24 . Glasgow Business July/August 2013
Kevin Miller, founder and CEO, RunRev
A RUNAWAY SUCCESS
CASE STUDY: RUNREV
Kevin Miller, founder and CEO of applications company RunRev, and his colleagues set out to raise £350,000 through crowdfunding. After an intense 30-day campaign on the
crowdfunding online platform Kickstarter, Edinburgh-based RunRev had managed to attract 3,342 investors, who had pledged a remarkable total of £493,795. An offering that raised 141 per cent of the funds sought is a striking example of how to get a crowdfunding campaign really right, a story Kevin outlined to the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting at which the crowdfunding report was launched. Kevin said: “Zero equity was given away and
we had no loans or anything to repay.” Kevin said that a key element for its success
was that the project had broad appeal: “Everyone can code.” The project gave the opportunity to produce computer code on which a whole range of new applications or apps can be developed. The open source element of the project
was very popular with many people, who are committed to ‘democratise’ technology and make it as widely available as possible. RunRev has an established customer base
who like what they do and the fact that they are operating in a field where there is a lot of international interest – particularly
in the US – all helped to ‘gather the crowd.’ The Kickstarter campaign was built around some key questions that drove interest in the cause RunRev was trying to promote: » Have you ever had an idea for an app but don’t know how to code? » Have you ever wanted to learn how to code but found it too difficult?” Kevin said that RunRev took time and effort to
craft these key messages – they had tried them out on some of their key customers after getting them to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Another key element of the campaign was a
short, professionally made video that set out what the project was all about. Kevin said that early on in the campaign, they had had the video re-edited, putting some of the explanation of what the project was about nearer the start of the video.
He said there was a lot of thought into choosing the 30-day campaign. “The length of the campaign is critical,” he said. “Longer is not better.” He added that key media outlets had been
briefed before the campaign started and there was a major email campaign for customers prepared in advance as well and a thought-out social media strategy. RunRev had put out three press releases and
78 tweets, although there was lot of further tweeting and retweeting from their community. The media strategy obviously worked – the campaign resulted in 30 articles in six different languages. Despite the careful planning, Kevin said that
quite a number of the journalists left writing about the crowdfunding campaign until the last week, which created a final spurt of interest, helping to take them well over their target.
The campaign had also included 21 mailshots,
two personal appeal letters and two newsletters. Kevin recalled: “It was pretty intense – for the
”For the 30 days of the campaign, pretty much all I did was sleep and work on the campaign”
30 days of the campaign, pretty much all I did was sleep and work on the campaign.” All that work paid off – of the 89,508 projects
Kickstarter has hosted, RunRev’s was ranked 33rd in the world. Seventh among tech projects, it was the third best of the UK-based projects and number one in UK tech projects.
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