You’re reading edition #6 of the LaunchBoom Newsletter, which is sent every Tuesday to thousands of product creators.
Buckle up.
Today, we’re covering a lot:
- How to validate your product prelaunch
- Three ad templates that cost virtually nothing to make
- The future of AI with Sam Altman
Enjoy!
Contents
1. Short Story
How we validated demand for Author Clock before we launched.
In October of 2021, Author Clock launched and raised $216,037 in the first 24 hours.
Before we launched, we knew it’d be a success.
Here’s why.
Author Clock is an innovative clock that uses quotes from books to tell the time of day.
Testing and validating demand during the prelaunch is important for any product. But since there hadn’t been a product like Author Clock before on the market, the testing period was even more crucial.
To test demand, we used our testing and validation system we call TestBoom.
Here’s how it works:
- Build a Reservation Funnel to collect leads and $1 deposits
- Spend $1,000 to $2,000 on Meta ads to drive traffic
- Collect data and analyze in a predictive model
That’s exactly what we did to test Author Clock.
Our testing period lasted for two weeks. At the end of our test, our metrics looked like this:
- Ad spend: $2,027
- Total VIPs: 173 (people that put down a $1 deposit)
- Total Non-VIPs: 2,804 (people that only gave their email)
We then put these metrics into a simple predictive model.
You can download the model yourself here.
(clicking the link above will copy the Google Sheet into your account)
The model works by taking the data we collected and then modeling three different scenarios. The three scenarios gave us a range of results from low to high.
Why three different scenarios?
Because no model is 100% accurate. If they were, we could always predict the future and life would be a lot easier. By giving a spread of future scenarios, we get a good idea of what’s possible, which is still very useful.
The first thing we did for Author Clock was plug in the data in the Variables section of the model. You can see that below:
That then calculated three possible scenarios for the return on ad spend (ROAS) we may see if we were to launch right now. You can see that below:
We also give a nice graph visualization so you can see the spread between the three scenarios.
In the case of Author Clock, all three scenarios looked very good. This made us feel confident that people wanted the product.
Instead of going back to the drawing board with a major pivot in positioning, we decided to move into scaling the ads.
After scaling the ads, here’s what our ad metrics looked like before launch:
- Ad spend: $37,272.09
- VIPs: 2,363
- Non-VIPs: 19,067
When we launched, we sent emails to the prelaunch list and Author Clock hit their goal of $20,000 in a few minutes. By the end of the first 24 hours, they had raised $216,037.
Now you may be asking: “how accurate was the predictive model?”
Well, here are the final metrics of the performance of the prelaunch email list:
VIPs
- 2,363 VIP emails
- 37.24% conversion rate
- 880 backers
- $125,270 in revenue
Non-VIPs
- 19,067 Non-VIP emails
- 2.36% conversion rate
- 450 backers
- $66,346 in revenue
In total, we generated $191,616 in revenue from $37,272.09 in ad spend, which is a 5.14x ROAS.
The best scenario we modeled during the TestBoom was a 4.96x ROAS, which means we had a higher actual ROAS than what we had modeled. That’s because both the VIP and Non-VIP conversion rates were higher than we expected… and we’ll never complain about that!
By the end of the Kickstarter campaign, Author Clock drove $1,316,465 in pre-sale revenue… and by the end of the Indiegogo InDemand campaign, they drove $2,251,681.
You can see the Indiegogo InDemand campaign here:
If you plan to launch a product, I highly recommend you follow our TestBoom system before you launch. Collecting real market data during the prelaunch and validating demand will drastically reduce your risk of failure.
Entrepreneurship is already risky enough. Do yourself a favor and use this system.
2. Marketing Tip
Good ads ≠ expensive ads
There’s a common misconception that ads that perform well are expensive to make.
I’m going to challenge that belief.
Here are three ad templates we’ve used on almost every campaign that cost virtually nothing to create.
Ad Example #1: Testimonial
Shoot a vertical video with your phone of someone first using your product and then giving a testimonial. It’s best to keep the video unedited, which gives it a natural feel.
The ad below is from our campaign, Xion eBike, which raised $1,104,152 on Indiegogo. This ad imagery worked so well that we spent $48,337.04 just on this one ad during the prelaunch.
(click the image below to see the ad)
Ad Example #2: Walkthrough
Another very popular ad type is what I call the walkthrough video. In this ad type, someone (usually the founder) is filmed showcasing the product and showing how it works. Like the previous ad example, it’s shot vertically on a phone and there are no (or minimal) cuts.
Here’s an example from our campaign, X300 Projector, which raised $239,098 on Indiegogo.
(click the image below to see the ad)
Ad Example #3: Red Arrow
Another very popular ad type is a static image, but with a little red arrow pointing to it. Yes, that little red arrow actually works well.
We’ve tested the exact same image, one with the red arrow and one without the red arrow, and the red arrow almost always wins.
Here’s an example from our campaign, Author Clock, which raised $2,251,681 on Kickstarter and Indiegogo InDemand.
(click the image below to see the ad)
3. Favorite Content
OpenAI isn’t getting mocked any longer.
“We have been a misunderstood and badly mocked org for a long time… we don’t get mocked as much now.”
-Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI
This was a quote from the latest Lex Fridman podcast. It speaks to the mental resilience necessary to bring innovation to life.
I suggest listening to the entire podcast. It’s a great deep dive into one of the leading minds in AI.
Learn to launch your product in 5 minutes per week.
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