Wefunder is a crowdfunding service that connects startups with investors online. In today’s episode, Elliot Begoun talks to three founders who have used Wefunder to activate their campaigns. The founders who are present in today’s episode are the CEO of Spinster Sisters, Kelly Perkins, the CEO of Riff, Paul Evers, and the founder of Tia Lupita, Hector Saldivar. Listen to today’s episode to learn how they used crowdfunding to fund their dreams. Join in and learn the ins and outs of launching a successful fundraising campaign. Discover the power of Wefunder today!

—

Listen to the podcast here

Leveraging The Power Of Crowdfunding Through Wefunder With Kelly Perkins, Paul Evers, And Hector Saldivar

We have a conversation with three founders who have chosen to take their capital raise to the democratized masses. I’m eager to have this conversation. I’m excited. I usually do a shout-out, but my shout-out is going to be to the three folks here joining me. We’ve got Kelly Perkins with Spinster Sisters, Paul Evers with Riff, and Hector Saldivar with Tia Lupita. These are the folks that have been fighting the good fight from a capital raise standpoint in a very public way. Each of them approaches it differently.

It’s a great opportunity for those reading to learn from them and support them. That’s what we’re going to discuss. I wrote an article because it’s something that I have seen continue to expand and grow. That’s this funding gap. The reality in the marketplace now is that many of the venture funds have moved upmarket. Their fund size has gotten bigger. They’ve recognized that in their defense, it takes as much time in due diligence and support of the portfolio company, work, legal expenses, and all of that to deploy $500,000 as it does to deploy $5 million or $15 million or more. More have chosen the latter rather than the former, which is good news for those brands that can get past that threshold.

If your trailing 12 months revenue is $5 million or more, there’s ample money in the industry to help support that next big step of growth. Not that it’s easy. I don’t want to intimate that but it’s there. It’s those brands that are $1 million to $3 million that find themselves in this not so little gap. This is no man’s land where the same Angels are getting hit up time and time again, so there’s some real Angel fatigue. Even Angels are writing fewer checks, just bigger ones. It has created a real challenge for these brands to get the funds they need to get to that traction and get to the number we discussed to win that bigger investment.

There’s some goodness out of this. It’s reinforcing what we talk a lot about in terms of building tardigrades focusing on being nimble, capital-efficient and resilient. It’s focusing not only on growth for the sake of growth but growth for the sake of learning and product-market fit proof. That’s all being reinforced by this reality. Regardless, it still creates a challenge to keep the lights on, the team paid, inventory flowing, and spend marketing dollars. If you launch as Hector is with hot sauces now nationally with Sprouts, that’s expensive to support that in many ways.

What has happened is many are now starting to turn to equity crowdfunding. There has been a lot of evolution in equity crowdfunding. It’s still pretty nascent and new. One of the changes to regulation C crowdfunding is it allowed brands like the ones here to raise up to $5 million and to raise money from both accredited and unaccredited investors. It is something that I liked because it democratizes wealth-building opportunities. It invites people in who are trying to build wealth. To be an accredited investor somewhere along the way, unless you inherited it, you have to have the opportunities to acquire that wealth to be an accredited investor.

I have gone from cynicism to optimism as it relates to equity crowdfunding for a lot of reasons. The first is that it’s now up to $5 million. The second is that they’ve answered some of the questions around cap table complexity, voting rights and all of those things. The third is that brands get to stand on their own legs. There’s no filter or gatekeepers. They are out there full frontal and able to express their why, what they mean, what they’re doing, their message, and hope that resonates with people who are willing and want to invest.

The last thing in this is that I’ve been getting a lot of emails from folks who say, “I’m interested in this. It’s a cool way to donate to brands.” I want to dispel that. This is not a GoFundMe or a Kickstarter campaign. This is a true investment. You’re investing in these brands under the same terms and opportunities that any other Angel or VC would be investing in. There’s a real upside potential if you believe in the brand, see what they’re doing and you subscribe to what their strategy is.

