We’re a platform that helps people with big ideas get funded, build markets and sell products and services.
We built the site to help people that needed funding get projects done with no creative compromise. We’re a market driven site, and the market never lies.
SoKap is a network that connects the best marketers and influencers to the best creative projects. Anyone who is creative, social, and likes to talk about cool media can use SoKap.
Currently SoKap is open to anyone who demonstrates they can produce work within the publishing, film and music communities and/or anyone who has already finished projects or product that want to sell and share with their fans.
All you need to do is go to ‘Start a BIG Idea’ and fill in the registration. Once we get your information we will contact you to personally discuss your project.
No, we do not take ownership in projects.
SoKap allows you to provide your fans and influencers financial rewards by helping you fund your project or sell your products. We believe crowd sourcing and crowd funding should provide emotional and financial benefits to all parties involved in making a project happen.
Building markets is like having a bunch of sales reps in each city that help you sell your product. Only in this case you can have the rep do it from their own home. Basically building markets is finding the best people in each city that are going to be the best representative of your project.
A Referral Bonus is an affiliate fee earned by helping the project owner reach their funding goal by directing traffic to the project site.
A primer is a person or company that is going to help you ‘prime’ your pump and really get you moving. This might be a sponsor, agency, blogger, studio, distributor, broker, or anyone who you think is going to help you get there and spend some time and effort to do so. There is only 1 primer allowed per project.
Your connections are tracked when you use the Project Share tools. When people come to the site using your link their transactions are automatically linked to your account. Your account will be credited with the Referral Bonus for those transactions. You must be logged in to do this and you must be ‘engaged’ in the project.
If you’re listing a project for funding you will need to demonstrate in your business summary that you can deliver the finished project within your budget. You will also be required to prove that you are the registered rights holder of the project you are undertaking.
If you’re selling listing finished goods you will need to provide proof that you are in fact the global rights holder or the assigned agent that has the right to promote the product for the global marketplace.
You do, unless you are the assigned agent i.e.: distributor, sales agent, record label, publisher, etc.
Only the internal staff of SoKap will have access to your project files. If we feel it is necessary to have a third-party review your plan to help us make an informed decision and recommendations we will contact you and ask for your permission. We will inform you who will be reviewing the documentation.
No.
To fund a project you need a project summary and a detailed budget that we can review for completeness.
If you are submitting finished projects for distribution and retail then you will need your digital assets as well as images and product descriptions of your product for sale.
SoKap’s homepage rotation is reserved for projects and on-going programs that are in partnership with other media companies that have a vision in helping us get innovative projects made.
If you’d like to tell us how you used SoKap and share your strategy with others we would be more than happy to publish you in the blog and provide links to your story on our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn feeds.
We get asked by specific members of the press for interesting stories on an ongoing basis. We provide them with project summaries and let them make a decision as to whether or not they want to contact you directly. If you are looking for options to get your work publicized please get in touch as we do have options to assist you with this. Some of these options are ‘fee for service’ based.
Our tools are simple to use and offer creative people and marketers the ability to gather information, engage users, build marketing teams, retail finished product and track and distribute revenues all from your own dashboard, in a more timely manner.
Set up an account and follow the registration process. We'll contact you to discuss the details and if you've covered all your bases, then we'll turn on your project.
If you are funding a project no funds will be ‘released’ to a project owner unless the project is successful in meeting its funding goal. When the goal is met we will release the ‘goal’ amount and hold all amounts in excess of the ‘goal’ until the project is delivered.
For market ready products funds will be made available for release after the product has been delivered and received and after a hold period imposed by our credit card processors.
Then you’re project is over, and no one is charged for their pledges. If you sold finished goods during the funding period that revenue will be available to you at the end of the funding period.
Yes you can! We encourage people who have a portfolio of work to engage the audience by having them see and purchase your existing work.
Only if you have written permission or you are the master distributor of the product.
Yes they do. All finished goods sold during the funding period are to be delivered at the time of order. Referral bonuses are paid out and the funds are available to you at the end of the funding period.
The license holder begins earning commissions the moment the project fundraising period has ended. This means license holders earn commissions during the production period.
If you raise more money than your ‘goal’ that is fantastic.. Funds equal to the amount of your ‘goal’ will be available to you to fund your project. The excess funds are held until you deliver the completed project.
The project funding proposal was based on an achievable budget set by you. We want you to stay focused on your project and not allow new found wealth to distract you from your project. You set the budget, we approved the budget. You deliver the project, we deliver the money.
The owner of the project. Only one person can manage each account and this is the same person that is responsible for the revenue in the account. Make sure you assign the right person to this task.
You can modify the media you have presented on your project page and you can provide updates as you go. You can also modify the price of your territory licenses as you go. What you cannot change is the amount of funding you seek to raise if you are in Fundraising mode.
As a project owner you can contact your supporters directly.
By providing your contact information on your project page your supporters can make direct contact with you.
At the top of the project page we provide a group of sharing tools that are easy to use for each project owner and engaged user to help spread the word via, email, Facebook, twitter and your own custom referral link for each project. They’re simple to use, and get the word out quickly.
At this time we are limiting the fundraising period to a maximum of 100 days.
Market ready product land license areas listed in your store-front do not have a time limit for sales.
If you have a finished product you are market ready. If your goods are digital then you're always ready. If you need to manufacture the product we need to know that and you need to maintain some stock on-hand. Through your dashboard you can record the number of items on-hand.
Of course you can. If you don’t need to raise funds then just use it to build your community and sell your stuff.
