5 Days on IndieGoGo - What we've learned

Well we’re now five days into our IndieGoGo campaign – The Adva Mobile Campaign to provide Artists a better use experience – so we thought we’d share what we’ve learned so far about online fundraising!


1. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean that it’s easy

The success that some have found on the Internet often convinces many of us that achieving success online is easy, that all it takes is a halfhearted post into cyberspace and within 24 hours the post makes front page news. Well, after weeks of planning and preparation, and consecutive full time days working at this, I’m willing to go out on a limb to suggest that this is not the case!

2. Never underestimate the generosity of friends and family

We I have been blown away with the support we’ve received from our family and friends. We believe very strongly in our cause and project and are are grateful that others believe in it too.

3. Sharing is caring

One of the more difficult aspects of online fundraising is reaching people outside of your friends and family network. Pleading your case to strangers isn't effective. Conversely, when someone that supports your cause shares your project it speaks volumes about both the relevance of your project and that person’s belief in you to deliver.

4. Be thankful

We want to thank everyone who has gone out of their way so far to back and share our project. Your support means more than you could ever imagine. We’re early into our campaign and recognize there is still a lot of hard work ahead of us. However, we’re looking forward to the challenge, and to working even harder over the next 30 days to reach our fundraising goal. We’ll keep you updated in the weeks to come. Thank you so much!

We Need Your Help - Adva Mobile Goes Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a new financing tool and works exactly opposite from traditional venture financing. Instead of a few individuals each providing a large amount of capital, crowdfunding creates a community of many individuals providing small amounts of capital -- typically less than $100. Websites that help organize Crowdfunding campaigns are common today, and many are having terrific success raising money for a variety of projects -- everything from art, film projects, technology such as Adva Mobile, causes, businesses, photography -- anything that a community can help fund to get something done. Adva Mobile is working with a popular Crowdfunding management site called IndieGoGo that manages Crowdfunding campaigns for all types of projects.


Since we launched in early 2009, we've grown to over 1,400 bands that recognize the value of the service we are providing. It's going great, however these bands and new partner prospects are telling us that our Mobile Web designs and Portal user interface, while delivering compelling capabilities, are not modern and cool and is, in fact, lame and old. We need to fix this, and are going to raise the money to get you Artists new mobile designs that are sleek and modern (even for free users of our service) and a better user interface to manage mobile fans, assets and campaigns.

There are more details about our campaign on our IndieGoGo page at http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Adva-Mobile-Campaign but we are going to raise $6500 through many small donations from friends, business interests, and Artists such as yourselves to redesign the user interface of our Artist Portal and new mobile web templates for your sites. For Artists, there are terrific rewards should you contribute, including big discounts on our premium services. I hope you have the time to look at our program and contribute to our success. Every contribution helps. Thank You.

Conversations with John Taglieri

John Taglieri has created a profitable livelihood with his music, playing 200 shows a year and getting ready to record his tenth studio album. He's local, so we had a chance to sit down over lunch and talk about making music, making money, and the role mobile can play in his career.

Tag loves making music, but he truly is a performer. He's making a very good living, and it's 95% from live shows and 5% from music sales. He thinks that, of all the Artists out there making music, only about 6 percent are able to make a living at it, so he's in rare company. He was able to create this lifestyle for himself because he was willing to do whatever his agent asked him to do, Play a show in Georgia on Friday night and Syracuse on Saturday night - he'd do it. His fans - we'll get to that - know that they are going to have a good time when they go to his shows.

Tag knows his fans. He likes Reverbnation for the fan details he gets from them, and he's active on Facebook. He believes he has 1,500 - 2,000 "True Fans" - fans that show up when he's in town, buy his tickets, music and merch. He's also a big fan of download cards - he goes through about 5,000 cards every 6 months. And they work for him - last year, he gave out about 11,000 cards and got 4,400 hits. We're going to promote his mobile site on the next run of download cards.

Tag runs his operation like a business. Each year, he starts with a plan. In 2012, he'll be in the studio in January recording his tenth CD, and release it in March. From April through August, he'll promote the new material with a well thought out plan to offer the CDS, singles, and various packages of current and past music, including "best of" and full catalog products. One product will be a 50 track compilation. He'll tour on his own - acoustic shows, with the Joe Bachman band, and with his band. It's all planned out.

We talked a lot about mobile. He thinks mobile is the future, and he's always looking ahead. He knows that it's better to get into mobile now, at the front, so he's "there" when his fans want to connect with him on mobile. We talked about how to get fans to connect with him on mobile and he thinks the Artist has to tell his his fans how to connect with him on mobile and guide them to use new technology. "It's like American Idol - they told viewers to vote, how to vote, this is how it's done. Now, 80 million people vote on American Idol." If you run it like a business, it looks like the science of selling. It takes 10 touches to make a sale, so you have to keep at it. Give your fans a good product (music) and good customer service and you'll make the sale.

It was a treat to talk to a music pro who understands the hard work neccessary to make a career out of music, a forward thinker who sees that new mobile technology can help him grow fan loyalty and grow his sales. We'll be working with Tag throughout 2012 to create mobile marketing campaigns that complement his marketing activities. All part of the plan. You can check out his mobile site on your phone at www.adva.us/tag, and by texting gettag to 88704 on your phone.