This is not a donation. This is an opportunity for you to make calculated smart investments to diversify your portfolio, even begin to build a small portfolio of brands if you’re in this industry. I’ll share my personal belief as I allocate quite a bit of my investing dollars back into this industry for two primary reasons. One is it’s the industry that has given me so much, and I feel responsible to pay it forward.

The second is I have a choice. I can invest in brands where I think I have some idea what the hell is going on, and maybe some influence, impact or ability to de-risk or accelerate it, or I can invest in Wall Street where I have no idea, no control, no say and no understanding. To me, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to do it where I could put my acquired wisdom and network to work in a way that hopefully helps my portfolio perform better. I’m going to ask each of you and I’m going to start with Paul to talk through the decision to decide to go ahead and raise on Wefunder where you’re raising now.

Thanks, Elliot, for that great intro. This was a great natural fit for Riff. When we started in late 2017 and 2018, when we raised our first round of capital, we struggled with trying to figure out how to make it more of a democratized offering. We knew that the industry in beverages is conspiring against you. It’s an ominous task to take a new brand through the path to success. We knew that we ideally would have a tribe surrounding the Riff brand. It’s what we did with our first raise, which was all friends and family.

We limited the unit to a $25,000 investment, limiting one per household, and we’ve approached our legal counsel with that concept. They responded by saying, “We’ve heard that before. It’s a wonderful concept, but nobody has been successful to date.” We’ve talked to about 30 different companies who thought about that. We ultimately were successful and oversubscribed with 40 different households investing $25,000 each. That was somewhat of a compromise model to what we are aspired to do, which was crowdfunding. Back then, because of SEC regulations, it made the cap table super messy.

The fact that the crowdfunding campaign can be all corralled into a special purpose vehicle, one LLC which equates to one cap table entry for Riff made this ideal. With each investment, we’re also acquiring new consumers and customers as well as advocates and fans. This was a no-brainer for us with the new SEC regulations. We’re super excited about it. It wasn’t easy to implement but we’re off and running. It fits like a glove for us, ideologically.

We’ll get into the mechanics of that too. For those who aren’t familiar with Riff, talk about the brand for a second.

Riff started as a cold brew coffee company with products in markets in 2018. In 2019, we started experimenting with the fruity pulp that surrounds the coffee bean on the plant. Most people aren’t aware that coffee is a fruit because it’s a 500-year old industry. Everybody is aware of the beans, but the beans are actually two-headed seeds. Encased in this incredible fruity pulp is nutritionally rich in magnesium, potassium, antioxidants and iron. It’s also naturally caffeinated and sweet. It’s like if you take the avocado, peach or plum industry as an agricultural product and you’re extracting the pit to make a wonderful beverage that we would call coffee. Nobody knows that it’s a pit of fruit that has been thrown away for 400 years because there’s no demand and economic value for the farming community.

We’re taking and upcycling that, and converting it into a clean labeled energy drink that is carbon neutral. It also got its immunity benefits. We’re in the process of certifying it upcycled as well. That’s called Riff Energy Plus. This is what we’re excited about now with Riff because we’re introducing sustainability into the coffee industry, generating economic viability for coffee farmers, and solving a waste problem that’s leading to the coffee industry’s contribution to climate change.

Kelly, I’m turning it over to you. Talk about a quick intro to the brand, Spinster Sisters, and the decision for you to take this to the crowdfunding platform. This is your second crowdfunding campaign. You did one on Republic. Now, you’re doing this on Wefunder. Tell us a little bit about that learning as well.

Spinster Sisters is an all-natural plant-based skincare company. I grew up in Boulder and natural products have been a part of my entire life. The amount of toxic waste like single-use plastic waste and things like that is something that eats at me each and every day. We are trying to become the first commercially available plastic-free skincare company in the country. We launched a line of free-from products that are free from plastics and water. I’m sure everybody knows that a lot of skincare products are just water. We are eliminating that from our formulations, so you have concentrated, strong, healing, moisturizing plant-based oils, and eliminating the ecological imprint of shipping waterways around the globe.

Did you hear about the news?

Yes, and it’s very exciting. After years of working on it, we became a certified B corp, which I am so proud of and so happy about. It’s something I’ve been working towards since starting this company. It was a ton of work, but I am so proud of this accomplishment. I’m happy about it.

