When does Private Launch start?

You’ve set up your campaign, secured your Lead Investor, and decided the terms of your Community Round. Congratulations!

Now it’s time to publish your campaign to your staunch supporters, who will help boost your campaign optics before you launch to the public on Wefunder.

To launch in Private:

1. Go to the Privacy tab of your company setup
2. Under “Who should be able to see your campaign?”, toggle the option to “Only those with a direct link or a Wefunder VIP.”
3. Click “Save & Finish →”

What's the difference between Private and Public launch?

When you launch in Private, your campaign page is live, but only to people who have the direct link. This means that only people you send the link to can access your page—it won't be indexed by Google or by Wefunder's search function.

When you toggle your launch to Public, your company will become eligible to appear on Wefunder's Explore page, marketing emails, and other marketing promotions. (You also need to have raised the $50,000 minimum and passed a compliance check that the Wefunder team conducts in the background.)

The purpose of your Private Launch is to send you out the gate for Public Launch with a bang. The more momentum you can build on your campaign page in terms of total funds raised, investment velocity, number of investors, and other positive signals, the stronger a position you'll be in when your campaign goes public to strangers who've never heard of you.

To do that, we recommend using the Private Launch phase to reach at least 25% of your total funding goal, or the $50,000 minimum—whichever is higher—by focusing on the following strategies.

The Basics of Private Launch

Go through each step of our Private Launch guides below to get you on your way to raising 25% of your goal:

1. Set up your CRM and send personal, 1:1 outreach to existing angels in your network, asking them to invest →
2. Offer early access as a reward to your network. Set up an email campaign for your existing mailing lists to announce your Private Launch →
3. In your founder dashboard, click on the “Launch Date” tab to set a countdown clock for your campaign page. This hides your total investment amount while you're in Private and collecting your first checks. Once the countdown is done, your investment total will become visible.