By Matthew Cushen You’ve some inspirational market insight and created the killer idea for a business. You can see where the revenue will come from, and with a healthy margin. But what about the investment you’ll need to get it up and running? Can you afford the time that it could take to grow the business organically – limiting the upfront cash and reinvesting revenue? Or do you need to develop the product/service quickly, chuck cash at marketing, get the brand in front of people, grow quickly and grab market share before others? Do you have some personal cash to keep you going or are you goi ..read more

By Matthew Cushen Whenever an entrepreneur raises equity funding they of course should be thinking about the equity they give away. But most think about holding on to equity in the funding round that is straight in front of them, when it is just as important to think about at least the next and ideally a couple of rounds. Take these two scenarios…               In scenario B the additional funding has given the team extra ‘runway’ – the amount of time they have before they need to raise again. With this additional runway they have achieved more, so they have ..read more

By Matthew Cushen No one should consider launching a product or service without getting into the heads of their consumer, digging into when, where and how often your offer might be purchased and what you are competing against for a share of their purse. The same principle stands for understanding the motivations of a potential investor. After all you are selling something to them. Here are a few pen portraits of some investor types you might come across. Whilst you’re unlikely to meet exactly the investors below, you can expect to come across some combination of these characteristics. Passiona ..read more

By Matthew Cushen ‘Smart money’. It’s the cliched phrase used to describe an investor that brings – as well as cash – expertise in a sector, a bulging black book of useful contacts and boundless enthusiasm. When entrepreneurs start out on their fundraising journey they think they will be showered with funding offers and be able to pick and choose from all the smart money. By the end of the process they might be feeling as desperate as a spotty teenager at the school disco. So what should an entrepreneur expect from an investor and then do to bring those expectations to life? Don’t expect too m ..read more

By Matthew Cushen There are many different ways for a business to raise money. Unfortunately, seldom are any of them easy and it can be frustrating and disheartening. Understanding the broad rationale for different types of investors might save some of that effort and frustration. Lenders are fixated on the probability that a loan will be paid back. This generally means seeing regular revenue, sufficient to cover principal and interest payments. They also seek security over some assets – either the business’s or, if they are not sufficient, through a personal guarantee from the founders. Their ..read more

By Matthew Cushen There are well worn steps to approaching early stage investors. 1. Your marketing plan A clear sense of how, where and when you will communicate your offer to your potential customers, including a sense of budget and return for each different marketing activity. Marketing is often missing, or very vague, in business plans that we see. This article might help illustrate what investors are after. 2. Your revenue and profit projections A clear sense of how and when you expect the business to grow, break-even and start to make money. Along with – and this is the importa ..read more

By Matthew Cushen Imagine you saw a tinned soup on a supermarket shelf, you might have seen something like it before, but possibly not the exotic flavour. You’re intrigued enough to pick it up and take a closer look. The packaging is poorly lined up, some ingredients are missing, the allergens are unclear and there are some spelling mistakes. It’s unlikely to get into your basket. So I ask myself why, over 16 years of seed investing, and thousands (upon thousands) of investment decks, have I seen only a small fraction of investment proposals that have been thoughtfully constructed to sell the ..read more

We read best selling author and business professor, Scott Galloway. The opening line of a recent article of his caught our eye… “Entrepreneur is a synonym for salesperson, and salesperson is the pedestrian term for storyteller” Read the full article here. The post Entrepreneur, salesperson, storyteller appeared first on Worth Capital ..read more

By Matthew Cushen When an investor hears about a business, it is usually the product and the marketing behind it that piques interest and qualifies a business in or out of further consideration. But somewhere down the line, before parting with their cash, an investor is going to need to hear how a business expects to create a return on investment (ROI), which involves some numbers and – more often than not – creates nervousness for entrepreneurs and/or provokes incredulity among investors. These tips should help avoid both: 1. Get some help if needed, but still own the numbers I love spreadshe ..read more

By Matthew Cushen There is one business column I read religiously each week – Mark Ritson, a Marketing Professor who writes for Marketing Week. I’m loath to tell you about him as he is the insightful, entertaining, provocative columnist that I aspire to be. You’ll read him and judge me harshly. He writes about the perils of ‘product orientation’. His audience are marketing professionals – the guys and girls in a big business that are paid to wake up every morning to be the conscience of the market and customer that a business serves. But he observes that those marketeers “quickly lose the pers ..read more