Why the hell are you raising on Wefunder?

I’ve never done friends and family round. Republic was my first foray into investment. I launched earlier in 2022 an investment campaign. I have interests from some local Angel groups, which I’m working with now to try to work through due diligence. For me, we have had the most loyal followers. I have customers that have been with me since the first time they bought our bar soap at a farmer’s market. They’re very loyal and supportive.

When I thought about raising money, it was about the community because these people have been supporting me, why shouldn’t they get a piece of the pie if that’s something they’re interested in? When we launched the campaign on Republic, I had no feeling whatsoever about what was going to happen with that, but the support from friends, families and those loyal customers was overwhelming.

In my experience, it was a lot faster to get access to that money and help us launch this new free-from line and start our foraying to get plastic-free because you can end your campaign when you’re happy with the amount you’ve raised. It was faster for me than going through the six-month process of working with Angels. I did Republic and we launched on Wefunder. It has been terrific. We’re up almost $100,000 in a week, which is great. It’s a great way. These are our biggest supporters. They’re ambassadors out there for us. They’re owners of the company, so they’re singing about the company and sharing the news. We’ve got a large number of customers out of it. It’s a win-win all the way around.

I agree, especially when you have that fierce and loyal tribe, and you’re going to build upon it. Before I turn it over to Hector, Fernando had a question that was around the multiples or the values evaluations. That is one of the things people often get confused about on the crowdfunding platform. The terms and the offers are the same that you would be seeing these founders take to Angels or VCs. For the most part, all three of you are raising convertible notes. Those convertible note terms were no different from the terms you plan to take around to angels. You’re investing in these platforms in the same way you or any other VC would have access.

As you get bigger, VCs tend not to be in convertible note rounds or negotiated at straight equity rounds. Oftentimes, the brands on these platforms will offer early bird terms for investors who act quickly to be even slightly better than what’s on the market. That’s an important thing to call out. I’m going to turn it over to Hector from Tia Lupita. Tell us a little bit about Tia Lupita and why you’re doing this.

My name is Hector Saldivar and I’m the Founder of Tia Lupita Foods. We are a Mexican-inspired food brand that uses clean, simple ingredients in all of our products. We are one of the first brands here in the United States to introduce cactus or nopales as an alternative functional, sustainable, superfood ingredient in our line of tortilla chips and tortillas.

We started back in 2018 with hot sauce. Our family recipe for hot sauce had been passed down to a single-family member from my household. My mama was an immigrant from Monterrey, Mexico. We quickly realized that it was a huge white space in the marketplace, and the Mexican or Hispanic brands here in the United States were not updating their ingredient of this or bringing any innovation to the marketplace.

Most importantly, their authenticity or originality position had been diluted or lost for the years. I felt that the marketplace needed a breath of fresh air of authenticity and originality with Mexican food. That’s what we’re doing with Tia Lupita. I’ll be very honest and frank about why we decided to go with Wefunder. It’s the frustration and desperation of raising money the traditional way, presenting to VCs and Angels but primarily VCs, and feeling that you’re hitting a home run and seeing the ball flying almost over the fence and dropping a foot short of going over the fence.

We know we’re not the right size, we’re a very small check, etc. That starts messing with your head a lot. The noes outpace the yes when you’re presenting individually, and then the doubt demons start looming. You start questioning yourself if you or your product is good enough to be in the market. Am I a good founder? Am I offering something good? Every time you hear a no, you’re blaming yourself, the product and the brand. It starts adding up.

When Elliot started telling me about Wefunder and the opportunity of democratizing investing, I’ve heard that it was challenging from other founders, but the desperation and frustration led me to it. Now, I am kicking myself in the head and saying, “Why didn’t I do this before? Why didn’t I do this after?” It has been a great experience so far. We’re also learning like launching the WeFunder in the middle of Christmas is not a great idea. We’re learning and there’s no time limit. It’s things like that.

First of all, to circle back on something. I talked to a lot of investors, and that’s one of the things they agonize over. They wished there was a better way for them to articulate because the vast majority of their noes or the not yet have nothing to do with the brand or the founder presenting to them. It sometimes has to do with they got something else in their portfolio that’s too close. They don’t know the space. They don’t love the category or they don’t feel like they can add value to the category, the timing or they have made another investment. It’s all of those things.

