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How Can I Get Money to Start My Own Business p. 2

by Maren Kate on January 31st, 2010
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So earlier today I wrote a post on how I started my first businesses and how I paid for each, now I am going to continue with part 2 of How you can money to start your own business… So grab a drink (coffee, tea or heck a martini if its 5pm where you are) and take out a pen and paper because if you are an entrepreneur who is looking for funding this may help a lot.

OracleLaunch.com’s proposal for getting some funding…. Angel, VC or otherwise…

First its important you describe what it is is the urgent need or issue you will be solving in your business, this helps people get an idea of what market and customer you’ll be targetting… This is my example:

THE PROBLEM

Brick and mortar businesses are being left behind in the digital age, traditional marketing isn’t working anymore and it’s more expensive than ever. Thus how can off line companies get ahead and thrive in a world that is turning more ‘virtual’ day by day.

THE ANSWER

Oracle Launch excels in launching your off line business into the online world by developing a solid web presence. Through the use of social media, a highly optimized website and a viral marketing campaign we aim at getting your brand recognition, new customers and more mind share per dollar compared to traditional advertising.

BUSINESS MODEL

Our business model is simple:

  • We practice what we preach (our team are die hard social web junkies)
  • We operate with a completely mobile business structure (our team telecommutes in to work every day and our office is 100% virtual)
  • We have less overhead and expenses because of our unconventional view of the traditional ‘office’ and our reach is global since our virtual business model allows for us to take on clients anywhere in the world.
  • We provide more bang for our client’s buck and by presenting metrics, tracking ROI for everything we do and ensuring them that every dollar invested in their online presence is a dollar invested in the brand’s future ensuring that their business will prosper and thrive as their competitor’s die off.

UNDERLYING TECHNLOGY I.E. SPECIAL SAUCE

Our special sauce is our mobility, use of cutting edge technology, utilization of currency rates in various countries to maximize profits and our dedicated, creative & forward thinking team. We also use:

MARKETING & SALES

I, Maren Kate, am the chief sales director and do a lot of the off line selling myself. As a start up it is important for the entrepreneur behind the project to be down in the trenches so to speak. With each meeting, conference and pitch I learn more about my business and more importantly learn more about what my market wants, needs and what they are willing to pay for. Our sales model is simple, present the problem, show them the solution and create an attractive enough offer than our interested party becomes a happy, satisfied, long term client. We find that these kind of clients are the most valuable and usually lead to many other clients through pure positive word of mouth marketing alone.

COMPETITION

This is the section that we should have done more research on earlier, right now me and my manager are working on it avidly to see what we are really up against on the west coast (the Nevada/California region mainly in the US) and online.

TEAM

Founder, Sales/Social media marketing director …. Maren Kate

Project manger, Team leader and Online marketing expert …. Noel

Web designer/developer …. Sherwin

Web desiner/developer …. JM

SEO/Online marketing …. Elvin

PROJECTIONS & MILESTONES

This is something I haven’t done as good of a job on as I should and I am realizing that now… I tend to jump head first into things and not do my homework enough or plot out the goals in the best way so this was an after thought instead of the main driving goal which we are now adjusting to meet.

  1. milestone: Creating $10,000 in income a month net
  2. milestone: Creating $10,000 in income a month gross
  3. milestone: Creating $40,000 in income a month net
  4. milestone: Creating $40,000 in income a month gros
  5. milestone: Becoming the premier new media marketing & web site design firm for the West Coast.
  6. milestone: Selling my baby for over $1,000,000 (based on 5-7 years of profit projections)

STATUS & TIMELINE

  • from January 1-January 31st we have brought in $5,194 net
  • We want to reach $10,000 a month net by February 31st
  • We want to reach $40,000 a month net by July 1st
  • I want to be able to sell Oracle Launch for my target price by December 31st, 2011

SUMMARY & CALL TO ACTION

Are those ridiculous expectations? Probably. Do I whole heartedly believe I’ll reach those goals. Absolutely. Do I think it will take a amazing amount of work, out of the box thinking and creativity to get there? Yes. Has every great small or big business grown from the soil of crazy ideas, high expectations and people saying “you can’t do it”…. again ABSOLUTELY. Think of any entrepreneurial success story and you will see that at the beginning everyone thinks they are crazy, belittles their ideas and tries to drown their enthusiasm with doubt. But those who make it don’t listen to the nay sayers and instead go for broke and take massive action every day towards their goals… no matter how grandiose.

My call to action is this: Please believe in me and my business and know that we have the stuff not only succeed but to thrive in our chosen field. I am relentless in pursuing my goals and I do not stop until I win, with that said I also am flexible enough to see when my business needs a serious change of course and am fast acting to fix and prevent problems from arising. I have made it from the age of 19 as an entrepreneur, it hasn’t always been easy but I have bootstrapped my businesses to the teeth and have constantly pursued my goals. This is the largest project I have ever taken but I am beyond confident in my ability to lead, to fight it out in the trenches and to do what it takes to reach the lofty goals I have set for myself and my business.