No
There are hundreds of ways to tackle engagement and the sales process but were a platform, not a marketing company. We do however, have workshops and partnerships with people and organizations that can assist you in helping get started if you require this service. You can also read our blog for case studies and learn from other people who are doing this and willing to share their experiences with you.
It is important that you have a marketing strategy for your project. Your personal contact list should provide the initial launch of your campaign. As the use of the SoKap platform grows you will have access to a growing community of engaged participants who are looking for opportunities.
In addition Sokap provides several tools in partnership with other companies on a user pay basis. These tools can help in all areas of market research, sentiment and conversation analysis, lead and influencer generation, and permission based marketing.
Supporting a project is done by either pledging to fund a project that is in Fundraising mode, or by purchasing finished goods and services from the project owners Marketplace.
SoKap does due diligence on each project prior to accepting a listing. All project owners are interviewed and need to provide us with sufficient information before being listed.
We use an ‘all or nothing’ pledge based system that protects you from being charged for pre-order and license purchases during the fundraising phase. Payment will only be required with the project reaches its funding goal. For that reason we accept credit cards only for transactions at this time. PayPal does not support a pledge based system at this time.
If you are backing a project and do not wish to use a credit card but would prefer to do a direct funds transfer, please contact us and we would be happy to assist you.
Go to ‘Your Account’ and select ‘My Engaged Projects’. There you can see what projects you follow for free and are engaged in financially.
If you pledge to fund a project and the project does not meet its funding goals then the project is removed and you credit card is not charged. Your credit card is ONLY charged at the time a project meets its funding goal.
No
Sorry but our system does not allow you to disengage (as it is more properly known). Engaging in a project is a private action anyway and no one will know…promise.
No. Anyone from anywhere (with the exception of a few bad apple countries) can buy into your project.
Go to ‘Your Account’ and select ‘My Engaged Projects’. There you can see details of projects you are engaged in as a contributor or supporter. There are easy to follow tools to monitor and move your funds from inside your account on this page.
Go to ‘Your Account’ and select ‘Projects that I Own’.There you can see details of projects you manage or own and monitor the engagement, financial and retail process. There are easy to follow tools to monitor and move your funds from inside your account on this page.
A commission is that share of income paid to a territory license holder from sales of finished goods from the marketplace. The amount of commission is set by the project owner.
A referral fee is paid to engaged users who has directly referred paying supporters to a project. You do not need to own a license to earn referral fees. The amount of referred fee is set by the project owner.
Within ‘Your Account’ you can request a cash transfer.
Within “Your Account’ you will see two balances: 1) Cash Available and 2) Cash on Hold. Cash Available can be transferred immediately. Cash on Hold represents funds earned but held until the credit card hold period has expired or earnings that will be due to you for pledges not yet paid.
The transfer can be made directly to your bank account or to your PayPal account.
Most project owners will offer a number of alternative ways to support their project. You will select the alternative you wish and the details will be clearly described to ensure complete transparency.
If the project completes its funding and moves to production mode you will have to wait for the delivery of the finished project. You will be notified by the project owner via the website when production is completed.
If you have purchased finished goods you will get the product immediately. A digital product and this can be accessed via ‘My Digital Library’ inside your dashboard. If the product is a physical product the owner will ship it to you and is responsible for doing this at time of purchase.
The best way to contribute is to spread the word. If you want to help out in other ways we recommend you speak to the project owner specifically. You can do this by empaling them directly from their contact email located at the bottom of their ‘Project Overview’ page. If you’d like to help spread the word about SoKap, please do as we’d be much obliged or send us a note on what you’d like to do. We’d love to hear from you.
SoKap’s fee for fundraising is 5% of the amount raised.
SoKap’s fee for product sold on the marketplace is 10% of the selling price.
If a project owner needs significant help from us in setting up his project we may charge additional fees for these consulting services.
Most project owners will not require our help. All fees will be agreed to in advance.
Everyone gets a tour and a strategy meeting before we turn your project on.
The additional charges will be for support we provide in the following areas - creating a pitch video script, setting up your storefront, encoding your digital assets, helping you put a valuation on your licenses, putting you in contact with traditional distributors.
We will agree upon the additional costs prior starting.
There is no minimum selling price for tangible goods.
We may impose a minimum selling price for digital goods. Since we do not charge for bandwidth we require you to sell your goods at a price that ensures we cover this cost.
No.
No.
Our workshops are presented in part by some other great organizations. If you see one listed you can simply buy your event ticket from their website or ticketing agent.
Yes! Please contact us to discuss arrangements. We’d be happy to come and teach people about SoKap and its partner companies.
That’s completely up to the project owner and we suggest that in the interest of fair play that you look to see what they put in their own terms listed on their page.
Right now you can upload up to 2Gb through the uploader that we provide. You can upload as many files as you like but no one file can exceed 2Gb.
If your files are larger than this you can send us a drive or provide us FTP access to pull down your files and we can then ingest larger files into your store set up.
This is one of those fee for service areas we talked about earlier.
Only if you have written permission or you are the master distributor of the product.
It could be one of two reasons.
The sample files need to less than 10Mb
The sample files must be .mp3 files.
No. If you want DRM for your product we can point you to a handful of providers that we like and you can apply the protection prior to uploading the file to your store.
This is a pay for service. You send us your hard drive, with your best master on the drive, in the most uncompressed format you have. We load it into our encoder provide you with 4 files that you can use on the site as well as off the site.
The files that you receive can delivered via your own storefront…even the theatrical screening. If you’d like to see a demo please contact us and we’d be happy to arrange this.
Everyone has a BIG idea. Stop thinking and start doing! Get started today.
Wanna yell into a towel? We're here to help.