A startup venture is always in need of funds for meeting it’s expenses be it current or expansion. Most importantly, the venture must keep creating wealth for the investors who have expressed their confidence by investing during initial or infancy stage.
This exercise of growing a startup has to be ongoing process till the venture becomes self-sustaining through its own revenues, which normally does not come soon.
To list a few types of investors (the list is purely illustrative for the purpose of understanding) who can be approached for seeking investment, depending on the stage, the venture is, are given hereinbelow :
Seeking Seed capital, which normally comes from friends or family.
Angell investors, who normally funds for the idea to create
Accelerator, who take it forward.
Ultimate VC or Equity funds.
Every single day, a million ideas take birth, maybe more. But the real question is-
How many of them are actually getting materialized and leaving an impact and an inspiration to look upon?
Entrepreneurs must be extremely determined till they reach the other side of the river.There will be many ifs and buts, ups and downs. But if you want to achieve anything, be relentless.A quick but effective communication is always important. So, be the good storytellers to raise funding for your startup.
Here’s one in-depth guide to making things easy for you:
When you are in a concept stage then you should approach a mentor or a startup consultant who can help you in founding a startup after validation of the idea.Startup Consultants stay with the startup until the end of the beginning of the startup. Therefore you can discuss the idea with them and then start building the startup.
After you get a good traction and consumer/customer base then you can approach the investors.
1. Develop an idea
2. Form a team
3. Validate the idea (with startup consultant)
4. Register a company
5. Start building the website/app
6. Start the operations
7. Promote the business
8. Make necessary changes for success of the business
9. Compare with the benchmark
10. Achieve the necessary traction
After this:
11. Approach the Angel Investors
12. Make sure the investment will be used for expansion
13. The investment should not be used to buy Capital Assets
14. Get the Angel investment
15. Expand the business
Now:
16. Ensure that you are in a revenue-stage
17. Preferably the burn rate should be less than the run rate
18. Approach the Venture Capitalists
19. Pitch and negotiate the equity
20. Get investment for Series A
Thereafter:
21. Continue to expand
22. Ensure the profits
23. Approach the Venture Capitalists again
However, in spite of all these, the key is to do lots of research to figure out what financing route best suits you and your business. Then reach out to the relevant individuals and institutions, and go from there. Each party will have different requirements, so find out what they are and then decide what’s best for you.
