Lesson 4

This week was another very interesting and beneficial week learning about entrepreneurial business. We focused primarily on funding and fundraising. I went into this week after completing my one page business plan last week and thought I had a good understanding of costs for starting my $100 project business. The funny thing about startup funding is that it really makes you go back and look at the numbers. I began thinking about all the costs and whether the $20 startup capital I put in my business plan would be enough. Through double checking everything I found that I had forgotten to include the costs for one of my products and I had underestimated the costs of my website. It turns out the real number needed was almost double what I originally thought. This taught me a very important lesson, double check and triple check your numbers before going to get funding. You don't want to set yourself up for failure by under funding your business from the get go.

As I really looked at getting a solid number I realized that I had overlooked some important aspects of choosing my website hosting. I had looked at yearly costs instead of monthly costs and I had not considered Credit card processing, tech support, or inventory and order management. I ultimately went with the Hosting that was $5 more because it included a lot of the added features and benefits.

I also really enjoyed reading and learning about fundraising this week, a couple of words of advice that really stuck with me are, "when you go asking for money you will likely get advice, but when you ask for advice you may very well get money." This really stuck out to me, fundraising is about relationship building, by asking for advice and taking time to get to know the people who can help you, you are more likely to build a repor that will make investors more comfortable investing in your idea.   "The second was if you can get venture capital take it, but if you can do not spend it." Guy Kawasaki said that taking money and then spending it can really change a business. If you don't have to use money you get, don't. He said that he made that mistake and warns against others making the same mistake. Over all I learned a lot this week and I am excited to get my business up and going.