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Funding Your Business

Written on . Posted in Launchpad.

If I only had $150,000 to fund my idea, I’d be in business….. or so the lement goes.  Often times the “experts” will toss out crazy big numbers of what it will take to do something.  Yes, two times this big amount this is exactly what it will take if you think you know today what “perfection” is and start building.  

This sage advice all comes from the common ecosystem of startup experts focused on building a business, getting venture capital funding, and hopefully exiting two or three years later.  The majority of small businesses do not get venture capital funding and for many it would be a complete waste of time.  

Instead lets build a real business with revenue and profits that fuel further growth.  You can accomplish this by focusing on a minimum viable product.  The simplest version of your offering that someone will actually open their wallet for.  Maybe they only pull out a twenty instead of a hundred from their wallet but they still opened their wallet.  That is allow we are after.  

In the Tru Edge program you are provided a startup budget to help you through this excercise.

Make a list of all the expenses you will need to make in order to setup the most simple offering of your product.  Layout both the timing of the expense and where you will have the money come from.   If you do not have $2,000 today to get started how you will build your MVP with the $150 a week you are able to contribute.  

The goal is to build the MVP, sell it, learn from the sale, and then reinvest the profits to build the next better MVP that you can sell for a better profit.  You will continue this process FOREVER.  It never stops.  You will keep building a better version.  Hopefully you are selling more than one.  By reinvesting a portion of your profit from each sale you will continue to grow your business and build a better and better product offering.   Learning and refining your offer each time you sell it.    

Never risk more than you can afford to lose and be sure you have a solid plan for the profit that will pay off any debt you incur — before you take out the loan.   Hope is not a plan for success.  Know that you have a customer who will buy ten widgets and they will produce a profit that will pay off the loan your are taking out to buy the raw materials.  

Gregory Brickner

Gregory is the Co-Founder of Finive and a number cruncher himself. He leads the obsession for cash flow for small businesses that is the Finive spirit. With insights into cash flow, business owners make better decisions, increase profit, and achieve their wins.