How we raised $1,845,628 for VAVA 4K Laser Projector [CASE STUDY]

A look inside our system for launching a $1M+ Indiegogo campaign

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Mark Pecota | CEO at LaunchBoom

VAVA 4K Laser Projector

Early in 2019, the company VAVA reached out to the LaunchBoom team to discuss their new product, the VAVA 4K Laser Projector. They had already launched two successful projects on Kickstarter raising a total of $1,203,279 between the two campaigns. We decided to work together and were able to raise $1,845,628 on Indiegogo (and are still funding).

Raising this much money isn’t easy. It takes executing on our proven process and hard work. Let’s dive into it.

Phase 1: TestBoom

Like the majority of our clients, we started them on our TestBoom program to test demand for the product before we committed to a full launch together. In TestBoom, we use a proprietary system and predictive model to determine how successful a launch will be with minimal upfront investment of time and money.

Messaging & Positioning

TestBoom begins with our Messaging & Positioning process. During this phase, we developed the initial ways we wanted to position the VAVA 4K Laser Projector in the marketplace.

From this process, we came up with 2 to 4 angles to test in the market. There are many ways to communicate the value of a product. An angle can be thought of as one of those points of value that we want to lead with. Here’s what we came up with for VAVA.

  1. Turn your home into a private cinema — Bulbs use laser technology which lasts 10 years and is what movie theaters use. At just 8.5” from the screen, it can fill 100” screen. Can max out (with quality) at 150”. That’s over double some of the largest TV screens.
  2. Ultra-short throw is the next evolution of projector technology — Ceiling mounted projectors are expensive to install and fall prey to the image being disturbed by any movement. Now you can get amazing imagery at a huge size without installation and with zero chance of disturbing the image because the unit is on the ground and less than a foot away from the screen.
  3. Bring the theater with you wherever you go — Ultra-portable. Harman Kardon speakers. It is a completely standalone entertainment product. Has built-in apps like an Apple TV, Roku, Fire Stick, etc.
  4. The best of both worlds — High quality and affordable. Nothing in this price range to combine with this quality. 4K laser picture at a great price!

Next, we identified 2–4 audiences we wanted to test on Facebook

Think of an audience as a type of person — what are their interests, their age, their gender, etc.?

Here are a few audiences we came up with for VAVA:

  1. Projector Competitor Brands — People interested in existing projector brands are an already qualified group
  2. Bigger retailers that sell projectors, smart TVs, and electronics — This is where we are likely to find our target customer shopping for either our desired product or product-adjacent items
  3. Media Streaming Devices (Roku, AppleTV, Amazon Firestick) — Consumers of visual content are another demographic that would be interested in a way to display the visual content so people interested in these platforms/items would logically also be interested in an elite way to display said content.
  4. People that watch home renovation TV shows or are interested in DIY home renovation — Anyone looking to upgrade their current living situation (geared more towards men with this assumption) are interested in having an elite movie/sports viewing den and living room AKA a “Man Cave”. The projector is the ultimate improvement for one of these rooms — bringing the movie theater into your home.

Test using our Reservation Funnel

Using the angles and the audiences, we’ll next want to program advertisements and send traffic down our Reservation Funnel which can be pictured below:

Reservation Funnel Overview: Facebook & Instagram Advertising -> Landing Pages -> Reservation Funnel

The ultimate goal of the reservation is get the user to put down a $1 deposit to reserve the product before you launch. Why? Because those that put down $1 to reserve the product before you launch are 30x more likely to buy.

You can learn more about what we call our Reservation Funnel by clicking here.

By putting down $1, users were able to reserve the VAVA 4K Laser Projector at $2,499 (30% off retail price). After only $2,000 of ad spend, we knew we had a winner on our hands with VAVA. Here were the stats:

  • Ad spend: $2,000
  • Leads: 4,246
  • Reservations: 27

Using our predictive model, we had strong reason to believe that VAVA was going to do extremely well. They passed the TestBoom program and moved into Phase 2: LaunchBoom.