I talked to somebody who saw slightly over 400 presentations in 2021 and made one significant investment. The odds suck. There’s no way not to take it personally. It’s like you’re holding up your kid and saying, “Aren’t they cute?” They’re saying, “Not really but don’t take it personally. You got an FLK, a Funny Looking Kid.” That is not an easy thing to withstand.

I agree but when you’re hearing it over and over again, I start to believe it. Maybe my kids are ugly.

You start believing it. It’s wearing on you and so forth. That’s a sad reality. Most of you didn’t start doing this because you came up with a product and decided to build a business. It’s mainly because you wanted the fun and the enjoyment of raising capital. That’s not usually what we’re doing this for. Sarah Burg had asked a question for all of you, “How are you finding funders and reaching people?” I’ll go around the horn.

I will say that the platforms will tell you that they estimate around 30% of the dollars that come to any campaign will come from people who are already on the platform and are investing. That’s why I want to get the word out there so that there are more people on these platforms from the CPG industry and natural products because that’s going to make this become better and more vibrant. I’ll start with you, Kelly. How are you connecting with potential funders and investors? Talk a little bit about how you’re trying to drive your campaign.

We started with the investors that had already invested in Republic and notified them that we would be starting a new campaign on Wefunder. We contact people through our email list, put it on social, boost posts on social. We’ve got some great investments from our posts on LinkedIn. You have to get creative about it because crowdfunding fatigue is a real thing. You can only hit up your email list so many times before they stop paying attention. You have to get creative on how you do it. It’s important to stay on top of your campaign. Make sure you’re putting updates out there about what’s going on with the business.

We are looking at hiring an actor from Cameo to do a spot about it and put that out there. We’re trying to get creative as we possibly can with keeping people engaged in the campaign, but it’s a lot of work and challenging. The investors that we got from our Republic campaign have become new customers that are super loyal as well. It’s worth the effort but it’s a lot of work, and you have to be creative.

I’ll pass it to you next, Hector. The one thing that I will say as well is that it’s not a lost effort either. As you’re learning how to compel or motivate people to click on Wefunder and make an investment, it’s no different from the same mechanics or messaging you would want to try to motivate them to click on your website to go to a store and place an order.

You’re learning, refining and improving your ability to message in a compelling way. In a forum, it’s marketing pain for itself, but you should also look at it that way. The hardest single thing to do is separate somebody from their cash. If you can effectively do that, then you have a much higher chance of getting them to separate from that cash again in the form of purchasing a product. Hector, talk to us a little bit about what you’re doing to find those investors and engage your investors.

This is the first time we are doing this, so we’re learning but leaning into our tribe, people that are fans of Tia Lupita that have invested previously. The way we are leaning is asking them to please forward and sell the Wefunder campaign to their networks. In my mind, it makes a lot more impact hearing from a third party to invest in Tia Lupita than coming from the founder. I can sell Tia Lupita until the cows come home. If somebody doesn’t know Tia Lupita and you hear from somebody you respect or love say, “We invested in Tia Lupita, and you should too now that there’s an opportunity,” that makes a lot more of an impact.

Also, it’s that squeaky wheel. If we are being consistent with our buyers, we have to be consistent as well over here. Every opportunity and update we have, we’re reminding the people out there that there’s the Wefunder campaign, “We got our grant from Tequila Don Julio and also we’re investing in Wefunder for Tia Lupita. We got the national distribution of Sprouts through their hot sauces now. By the way, invest in Tia Lupita now.” Every opportunity we have, even if it’s small, “We are investing in Wefunder for Tia Lupita now.” That’s what we’re doing and we’ll continue to get creative. What Kelly mentioned is amazing about influencers or actors. Wherever you can, try to get the word out.

