Finding Your Funding

“The Path to Successfully Raising Your Funding For Your Start Up Company”

Here’s how to get the essential expertise you need – before it’s too late.

Dear Friend and Fellow Entrepreneur,

Once you have wrapped up the business plan phase of your start up company, and you have the finished document sitting on your desk in front of you, then what?

What are your next steps to your Point B? What is your W Cubed?

W³ = Who? Is Doing What? When?

Exactly WHAT are you going to do in order for you to find the investment dollars for you to fully implement your plan and achieve your vision?

Who will be the WHO that does all the work required to raise your funding? WHEN are you going to really start?

I invite you to watch the following short video and to read this short article to protect yourself – both from charlatans and from inadvertently violating state and federal securities laws – and going to jail - or worse.

Can’t Play Flash Or Want To Watch In HiDef?  Click Movie

Raising Your Funding Can Be ANOTHER Full Time Job For The CEO

This is one of the most critical areas for starting a new business and one of the main reasons so many fail. Fundraising, with its near-infinite number of necessary, discrete action items, is almost always at least a full time job for the CEO or Founder and it is easy for daily operations to constantly interfere with the time requirements of this highest of priorities task.

As a result, many plans and offerings go unfunded – and visions become unachieved. Take the necessary steps to do whatever it takes, legally, to keep this dragon from blocking your path to success.

Warning

Beware: This fundraising path you are about to travel is full of both charlatans and dragons galore who will try to tempt you with empty promises of easy funds.

Based on my own three decades of experience successfully raising over $25 Million from more than 1,200 investors to fund my own start-up companies, I have learned that there is rarely anything easy about legitimate fundraising, whether from angel investors or venture capital – even when you have a GREAT idea and a solid business plan.

It almost always takes immense time and effort by the CEO or Founder with no guarantees of success – and I suggest caution dealing with anyone who promises you otherwise.

Depending on your approach to investors, securities laws may require you to produce a full private placement memorandum (PPM) which would also include your basic business plan information.

Your Business Plan – Necessary But Not Necessarily Sufficient

Your business plan will serve many functions that will help you define your paths to success and provide a map for implementation.

What your business plan probably won’t do, by itself, is give you the vehicle for raising investment capital. A business plan will give a prospective investor the insights they will require to understand your business and its investment potential.

A business plan will not typically:

• Define that an investor will receive X% of the company in exchange for $Y.
• Provide an execution document where the investor agrees in writing to the terms of your investment offering.
• Will not comply with either state or federal securities laws. This part alone probably means you have no other, legal, choice if you intend to raise investment capital from private or angel investors.

The news these days seems full of stories about company execs being slapped with multi-million dollar fines and even jail time for securities law violations. Read on to find out how you can make sure your own fundraising doesn’t include these kinds of consequences!

Your Reg D Private Placement Memorandum

The most common solution to all of these issues is for your company to also produce what is known as a Reg D Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) in conjunction with your business plan.

• If you are going to seek angel investor funding, you will almost certainly need a standard securities law compliant PPM for your company in conjunction with the business plan so both integrate properly and provide the documentation you need for legitimate fundraising. And, since one of the goals of your PPM is to fully disclose all risk factors and any conflicts of interest, it can serve as your company’s insurance policy against potential, future litigation by disgruntled investors.
• The PPM will fully define how much of the company the investor receives for his invested dollars, including setting the minimum level of investment.
• Along with the PPM, you need a Prospective Investor Questionnaire to help insure that each prospect meets securities law guidelines. Usually your offering document will require, for a lot of very good reasons, that your investors be “accredited.” (If you want the short version of what this term means, click Accredited.)
• You also need a Subscription Agreement for execution by the investor binding him to his investment and confirming he has received all appropriate documentation prior to making their investment (if you are seeking traditional, professional venture capital, you probably will have no need for a PPM).

With my experiences both from raising investor funds and from having founded my own NASD broker-dealer company, I can help you avoid many, potentially onerous problems and guide you through the business constraints of federal and state securities laws that could cause either overt or technical violations during your fundraising. Ignoring these issues and their related dragons are very dangerous and might require rescission, i.e., giving back all the money, or cause even more onerous legal consequences.

(Want to see ALL the federal rules and regulations that you will probably have to abide by in order to avoid these dragons? Click Reg D Rules. But, remember, these are just the federal rules. Virtually every state has their own, additional rules by which you will also need to abide!)

Ceo Resource Fundraising Service

Even though there are no guarantees when it comes to fundraising, I can help you slay some of these particularly onerous dragons so that we can greatly increase your probability of success. Here are some specific action items that I can help you accomplish during your quest for funding:

• Help with your fundraising structure and documentation in order for you to be compliant with both state and federal securities issues.
• Develop a combined business model / offering structure defining how much of your company you will need to sell in exchange for the investment dollars you need to successfully implement your plan.
• Work with you and your securities attorney to properly reflect the business plan issues in your offering documentation.
• Work with your staff and attorney to complete and submit your Form D to the federal government for your Reg D private placement – this is required for your company to qualify for its securities exemption.
• Work with your staff and attorney to complete and submit the various state-required blue sky securities filings – required to avoid state securities law violations in those states where you solicit ANY prospective investor.
• Develop a marketing and sales strategy for finding qualified, prospective investors who may be interested in your company’s investment opportunity.
• Post your offering, in a legitimate manner, on various angel investor online sites to generate prospective investor inquires.
• Handle all of the endless, first-tier responses and answer all the due diligence questions by prospective investors and “tire kickers.”
• Develop a controlled-access set of web pages for your company to highlight your business plan so that prospective investors can gain a sense of your goals and the opportunity without them needing to plow through the whole plan as an expensively printed document.
• Write a standard one to two page cover letter / email for the initial contact with a qualified prospective investor.
• Handle all prospect tracking, action list and the multiple follow-ups that are almost always required to go for the “close.”
• Help ensure that all marketing efforts are compliant with both state and federal securities laws so no overt or technical violations occur.
• Ensure all subscription documents are completed properly.
• Provide updates to the Business Plan and Private Placement document as required.
• Provide ongoing support, mentoring and general dragon slaying for the company.

