Raising seed money

The question that undoubtedly all entrepreneurs ask at some stage in their business idea development is "where will i get the startup capital from?"

I am not different from any of them. I remember to talking to my friend about the business idea when it came into my mind and i remember joking that I wish i was born in a wealthy family.

Reason is that people privileged to come from such families are at an advantage because when such person needs to have some money to make a go at opening a business then they only look to the family coffers. This i cannot do as my family coffers are planned and budgeted at times without any spare funds waiting to be spent on anything else that can be considered luxurious.

But talking to a good friend opened my eyes to something that i had not seen before. It is true the saying that "the people you surround yourself with, will either raise you, or keep you stale".

A few weeks prior to this idea coming into my head i was visiting a good family friend, and during that evening they decided to watch TED Talks, one of the speakers was a lady from the middle east i believe Lebanon. She said something very interesting, "in order to grow influencially, she had to partner with other like minded women in her community as her society at the time was male dominated and would have been difficult to make through to the top a a woman". Empowering each other these women have grown on to be some of the most influential women in their countries.

How does this apply to me? After my long and funny conversation with my friend, i decided that i had to go to my friend circle to get the support that i need.

I made a list of all my friends that i know and have been in regular contact over the last 3 years. This list came up to around 20 names. I had asked my friend if he was interested in the idea and as a friend he had accepted. So my list had to include some of our common friends. I divided this list into countries.

I had learnt from researching that the full business model would be very expensive. So i had resorted to starting small and building as we went along when the business started.

I had figured that some friends would say "yes" and others "no". The success of the pitch i did not know. I had to set a target of how much funding i needed and also what could that do in the scheme of things.

I called a trusted friend and mentor, and I spoke to him about the business. He understood the business concept and what i was trying to do. In the end I asked him if he was willing to help me in the project. Most of the time, we under estimate how good we are. I had many doubts before i spoke to him, but that is why I called him, He asked the right questions and by the end of my conversation, I had my 1st seed customer.

I left him with a task of talking to other people who he though were of like minds. A day later, i was answering calls and e-mails from the US. Needless to say by the end of the first 3 days of going live pitching, i had 100% success.

I went on to the Uk were I pitched to more people that made were on my list of friends. by the time I returned to my home, I had managed to get to 5 go my 20 friends. I had up until then a good conversion rate.

I had to think of a strategy for my home country. I had doubts all over again. On my flight back, all i could think of was "how am I going to grow the list of by-in?". I landed in the late afternoon and took the bus. Tat the 1st stop from the terminal, a friend from work jumped on and we got talking. After the pleasantries, i launched into a business pitch. Not known to me was that this happened unconsciously. This journey is normally 5 minutes and i had to get off the next stop. By my stop, he promised to talk to his family and see what they could do.

I met him today, and he signed an agreement to be an investor. I will the business idea to the rest of my friends in the next few weeks. I am confident that some friends will accepted and some will declined.

Let us see what this journey brings.......