Caroline Laurenson is co-founder of TL Tech, a specialist smart home installer that helps people to maintain their independence in their own homes using affordable off-the-shelf hardware that they customise for each person’s needs
Her company also develops its own software for Amazon Alexa smart speakers to give people additional wellbeing support at home and has developed three voice applications (Kindspace, My Scottish Community and Phocus Space), hence why Caroline is often referred to as “The Voice Lady”!
TL Tech was a finalist in a Tech for Good competition being run by Abilitynet. All the finalists were encouraged and supported to set up a crowdfunding campaign to enter an additional category in the competition. At that time TL Tech was in the early stages of building the Kindspace voice app and used both the money and the momentum from the campaign to launch it in the Amazon store.
Caroline took careful time over three months to plan her campaign and it ran for a full month. Her campaign offered a combination of physical rewards (including lovely cuddly Scotty dogs and Alexa smart speakers) and digital rewards (including access to the app and special mentions in their social media and website). The rewards offered were at different price points from £5 to £500 so there was something for everyone.
After fees, the company raised £1,800 from 43 different supporters. Interestingly, most people donated and didn’t even request a reward. This was a huge surprise to Caroline – that people wanted to support her – but quite simply they believed in what she was doing and didn’t want anything in return.
Crowdfunding wasn’t something that Caroline had planned to do. Without being in the competition she says that she probably would have procrastinated over doing it. But as she had both the opportunity and support available to her, she took the plunge and dived right in. It was happening! It was also really good for Caroline to be running her campaign at the same time as others in her competition group – everyone could motivate and support each other with ideas and sharing links.
Caroline also says that people love to connect with the person behind the story, so encourages you not to be afraid to go online and share a few minutes of yourself talking to the camera to update everyone on your crowdfunding journey.
However, Caroline says that she had a lot to learn and plan in a very short space of time, and with kids at home and juggling work and other business activities she found it difficult to manage her time and energy, so advises you to plan ahead and give yourself plenty time. And whilst she tried running some Facebook adverts to see if it would generate more interest in the campaign, she didn’t see a return on investment from this.
For Caroline, the money raised was very helpful, but equally as importantly, successfully completing the campaign was a huge validation that people believed in her mission. As Caroline says, entrepreneurship is filled with rejection, and at the time of her crowdfunding campaign she had been unsuccessful in several grant funding applications. So, the validation from others, many of still support her today, was a huge much-needed boost to her confidence, as well as helping to build momentum for the launch of the Kindspace voice app.
And Caroline’s top three tips for you?
- Well before your campaign goes live, share with your network and social media followers that you are planning this campaign. Share your story and why their support matters.
- Do regular updates during the campaign to share how it’s going, how you’re feeling, the messages of support that you’ve received, what you hope to achieve with the funding, etc.
- Don’t spend lots of money on rewards, most people will not ask for anything in return for their donation. Instead, make them feel involved by doing 1 and 2 above!
And a final comment from Caroline to inspire you:
“Don’t be afraid to give crowdfunding a go. You will learn so much from the experience, especially with the right preparation and community behind you!”
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