Phase 2: LaunchBoom

Once a product reaches Phase 2 of the LaunchBoom system, we are committed to having a massive launch. There’s a lot of small details that go into the process of preparing the launch. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to focus on the most important details.

Scaling pre-campaign advertising

During TestBoom, we only used a $2,000 ad budget. For LaunchBoom, we increased the budget to $15,000 for the pre-campaign. We diversified the ad budget by targeting additional audiences and testing new ad creative. You can see the results in the screenshot below.

Here are the notable metrics:

  • Ad Spend: $15,701.13
  • Leads: 18,360
  • Cost / Lead: $0.86
  • Reservations: 136
  • Cost / Reservation: $115.45

We were very excited about these metrics because each converted lead was worth $2,500. That meant we would not have to convert a very large percentage of the list to make a high return on ad spend.

VIP Facebook Group

We call those that put down the $1 reservation deposit a “VIP”. One of the benefits of being a VIP is they are added to a private VIP Facebook Group. The Facebook Group allowed them to interact with the VAVA team as well as the rest of the VAVA VIPs. This is a great way for us to create an engaged community of people before we launch.

Having a “LaunchBoom”

With a pre-campaign email list built, we emailed the list when we launched to get funded extremely quickly. You can see in the graph below, the spike of sales on Indiegogo over the first 48 hours.

What’s even more interesting about this product was that we saw higher sales on day 2 than day 1. That rarely happens for us. Why I think this happened is because the product was so expensive ($2,500). It took people longer than usual to decide to buy the product after it went live.

Keeping the campaign momentum going

I like to compare a strong LaunchBoom at the beginning of a campaign to building a strong foundation for the rest of the campaign to build on. The credibility gained by getting funded so quickly makes future visitors to the campaign more likely to convert. Here’s how we were able to capitalize on the strong start and keep momentum going.

Facebook & Instagram Advertising

The best way to continue to drive consistent and profitable revenue, is through Facebook & Instagram advertising. For VAVA, we were able to scale spend even better than the pre-campaign because we now had the credibility of getting funded quickly. In the screenshot below from Facebook Ads Manager you can see the results from the campaign.

Here are the important metrics:

  • Amount spent: $34,817.30
  • Revenue: $519,672.00
  • Return on ad spend: 14.93x

Another reason why the advertising was so effective was because Indiegogo lets you add the Facebook Pixel (Kickstarter doesn’t allow this). By having the Facebook Pixel you can let Facebook do what Facebook does best: optimize the advertisements using their algorithms. Since we know if someone purchases from an ad, we can tell Facebook to optimize the ads and show them to more people like the person that purchased.

Indiegogo Promotions

The Indiegogo team did a great job supporting the campaign with promotions. We were able to unlock many of the promotions because we had funded the project so much through email, Facebook, and PR. Here are some of the ways Indiegogo promoted the project:

  • Email newsletters
  • Homepage placement
  • High placement in the category listing

Because of these promotions and visibility on the platform, Indiegogo directly contributed $904,357 to the project.

Indiegogo InDemand

Indiegogo has a great feature called Indiegogo InDemand which allows creators to continue to sell product on the platform after the campaign ends. This is how VAVA is continuing to fund the project.

Through the campaign funding we rose $1,245,401 and through InDemand we’ve already risen an additional $600,227 (and we’re still funding!). InDemand is a great way for us to continue to scale on Indiegogo’s platform until the creator is ready to transition to ecommerce.


To wrap it up, here are some of the biggest takeaways:

  • We used TestBoom for the VAVA 4K Laser Projector to predict likelihood of success
  • Built a pre-launch email list using our Reservation Funnel to identify people who are 30x more likely to buy
  • Used pre-launch email list to have a “LaunchBoom” and get funded extremely quickly
  • Live campaign Facebook ads drove $519,672.00 in revenue from $34,817.30 in ad spend (a 14.93x return)
  • Indiegogo promotions directly contributed $904,357 to the project
  • Used Indiegogo InDemand to continue to drive sales after the campaign ended

Are you looking to launch a product soon? Apply to work with us today so we can learn more about you and your new product!

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