How to Turn Early Supporters Into Investors and Ambassadors

What I Actually Did in Year One at Aptera

I joined Devin Thorpe on the Superpowers for Good podcast earlier this year to talk about what it takes to build a community that raises real capital.

The more I thought about that conversation, the more I realized how much of Aptera’s early momentum came from things that were simple, unscalable, and easy to underestimate.

Here are the lessons I keep coming back to.

It starts with your why

People do not invest in early-stage companies because they have reviewed every product spec and market assumption with perfect objectivity.

They invest because something connects.

The most successful crowdfunding campaigns, Aptera included, are rarely about the investment alone. They are about belonging to a movement.

People invested in Aptera because they wanted to be part of the future of solar mobility. The investment was how they joined.

If you cannot articulate why your company exists and what it is trying to change, no amount of ad spend will fix that.

What I actually did in year one

When I joined Aptera as CMO, I was the only marketing person.

I answered every email that came into info@aptera.us myself.

That is where I started building relationships, one conversation at a time.

When the volume became too much to manage alone, I put out a call to the community: would anyone want to volunteer?

That question became the foundation of the ambassador program.

People raised their hands. They wanted to help. They wanted to be part of it. I gave them a way in.

For the first year or so, we had almost no paid ad spend.

What we invested in was content.

Camera crews. Investor updates. Honest communication about what was happening inside a startup, including the hard parts.

My belief was that becoming the architect of our own story was worth more than buying attention.

That turned out to be right.

The three steps I give every founder

When founders come to me ready to launch, the first thing I ask is: who is your audience?

Most of them say something like, “anyone who cares about X.”

That is not an answer.

The research step is non-negotiable. You mine reviews, study website analytics, and talk to actual customers. You find out who they are, what motivates them, what they believe in, and why they chose you in the first place.

That data shapes everything that comes after.

From there, you figure out how to tell the story.

What does the offering page say? How does the website move someone from curious to committed? What is the story only this company can tell?

There are a lot of campaigns competing for attention, and most of them sound the same. Differentiation starts with specificity.

Then you activate your existing base.

A lot of founders focus entirely on finding new people. But the community you already have is where you start: your supporters, your customers, and the people who already believe in you.

Get them moving before you spend a dollar on ads.

Geoship is doing this right

One of the companies I have been proud to work with recently is Geoship, which builds geodesic homes using bioceramic materials.

Like Aptera, they lead with a movement. And like Aptera, they built a serious ambassador program early.

They recently closed out a Reg CF campaign and are heading into larger rounds. The ambassador program was a meaningful part of why that worked.

When you cannot be everywhere, the people who believe in your mission can go where you cannot.

What this costs

To put real numbers on it: expect to spend at least 10% of your raise target on marketing.

When you are getting started, it can be higher while you are testing messages, audiences, and funnels. But once the ads stabilize, the math becomes more predictable. You can see what is working and double down.

The bigger point is this: you are not building a one-time transaction.

The investors who come in during a raise are a long-term asset. They know you, they believe in you, and when you launch your next product or your next round, they are already in your corner.

That is the part too many founders miss.

Crowdfunding works best when you treat the community as the strategy, not the byproduct.

Watch the full episode on YouTube.