Creative Capital Raising
So one of the people that applied to the BootStrapper Venture Summit told me a story about how he raised capital … so i’ll repost it for everyone …
It is imporrtant to recognize that I always defined an angel as looking for investor-partners, not just investors. In addition to a good business idea is the acceptance as who I am as co-founder, including the appreciation of how much we could produce by bootstrapping. I found my first angel investor by placing breakfast invitations under the hotel doors of all the attendees to a later-stage investor event. Two people came to my speciality coffee room, one became my first investor and the other sponsored another angel forum. I went to this angel forum which is where I met my 2nd angel investor.
Everyone along the way has been thanked, and thanked, and thanked as many times as possible. This requires no extra money other than time.
Next form of bootstrapping is going to as many events as possible and flying in-and-out in the most inconvenient times possible, but never staying the extra day since you can easily spend an extra $500 to $750 on the extra day. Going to events includes participating as a panelist, pitching or just working the audience.
Another form of bootstrapping is to comment and respond to as many professional fund raising news stories and blogs as possible.
A final form of bootstrapping is to maintain an ongoing list of potential investors and to update them everytime a major milestone is achieved. This is a subset of the information provided to existing investors, whom by the way will usually invest more than once if they are treated as a partner- not just an investor.
Each of these requires persistence and professionalism. There are numerous tricks-of-the-trade that can be learned, but have to be embraced and accepted as part of the ongoing process to be successful at raising capital and growing a company.
Brian Javeline
President & CEO
www.MyOnlineToolbox.com
powered by ServusXchange
954-786-0883 x6252
