TCF Creator Chronicles

Every year, a handful of campaigns cross $500K on Kickstarter. Most don't. 🧨 The difference isn't luck, and it is not the product alone. For the extra episode that closes Season 1, TCF Creator Chronicles sits down with Shavarsh Zohrabyan, who leads research at TCF. 🔬 He's analyzed hundreds of campaigns across the major crowdfunding platforms, and he breaks down the patterns behind th...

There's one thing almost every creator overlooks before launching, and it's not the product, the video, or the ads. After years in crowdfunding across many campaigns, Boz Zou keeps coming back to the same answer: pricing. For the final episode of Season 1, TCF Creator Chronicles hosts an exclusive guest: Boz Zou, Founder & CEO of Rapive INC and Ocher Ventures, an AI and hardware innova...

Founders often think the market will adapt to their product. In crowdfunding, it's the other way around, and the preparation you do before launch is what decides everything. Episode 10 of TCF Creator Chronicles features Norayr Margaryan, Chief Operating Officer at TCF, breaking down the three components that decide every crowdfunding campaign's success: product, positioning, and price. How...

Most founders prepare for launch day. Almost nobody prepares for what comes after it and that's where campaigns are won or lost. Episode 9 of TCF Creator Chronicles features Rubina Manukyan, Project Coordinator at TCF, breaking down what the live stage of a crowdfunding campaign actually looks like: why the curve drops after the first spike, what the backer survey strategy reveals about your r...

Influence creates attention. But in crowdfunding, before the attention comes the trust and most founders are missing this. Episode 8 of TCF Creator Chronicles features Nare Harutyunyan, an influencer marketing expert at TCF, breaking down how influencer marketing builds trust in crowdfunding, the 20% sales increase she's seen across projects that started early, and the prototype quality decision t...

A campaign rarely fails because of the idea. It fails because of the mistakes founders make before they ever go live long before the audience sees the product. Episode 7 of TCF Creator Chronicles features Arin Manaserian, Partnership Manager at TCF, breaking down the costly pre-launch mistakes first-time crowdfunding founders make, why the risks of launching unprepared are way higher than waiting,...

Most founders think PR means paying an agency hundreds of thousands of dollars to get featured. The credibility that actually sells products on Kickstarter is earned, not bought. Episode 6 of TCF Creator Chronicles features Rosa Chibukhchyan, a PR expert breaking down how earned media really works in crowdfunding: why short-term PR strategies don't exist, what makes a product newsworthy enough...

Most crowdfunding campaigns fail because founders skip one thing - testing whether their product actually has demand. Episode 5 of TCF Creator Chronicles features Mushegh Hakobyan, Project Manager at TCF, breaking down how to validate demand before you launch from testing pain points and price sensitivity, to running reservation funnels, to using one specific survey question that doubled the daily...

Content without the right audience is just noise. Most crowdfunding founders learn this too late - after launch day, when the posts are done but the backers aren't there. Albert breaks down how to build a community that actually converts before a campaign goes live. Episode 4 features Albert Arshakyan, TCF's Head of Social Media and Creative Strategist, breaking down why audience size with...

Most crowdfunding campaigns are decided months before launch day. Not by the product. By the planning behind it. Episode 3 features Yeva Gasparyan, TCF's Project Manager, breaking down how 7-figure crowdfunding campaigns are planned from setting realistic goals based on data, to pre-launch timing, to the mid-campaign strategy most founders never prepare for. What you'll learn: - Why most founders...

Most founders think PR starts on launch day. Journalists have already moved on by then. Episode 2 features Artak Mkrtichyan, TCF's PR expert, breaking down the hidden rules of crowdfunding PR that most founders only discover when it's too late: timing, media selection, budget, and the one thing you can never control. What you'll learn: - Why starting PR on launch day is already too lat...

Most founders onboard a crowdfunding agency two or three months before launch. By then, the most critical decisions are already made and often made wrong. In Episode 1, Babken, TCF's Partnerships Manager, breaks down why six months is the threshold that separates prepared campaigns from ones that are already behind and what founders should actually be doing in that window. What you'll learn: — Whe...