Startup Funding
Or “Business Funding” in general. You may need funding for “Proof of Concept” or to grow an already promising business.
YOUR “STARTUP FUNDING” PILLARS
Review Business Plan
Someone once said “No business plan is wrong….until proven otherwise”!
True, but by the time you figure out your plan does not work, you may have lost a lot of money. You also may have lost valuable investors’ interest!
To get any investor remotely interested in handing you a check, your business plan must make sense and tie in with a promising, but realistic financial plan.
Using experts, people with experience to validate your plan is worth the money!
Review Financial Plan
Putting a financial model and annual budget together is relatively easy. You just put some numbers in and make them look good.
Making sure they are realistic, tied into your business plan and “smooth for the casual eye” for potential investors, is something else.
Remember “liars can figure….but figures don’t lie!”. Don’t massage your numbers to make things look good. Investors will look straight through it.
Create a promising yet realistic plan that makes sense and ties into the numbers and vice versa!
Investor Meetings
The biggest mistake you can make is to present an incomplete or unrealistic plan to your best potential investor.
Get organized, create the right plan for the right audience and test it on low risk investors.
The first round of low risk investors will tell you where your plan falls short, and where your numbers are unrealistic. Tweak your plan and numbers for the next round.
Get organized, plan and get ready for the big guns. Get help from professionals to do so.
Critical Success Factors
An Idea Is Not A Business
An idea may catch the attention of a potential investor.
To get him/her to hand you a check, you’ll need to be able to show a business plan, a financial model and a budget that make sense.
Connect The Dots
Make sure your business plan and financial plan is consistent.
The plan must support the numbers and vice versa.
Increasing marketing activity, while showing decreased marketing spending does not make sense!
Exit Strategy
Why would an investor hand you a check, even if your plan and numbers look fabulous, if there’s no carrot for him/her at the end?
Define an exit strategy, one that provides the investor with an ROI, as well as provides a respectable return for you.
FUNNY MONEY, ANYONE?
I can’t recall the number of times I’ve heard an entrepreneur say ” Wahoo, it’s in the bag; this guy has funny money, loved my idea, and will invest in my startup very soon!”.
Only to find out the investor never did! Why?
When an investor is so rich he/she has “funny money”, make sure you never forget the following. This so called “funny money” was earned the hard way. Because the investor or his team made tough decisions, the right decisions, with the eventual result of becoming rich!
Do you think that someone like that, who learned the hard way, will throw away “funny money” at a startup, your startup, if you present them with a shaky business plan and unrealistic numbers?!
Happy Clients
“I worked with Hans for many years as he grew the Carolyn’s brand. His leadership and forward thinking expanded the product offerings and the customer base as well as implementing new technologies in marketing and data analysis.”
“He puts out great and thoughtful work!”
Get In Touch
Need help, just have a question or want to become part of the team, simply contact us.