Paul, I’ll turn it over to you because in a way you’re doing that with Vernon. Before I do, there are two things. I want to call out Ryan Armistead from Happy Moose Juice to throw out there that he can relate. It’s frustrating when you hear over and over that investors invest in founders and your business needs to be a specific size, but then investors continuously come up hesitant on the category or something else, even for categories that are tired and lack innovation. I can’t take away that sense of rejection or the fact that it does reinforce and energize those demons on your shoulders like the doubt and fear.

I will tell you that that’s where the community comes in. That’s when you have a shit day like that and have four rejections, to be able to pick up the phone or send a text or reach out to a founder who had the same days and other founders who have gone through the same thing. Vocalize it and have somebody say, “I get you. I got it.” It’s not only helping you in terms of reinforcing that you’re not going through this alone, but it’s also reinforcing to them that they’re not going through it alone.

Whatever you all do, don’t keep this stuff inside. Don’t live with this by yourself. Share it with each other. That’s the other thing I will say before turning it to Paul. In talking with both Mark and Johnny at Wefunder. The other thing they said is that one of the most effective things they’ve seen is when founders and brands share lists and talk and do things like that.

The other element of this is that it is a community. It’s something I believe in fiercely that everybody needs. We all focus on our community of shoppers and consumers, but the other two communities that we have to engage and actively build are a community of collaborators, which are founders helping founders, and our community of champions, in which every one of these potential investors become. Thinking of it that way is critical too. Paul, talk a little bit about how you’re bringing in founders and leveraging a little bit of celebrity status.

Fundraising and leading a fundraising campaign requires almost a completely different set of competencies and talent than what it takes to found a company to build a brand. It’s an interesting position, and founders are in that position where they bear the burden of leading fundraising. Even though it’s necessary to build the brand, it’s a completely different skillset. One of my strengths is one-on-one relationships. We’ve had success with Angel investing through telling the story breadth one-on-one.

The Wefunder platform is completely foreign to me. I can tap into a human network and do a good job of building relationships. When you have one person who has credibility introducing you to others in their network, that goes a long way in predisposing potential investors to the offering. As far as tapping into a digital network, I know that the audience is massively larger, but knowing how to go about that requires a completely different skillset.

What we’ve done is we have a lead investor for our Wefunder campaign. One of the things that’s great about it is that he becomes a proxy for all the investors via the Wefunder platform. Hopefully, our campaign is going to be made up of hundreds, if not thousands of people investing at the $100 level, so that we can have a great spread and build an audience and champions around Riff, but all their votes get consolidated into one person.

That person happens to be a Super Bowl champion in the form of Vernon Davis, who’s a very charismatic guy. He’s an entrepreneur himself. He’s super passionate about what Riff is doing, about the sustainability story, and the social equity story related to the supply chain. Those are the things that get him excited. He’s a great spokesperson for the brand. We’ve got a video that features him. It’s meant to convey the story and still be fun. We’ll also be tapping into his social networks, and then leveraging him for content in our paid digital advertising. It’s recognizing that this is a completely foreign environment for us, and we need to have the confidence that we’ll be successful.

What we’ve elected to do is hire what’s called a campaign quarterback, somebody who is going to be an extension of the Riff team and manage the campaign from a strategic voice level, all the way through to make sure that effective digital strategies are implemented from email through paid social, and those are all executed. Along with that, there are so many other opportunities. It’s almost endless on how you can reach investors but making sure we’re tapping into our friends in the industry.

I personally invested in Tia Lupita and Spinster Sisters on Wefunder. There’s a little reciprocity there. It is tapping into all these different channels that you have that are available to you because of digital means. We’re going with a campaign quarterback that’s going to make sure that we facilitate that and that we have confidence. I identify with everything that Kelly and Hector have shared. It is tough. It’s not easy.

I would like to add that getting the campaign launch for Riff. We never had to do reviewed financial statements before and engaged with an accounting firm referred to us by Wefunder. They had been fantastic, but it took three months. That was a long arduous process with several cycles. It’s not like, “Let’s sign up for Wefunder and see if we can launch our campaign next week or the week after.” It’s important to have full transparency disclosure, and that’s what Form-C does on the campaign.

