Case study: Let's Go See flies to great heights on Seedrs

"This was our second funding round and our first using a crowdfunding platform. As crowdfunding newbies, we had a lot to learn and having considered the pros and cons, we decided to engage the help of ISQ.

Naively we assumed that we could just set up a pitch on the host site and then count the money as it came flying in!

The truth however is a crowdfunding campaign needs planning, a lot of planning. You have one shot to get it right.  If you don’t meet your target, you get absolutely nothing.

ISQ has ‘been there and done it’ and provides a structured learning process that guides you through the crowdfunding process.  

Each phase of the ISQ process is monitored by their expert team and you can’t move forward until that phase has been successfully completed.  This mentoring ensures that you don’t make any silly, costly mistakes or fall into one of the many pitfalls.

If you are considering crowdfunding, I’d strongly recommend that you talk to the team at ISQ. As well as being experts in their field, they’re also lovely, caring people who really want you to succeed." - Robert Johnson, Creative Director, Plane Characters Productions Limited

Client: Let’s Go See

Platform: Seedrs

Campaign target: £250K

Final amount raised: £252,958

Overfunding %: 101%

Number of investors: 112

Pre-money valuation: £3M

Final equity transferred: 7.77%

Business summary:

Animations, Books & Apps that Educate, Entertain and Inspire children offering multiple revenue streams.

Bullet highlights:

• 14 Global Distribution Channels - access to Billions of customers
• Approaching 800k views & 85K+ Book and Activity Maps sold
• Multiple revenue stream opportunities in global growth markets
• Intention to seek an exit in five years

Steph from ISQ chatted to Rob from Let's Go See, to find out how the campaign went....

What was the best bit/what went well?

“Working with ISQ!” Rob said, which made us blush! ;) Thanks Rob!

Rob found his crowdfunding journey pretty tough for a first-timer, but thanks to ISQ he said he “felt like I was 1 step ahead the whole time”. We were there to walk him through the process. It was a lot of work and a big demand on his time, but having ISQ to handhold him throughout was really important.

What did you do differently?

For the Let’s Go See campaign, Rob and Mike used less email campaigning than usual and only used MailChimp once. However, they made really great use of WhatsApp. Rob had a few WhatsApp groups that included many of his pilot colleagues, so they created a handy 1-page investment summary using the ISQ template and shared it in a few WhatsApp groups. This worked wonders and meant that the team could get the message out about the raise without sending long, copy-heavy messages, and managed to land a few initial big tickets early, which helped get the ball rolling.

What were the key challenges you encountered whilst crowdfunding?

“The whole thing was a challenge,” Rob said, as he thought the money would trickle in pretty quickly but it didn’t quite work out as planned, so that caused a lot of pressure to go out and find it - which they did! Rob and Mike worked really hard to promote their campaign both on and off the platform, including daily Campaign Updates, following up with Seedrs investors, as well as being very active on Linkedin and joining many groups to promote the campaign link. Lack of time was the biggest factor, as promoting the campaign took over their life for the time they were live on Seedrs.

What parts of the programme did you really benefit from?

Rob said that the ISQ programme “gave structure and meant I had stuff prepared when I needed it. Everything was approved by Seedrs in advance which was very useful.” However, whilst having pre-approved social media posts are a good thing in terms of time-saving, this meant he couldn’t be quite as reactive with ad hoc content on social, for needing to get posts signed off.

Top tip:

Rob signed up with Shutterstock in order to get better images for his social posts, which made his social posts much more visual and more professional, not just wordy. Thereby increasing engagement.

“The programme was brilliant. Process, structure etc was great. I've been recommending it to everyone I know! Best investment we’ve made. I can’t fault it!”

What is next for your team/growth?

Facilitating the rewards! One of the rewards for the bigger ticket investors was to have their children made up as new Let’s Go See characters and appear in an episode, so the design team have been busy creating these, which even include a character of a little dog under an arm. We can’t wait to see these!

We discussed how it’s funny where you meet people when you’re raising investment publicly, it’s not always via Linkedin or through a contact. After the raise, Rob got chatting with a potential investor he met at a swimming pool whilst doing his parental duties and they set up a meeting! Hopefully, something great will come of that for subsequent raises - fingers crossed!

Let’s Go See where they end up!

VIEW CAMPAIGN HERE

Written by Steph Yeates, Operations Director, ISQ Crowdfunding