for small, really achievable goals. Think hundreds, not thousands. Anything you can do to create momentum about success on your site to get the ball rolling. And, honestly, a crowdfunding site with no campaigns doesn't look like a promising place to post a campaign.

This is a big one. It can be really hard to overcome the first campaign woes, so break down the wall yourself or take the time to personally recruit a campaign. And make sure it succeeds!

5. Know Your Traffic

Nearly all contributions and traffic come from the friends and family of the campaign creator. Even on a big crowdfunding site like Kickstarter. Make sure your campaign creators know that THEY need to promote their campaigns like crazy. If a campaign fails on your site, it's not going to succeed on kickstarter. It comes down to the time and energy a person puts into their campaign and promoting it.

Likewise, YOU need to put the time into your site. Creating a CrowdfundHQ site is easy. Getting people there and creating campaigns is not. The more campaigns get posted, the more people you have driving traffic to your site.

6. Media Blitz

When you're really set to launch and you have a campaign or two there (remember, an empty site doesn't look too great or newsworthy), reach out to different media outlets that are relevant to your site.

Newspapers	Great for localized Crowdfunding sites.
Magazines	Great for niche Crowdfunding sites. For example, WeTheTrees.com, an Environmental and Social Change Crowdfunding site, got articles in several highly-regarded Permaculture magazines and journals.
Interviews	People want to know about what you're doing. Your answers to #1 come in handy here.
Related Websites	Trade advertising space on your site for some space on theirs.
Email Lists and Forums	Don't spam, but solicit relevant email lists and forums to mention your site. Don't have them do it as a favor - Show them why it's beneficial for THEM to mention YOU.
Social Media	Duh. Only start social media campaigns you're actually going to update though. It's the same thing as the empty site. An empty twitter feed is worse than no twitter feed at all.

7. Only Approve Campaigns you Like

It can be hard when you're just starting out, but keep your head high and don't approve campaigns that people haven't put any time or thought into. It's good in the short term, but bad for your brand in the long run. The best strategy is to help the campaign creator make a campaign that you WILL approve and that your visitors will like. It takes more time to do this, but, it also makes them (and you) far more likely to succeed.

8. Be Realistic

Your first few weeks (or months) will be slow. But it all depends on what kinds of campaigns you can get posted on your site, and how good those campaign creators are at driving traffic to your site. At CrowdfundHQ we do everything we can to help you succeed

9. ANOTHER Media Blitz

It really is that important. Find some new places to get your name out there. Go back and give your old Media Blitz contcats a new story. Don't expect much traffic unless you put in the time to market your site.

10. Remember - You Can Succeed

Building your site with CrowdfundHQ is easy, and a HUGE headstart over people trying to build crowdfunding sites without it. But it still takes a lot of time to start a successful business. Don't be discouraged if you only get a few or no campaigns in the first few weeks. That just means you'll need to put in the extra effort to market your site and why people should use it.

Get Started and Succeed!

Sign up for your CrowdfundHQ account and get started. We're here to help, and we want you to succeed!