While you’re also getting people excited about the promise of the brand and what the future of the brand looks like when you’re taking and solving a massive problem like sustainability or coffee’s contribution to climate change, and helping solve the economic equity issue within the supply chain. Those bigger purpose components of what your brand is all about, there’s a lot to it, but we’re happy that we’re at the stage we’re at now. We launched it as well after filing our Form-C. We’re over $100,000 now. It’s tapping into your existing network or tribe. We have 70 people already on our cap table. Those people are rooting for us to win. We’re asking for them to tap into their networks as well as Hector was describing. There are multiple strategies. I like the Cameo idea. That’s a good one. Thank you, Kelly.

Kelly, you got a couple of other things to add.

It piggybacks on what we’ve all been saying. I don’t know if everybody’s experience has been this but for us, it’s important to make it personal. Whatever people invest in our company, they get an email video of me saying, “Thank you for your investment. Here’s how we’re going to use the money.” When we post about it, we try to be personal. It’s not just a sales pitch about investing in the company but like, “Here’s what you’re investing in, here are our people, our team and what we’re working towards.” You have to have that personal component to it. That has been very important for us.

I would agree about that transparency, letting people in, and treating them like owners. For many people, that’s the first time they have that. For all of us who’ve experienced owning public stocks, we don’t feel like an owner. It’s not like they’re reaching out to you. It’s an opportunity to build that. Paul, one of the comments you made about reviewing financials and so forth, you have to prepare yourself to do this. The other benefit is that getting all your shit together makes you a more investible company. It gives you the opportunity to make sure you’re identifying anything in that whole process you might need to shore up.

There’s some benefit to this, but it’s not easy or a panacea. You’ve got to work your asses off in terms of outreach to generate this. It is not a one-and-done type of outreach. You can carry this forward in a lot of ways. This gets back to a couple of episodes ago. Hector, you alluded to persistence. The most likely narrative that you’re all going to have about reaching out to your email lists and so forth is you don’t want to over-reach out. Kelly, you even said that. The truth of the matter is we all get hundreds of emails a day. If we don’t look at them, they fall to the bottom of our inbox, never to be seen again. This is a time not to be pushy or salesy but to stay top of mind and do it.

I also wanted to add to one of the things that you mentioned at the beginning while you were doing your monologue. A lot of people still don’t know the specifics or the details of Wefunder. They still consider it like a Kickstarter or Crowdfunding, almost like a charity or donating. As you mentioned, the community, tribe and allies are elevated. Maybe Wefunder on their own also needs to do a little bit better job of explaining how Wefunder works. I’ve been getting a lot of comments and questions regarding that like, “I thought you already had sales?” We need to explain to them all that stuff.

There’s a lot of education that needs to take place. To a degree, you three are still pioneers and this is early days. We think about regulating crowdfunding. Equity crowdfunding hasn’t been around all that long. Truthfully, to an investor, the exchange or the transactional thing is no different than if you were to buy shares of stock through your Schwab account. It’s the same principle. It’s just done differently in a private placement. In essence, it’s the same thing. You own a piece of this company, and you have the opportunity to make big multiples because these are young emerging brands.

I’m not giving anyone financial advice. I am saying that most people allocate a portion of their investible income towards higher risk, higher return. My feeling is why not be doing that in the industry in which you work and have some degree of knowledge or potential ability to de-risk or get involved personally with your investments? The two last questions I want to cover. The first is not only dollars but if you want to share that, please do. What does success look like for you in a campaign like this? What are some of the outcomes? I’ll start with you, Hector.

Success is raising the target amount that will allow us to pour gasoline into the fire and feel the growth. We’re excited about all the distribution. Now, we’re seeing some traction but it’s expensive, the marketing fees, slotting fees, and all that stuff. It’s essential. I’m excited about all the brand ambassadors that we’re going to get organically. People that invest even $100 or $200 will immediately become brand ambassadors and would want the success of their investment so that money can increase. I’m looking forward to that. If people already are loyalists and fans of Tia Lupita in the sheer taste of the product and increasing the level of excitement because now they’re part-owners, it’s going to be interesting to see. I’m looking forward to that.

How about you, Paul?

