WishBooklet
Eric Santos is a damn hungry entrepreneur with a knack for finding solutions to problems. He is a partner at WishBooklet, a really cool gift crowd funding app where he is in charge of business development. We have conducted a short interview with him:
1. How did you come up with this great idea of WishBooklet? What inspired you to create this?
The original concept for WishBooklet was created by my partner, Erik Montes (Yes, both co-founders have the same first name). What inspired us to create WishBooklet, was a genuine pain that he noticed, which was gifting sucks. It’s never any fun receiving a gift that you don’t like. Nor is it any fun spending time looking for a gift for someone that they may not even want. We also noticed it sucks being that one person that has to collect money from all your friends because you are all in pitching in to buy someone a gift. All these of these pains are currently associated with receiving or giving gifts. We wanted to created WishBooklet as a solution to streamline the gifting process.
2. What kind of products best suits to be featured using WishBooklet with the most success?
Usually the type of gift doesn’t have too much bearing for the success of the campaign, but more the occasion and need. An individual trying to raise $300 for a pair Beats By Dre Headphones is more likely to get the funding on WishBooklet due to it being their birthday, rather than them trying to raise the money for them “just because”. This applies to other events such as graduations, weddings, baby showers, etc.
Also, if there is some sort of type of need for the gift, those gifts find much more success. Sometimes this need is simple, such as someone going away for college and needs a comforter set for their dorm room. Other times this need can be more serious such as someone who has been robbed and needs funding to replace some of their stolen item. Illustrating some type of need increases your chances of successfully receiving funding for your gifts.
3. Potentially, which are the ways and channels for WishBooklet to be marketed?
WishBooklet is currently being marketed through several mediums. We recently created a widget that online retailers can place on their products page that allow consumers to crowd fund gifts through WishBooklet, and the retailer gets the money. Getting online retailer partners is one of our main marketing strategy. For any online retailers interested in setting up a partnership, all the information you need can be found here.
We are currently growing our social media presence, and the response has been great. We have also recently started paying for facebook advertisements and google adwords. Content creation and guest blogging is a key part of our marketing strategy. We have also been pursuing media and press opportunities and we’ve been featured in a number of online and print publications including StartupBeat and The Fresno Bee just to name a few.
4. What happens if the money raised for the goal is not met?
Our crowd funding portion is set up how kickstarter was originally, where if you don't reach the goal, all the charges are reversed. We feel that people will be more willing to back something if they know the money will only be used if the goal is met. This also motivates the gift receiver to promote the campaign heavily with all their friends and family in order to raise all the money successfully.
5. How can an accelerator, incubator or investor reach you? What is your 'WISH' for WishBooklet?:)
The best way for anyone to contact me is through email, but I am also very accessible on social media. All my contact info is below.
Email: eric@wishbooklet.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ericsantos89/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericsantos89
Our “WISH” for WishBooklet is for us to disrupt the crowdfunding industry by being one of the first platforms allowing individuals to crowd fund for themselves. Our short term wish is to raise a seed round of funding to help us out with our marketing efforts.
Make sure to follow WishBooklet on twitter at @wishbooklet
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