Thank you for your consideration & time,

Maren Kate

Now would I actually send that as it is written to a VC (venture capitalist) or Angel investor? No. But it is pretty close to the actual thing I’d present if I was going for traditional funding. My funding option is a little different, her name is Grandma. I am going to present the above to her in letter form and hope that she believes in me enough to invest in my business. Note I also have proved my business savvy to her in the past since I manage her financial holdings and in the last 9 months have posted 30% gains to her stock and investment portfolios (hey what can I say I follow the Oracle Warren Buffet in his ‘buy when everyone is selling and sell when everyone is buying’ clause).

Anyways, I will keep you posted on if I get ‘funding’ or not, if I fail with my Grandma (which will be REALLY depressing on several levels considering I am one of her 2 heirs and her only grand daughter) I will have to talk to my friend & biz partner who runs MAVN funding about how to pitch to ACTUAL angel investors… and if that fails I will have to keep bootstrapping, sell like crazy and pray to hit it big before I have to start couch surfing!

P.S. But in reality if I can’t get any funding I’ll probably just have to cut back on my staff so the money I take in now will go to pay me a salary as opposed to pay others salaries and just scale back my biz and grow it slower.

LEAVE ME COMMENTS & TELL ME WHATCHA THINK LOVES!

Tagged as: how can i get money to start my own business, how to get an angel investor, how to pitch to a VC investor, how to start a small business, private investors for start ups

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  • nice post sweety
  • Very inspirational, I love these sort of posts. It helps as it gives something concrete that we can all relate to. Have been down the brick and mortar retail shop approach, it certainly takes a lot of hard work and money.

    Putting yourself out and not just doing the daily things that keep your business ticking really works for me. My biggest successes come when move out of my comfort zone.

    I think if you can do something different in your business once or twice a week it can make a huge different.

    For example, part of my brick and mortar business was IT Support, by pushing myself to try and sell to businesses, I was able to build the most successful part of the business.

    That in itself brings it's own challenges and tough times as a business grows but it's all a learning experience.

    I've since moved on from the brick and mortar business I was running but it gave me such a hugh boost in confidence. Even if things don't always work out as you want, you learn a lot about yourself ready for your next venture.
  • Wow. Good for you. Great blog.
  • thanks so much adrienne :)
  • No Debt, Used Equipment, and add 1 client at a time. That's the mantra I am using in a similar endeavor. Hardware may not be in your business plan, but a similar item could be substituted.

    It looks like you have the action thing down... you have a nice site here.
  • Thanks for the comment Jeremy! I do want to follow that plan but problem being to do what i do... i.e. to run www.OracleLaunch.com I must have at least one full time designer and one general online person/manager because though I *LOVE* website development I am not a coder. In retrospect I followed my passion but didn't pair it with tons of knowledge so that is why i had to get employees... so I chose the hard road for sure!
  • >> But in reality if I can’t get any funding I’ll probably just have to cut back on my staff so the money I take in now will go to pay me a salary as opposed to pay others salaries and just scale back my biz and grow it slower.

    Sounds like your burn rate is too hight to start with. I'd slim down the staff even with funding. I'd outsource development to an offshore firm you develop a relationship with and then you only have to pay them when they do work for you. Doesn't have to be all of your staff this way (though I would). Also, a full time SEO person seems excessive really, considering the size of the operation. I may be totally off here, it's just a guess based off the info I've read :)

    Also, I'd recommend that you check out this awesome Mixergy interview.
    http://mixergy.com/robby-berthume-epsilon-interview/

    Note how his early web design business went from making a few K, to LOTS of money. It's interesting that it was mostly a mindset thing.
  • thanks for the link I'll definitely watch that, and yes you are right I did get too excessive in the beginning with hiring but a bunch of big projects fell thru that I thought I'd need the extra staff for :( I am going to be slimming down for sure before funding that is.

    Thanks for the comment!
  • Good stuff Maren. You are taking a good bit of the guesswork out of my attempt at starting up my own Web Consulting firm. Hope your Grandma pulls through and I am sure she will! If not, you will find a way.

    Looking forward to what else you have to come!
  • Thanks Tanner! :) Keep me updated on the web consulting firm that is interesting...
  • I love your honesty and I believe that you'll do it (the big breakthrough). You've got a lot of talent but more importantly you take action on your ideas instead of spending time debating whether you should or not.

    Seth Godin said that he met lots of people with great, money-making ideas, but very few of them actually acted on those ideas because of fear or indecision. You are one of the few that take action.
  • Action, action, action that is what works. Thanks!!
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