One thing I wanted to clarify is that the structure of our raise is a price front. It’s straight equity. For us, our goal is to raise $1.5 million combinations between accredited and non-accredited investors, get those brand champions, and give us a good two-year runway, so we can get back to focusing on building the brand and innovation and efficiency. We could raise another round, be it Angel investors. I’m sure we could do that. What I love most about Wefunder is that we are acquiring customers and brand advocates as much as we are investment funds. That’s what makes us a game-changer for a brand like Riff. I don’t think there’s any other real vehicle to do that to have people who are completely bought into the brand, own an actual piece of the company, and get to celebrate the upside once we’re successful.

Kelly?

I’m not sure I can add much to this. They have covered it pretty well. Raising money and increasing your network is what it’s all about.

The other things that happen in this go back to our earlier discussion that Hector brought up about hearing all the rejections. I can think of the old Jerry Lewis telethon. He would get up every morning and go look at the board. You’re going to see some positive reinforcement. Even if it’s one new investor, whatever it is. Every day, you’re getting a little bit of a reminder that what you all are doing is cool and meaningful to people. That in and of itself is in industry, business and time in the life stage of a brand where a lot of those positive reinforcements are few and far between. You go months and months until you get new distribution or you get your hot sauces nationally in Sprouts or you get your B Corp approved or you’re doing something. Every day, potentially and hopefully, you can wake up and see it there.

I want to reinforce that what you mentioned is so true. Even if it’s $100, you’ll get that email from Wefunder that says, “Somebody believes in you.” That’s so positive and fuel for the soul. It’s good.

It’s so important. That leads to my last question. What help do you need? What can this community do? It doesn’t matter if it’s $100, but to take the time to say, “I got you. I’m supporting this industry and all of you,” is important, especially for those in our TIG brands family. I’m not shaming anybody, trust me. Money is a very personal thing, but showing love that way is a great thing. What else could help? What else could the industry, the audience, other founders like you, some investors and retailers, industry providers and luminaries, and so forth do for you? I’m going to start with Kelly.

Helping us spread the word about our campaign is everything. We asked our investors on their LinkedIn profile to add, “Investor in Spinster Sisters Co.” We’ve gotten some great conversations and hopefully, some investments out of that. It’s anything that you can do to help spread the word about the campaign. These campaigns are marathons, not sprints. You get a lot of investment in the beginning, and there’s a long dry period until you’re about to close, then you get a lot more investment. Helping us keep the campaigns alive in people’s minds during that slow period is everything. Even if you don’t have the capability to invest. Posting something on social saying, “This company got a crowdfund going and I believe in them,” is huge.

Resharing will work a lot more than investing sometimes. I agree with Kelly 100%. For industry leaders and influencers and people with a bigger outreach, helping educate the masses on Wefunder. This is a vehicle for you to have some stakes in brands and companies that you believe in that is not charity.

Paul?

I like to say a couple of things. I was excited to learn that Spinster Sisters and Tia Lupita we’re launching Wefunder campaigns because I was excited about the opportunity to be a part of their journey. That was fun. You hear a lot about these brands because we’re in the same community. That was an exciting thing for me. I loved the idea of connection. One of the ideas that I have for Hector and Kelly is that right after this, we’re going to form a support group specifically focused on Wefunder and share ideas and help keep each other on track.

The other thing I wanted to say is Wefunder isn’t perfect. It’s got technology behind it. There are hiccups. We’ve had a couple of heart attacks. Not long ago, our total raise was reduced by $25,000. I get panic emails from people on the team like, “What happened?” It wasn’t that an investor had withdrawn their commitment, which they have the ability to do. It was some automated algorithm that flagged a $25,000 investment because it’s significant. To the system, it wasn’t a known entity. You got to send an email and say, “We know these guys. They’re a personal friend.” They then put it back up. It was a little bit of a roller coaster ride if you’re tracking and following what the total amount raised to date is.

The TIG community is a community even beyond that. If you’re involved in the food and beverage space or have been a founder in a small emerging brand like any of these three, you know what the journey is like. It’s good karma if you’re supporting and helping each other win. It’s going to come back to you. Helping by sharing or socializing the opportunity within your friends and family network or your LinkedIn network would go a long way for these three brands. When you’ve been down this journey, you get excited about reciprocating when the opportunity becomes available.