Hint: Virtually ALL of these steps can be very time consuming and most HAVE to be done by SOMEONE in order to legally convert your new, completed documents into cash so you can start your company.

Are you going to do all of this? Do you have anyone in your company who is knowledgeable about all this stuff? If not, who will be your WHO to do it? When?

How long are you going to wait to get the funding for your start up company?

The Costs

If you already have all of your investors lined up ready to write the checks – or if you have the time yourself – or if you have someone in your organization to do some or all of these action items, great! (Hint: Don’t be too surprised when many of those who previously said they were interested, disappear when you start asking for the check!)

If you don’t already have all your funding lined up with enough real folks to write enough real checks, I can help you take care of some, or all, of the above action items with my Fundraising Service.

• Please note: Securities laws generally prohibit me, or any and all others who are not NASD broker-dealers and /or registered investment advisors, from being paid any kind of contingency-based fee, commission or finders-fee for fundraising.
• Whether you use my services or not, be sure to avoid this potentially lethal dragon!

Approximately, two to four man-weeks of my efforts over a 90 day timeline will usually take care of many of the above items and provide for a good start on the rest. This time estimate for completion is for someone who is highly experienced in dealing with these kinds of activities. If you intend to do some or all of the above yourself or with internal support, you should budget significantly much greater time requirements and much longer timelines for completion unless you are highly experienced in these specific tasks.

My fixed fee for providing all of the above services on your project, on a “best efforts” basis for 90 days, is $21,000 for Priority Service or $15,000 for Standard Service, plus out of pocket costs including Internet posting fees. (Please see the Queue & Priority Service for details.)

Additional services outside the scope of the above would be billed at my standard billing rate. Examples of additional services would include:

• Approach the NASD broker-dealer network, if appropriate, to gain access to qualified, prospective investors for your fundraising.
• Develop and send a securities law-compliant email to 4,000 venture capitalists, if appropriate.

Due to the heavy front-end time requirements for this Fundraising Service, the full amount is due prior to beginning work. Also, please understand that due to nature of this service and the individuality of each client company, there can be no assurance, whatsoever, that any of my services will result in any funds being successfully raised for your company.

• Fundraising Service – Standard Service:  Cost:  $15,000
• Fundraising Service – Priority Service:  Cost:  $22,500
• Fundraising Service – Top Priority Service:  Cost:  $30,000

A Small Cost – With Mission Critical Consequences

All of this is a relatively small cost, and a small addition to your current payroll, compared to the impact of successfully and expeditiously raising the funds necessary to start the implementation of your business plan.

If this makes sense to you, let me know and I will forward you my standard Fundraising Statement of Work for your review.

Prefer 1:1 Mentoring By The Hour For Your Fundraising?

If you can’t afford my full Fundraising Service that I described above, there is a way to still get one-on-one help from me for as little as $275.

I have found during my past 16 years of consulting with over TWO THOUSAND start up and emerging company CEOs – that many dragons can be slayed with just a few hours of mentoring. Often, it just takes one or two insights and epiphanies to get my clients past those dragons and much farther down their path toward achieving their fundraising goals.

The power of these quick insights is why I offer my clients my hourly Mentoring Service.

Are there fundraising or other issues, problems or opportunities you would like to brainstorm about your company?

You can usually sign up for as little as one half hour of mentoring. Once you sign up, we can immediately schedule a teleconference to discuss your dragons and your goals.

Of course, we can’t solve every problem, and slay every dragon, in only an hour or two – but, together, we might be able to efficiently brainstorm some quick answers for you – and a genuinely implementable action plan for your fundraising or other issues – that will get you past these pesky dragons and get you closer to your vision of success.

Please click on Consultant Options to find out more details.

Ready for Action or Still Have Questions?

Contact me today to discuss how my mentoring and fundraising services can help you and your company better succeed.

Best wishes for stellar success,

Robert Lee Goodman, MBA
Ceo & Chief ImpleMentor

PS: Contact me today to discuss how my mentoring and other Chief ImpleMentor Services can help you and your company better succeed.

PPS: Are You A Fundraising Virgin?

If so, then you can greatly benefit from my Funding Foreplay Audio Training Course.

Funding Foreplay is a four module audio training course that is designed to teach start up company CEOs like you – how to properly prepare and present the dozen documents you will need to successfully romance and seduce angel investors and VC to invest in your company.

So, what WILL it take to motivate investors to write you a check for your new company?

That’s the purpose of the Funding Foreplay Audio Course – to give you the insights to design your own business model, your business plan, your offering documents, your summary documents to answer all the questions that come with each prospective investor’s mantra.

Finally! You have a totally unique, one-of-a-kind solution to knowing what it takes for you to start your company and really be ready to romance, seduce and consummate investors.

With Funding Foreplay, you won’t be embarrassed by your fundraising virginity - you will be ready for all the questions that prospective lenders or investors may ask about you and your company.

Click Funding Foreplay now for more information and details – and get the clock ticking!