I’ll add here two things. One is educating yourselves on these platforms and being able to talk to others about it because there would likely be a day that many of you will find yourselves wanting to leverage this. Become knowledgeable about it now, asking questions and doing that. We have to inform the industry because there is still some bias around there. A lot of the attorneys in this space still haven’t caught up to the most recent development. They’re still worried because they’re overly protective of their clients. Some of them aren’t familiar with the changes that the platforms have made. The bottom line is that great ideas, founders and products need money to do it to be able to succeed.

What I hope to get across is that you don’t need crazy money to succeed because success can be defined by being more focused, more curated and being a tardigrade, but you still need money. These platforms like Wefunder, Republic and StartEngine are democratizing this. They are opening it up. For those of you who haven’t gone on and done it, first of all, go. It’s fun and cool to look at not only in our industry but at anything else. The reality is it’s now no harder to make an investment in a cool company than it is to buy a product on Amazon. It’s that simple and a great opportunity.

I wanted to use this TIG Talk to do three things. 1) To throw more support your way, the three of you for your campaign, 2) To try to create more awareness in the industry of this growing new way of raising capital, 3) To compel the audience to be a part of the solution and to pay it forward and to be active in whatever way they can, whether that’s investing dollars, sharing and supporting campaigns, and putting it out on your social, and even linking at Wefunder saying, “Check the CPG brands.”

We have more conversations with Wefunder, Republic and StartEngine coming up on our end, hopefully, to get more ways in which we can galvanize and bring people together to leverage the masses. I appreciate the three of you joining very much. I wish you the best of luck. For any of my friends, especially those who have strong social or media platforms, please help share the word. We’ll see you all next time. Thanks, and be well.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Spinster Sisters

• Riff

• Tia Lupita

• GoFundMe

• Kickstarter

• Wefunder

• Republic

• Cameo

• Tequila Don Julio

• Happy Moose Juice

• StartEngine

• https://Wefunder.com/letsriff

• https://Wefunder.com/spinstersistersco

• https://Wefunder.com/hectorsaldivar

About Kelly Perkins

Entrepeneur – Founder and CEO of Spinster Sisters Co.

Spinster Sisters Co – the very BEST natural skin care available. Love my job, love living in CO, love my cute dogs, and love me some spicy margarita’s.

About Paul Evers

A celebrated veteran in brand strategy, design and advertising— Paul led the teams behind the creative development of craft beverage brands such as Humm Kombucha, 21st Amendment, Deschutes Brewery, Odell Brewing and Crux Fermentation Project—which he co-founded, served as President and CMO.

In 2017, Paul co-founded Riff Cold Brewed Coffee along with veterans from Stumptown and LinkedIn. Paul is also a long-time active community member, having played a significant role in launching both the Bend Volunteer Corps and TEDxBend.

About Hector Saldivar

Hector Saldivar, knows that Food is Love. His mother, known affectionately as Tia Lupita (“Aunt Lupita” in Spanish), filled the family kitchen with the love, laughs and tasty eats that brought everyone together. In Mexico, family recipes are valuable heirlooms carefully handed down from generation to generation. Tia perfected her own family hot sauce recipe to create a delightful balance of heat and flavor, coveted by anyone lucky enough to get a taste.

When Hector moved to San Francisco, California, Tia would ship him bottles of her hot sauce, to make certain he always had a taste of home with him. Hector shared the love, and soon friends would come knocking, looking for the next delivery of Tia’s irresistible hot sauce. Too good to keep to himself, Hector returned to Mexico and asked for his mother’s blessing to bottle the sauce for all to enjoy.

The brand is named Tia Lupita to honor his mom and the legacy of the family recipe. Tia’s likeness on the label pays homage to her most-loved trademark: wearing a curler on her head while she cooks to keep her bangs out of her eyes! Complementing the completely craveable hot sauce, you’ll find more creative, healthy products have joined the lineup including Grain Free Cactus Tortilla Chips and Cactus Tortillas. Keep in touch to see what’s next!

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! tigbrands.com/tig-talks/