Episode 7: How To Get the Money You Need to Grow Your Company

From bootstrapping to venture capital to just plain profits, there are many ways to fund the growth of your business and it’s an important next step that takes thoughtful consideration.  In this episode of Build The Damn Thing, you’ll determine what may be the best route for you and your company as you continue to build it. 

Guests:

Lisa Price    |    Carol’s Daughter 

Brian Aoaeh    |    reFashiond Ventures 

Felecia Hatcher    |    Black Ambition 

Denise Hamilton    |    Watch Her Work 

Cheryl Contee    |    Impact Seat 

Denitria Lewis    |    Serial Entrepreneur/ Digital Marketer 

________

Stay Connected!  

Kathryn Finney

Website: https://www.kathrynfinney.com/ 

Twitter: @KathrynFinney

Instagram: @hiiamkathryn

Facebook: Kathryn Finney

Genius Guild

Website: https://GeniusGuild.co

Twitter: @GeniusGuild

Instagram: @geniusguild

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/genius-guild

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

________

Credits:

Produced by Genius Guild Content Studios

Executive Producers:  Kathryn Finney and Darlene Gillard Jones

Post-Production Company: Prosper Digital TV

Post-Production Manager: Joanes Prosper

Post-Production Supervisor: Jason Pierre

Post-Production Sound Editor: Evan Joseph

Co-Music Supervisors: Jason Pierre and Darlene Gillard Jones

Show Music: provided by Prosper Digital TV

Main Show Theme Music: "Self Motivated" Written & Performed by Tamara Bubble

Full Transcript

Lisa Price (00:01): When I started my business, I didn't actually realize when I was starting it that I was starting a business. Initially. It was something that I was doing, it was a hobby. And I didn't need funding, if you will, for many years. Now I say need with air quotes because technically I did need money, but because I didn't look at what I was doing as a business, but I was looking at it as a hustle, the thing that I did after work and on the weekends. And as long as I could get the work done with my husband helping me with an aunt helping me, or a cousin helping me, it didn't feel formal. It didn't feel like a company early on, I didn't think about funding honestly, until 2001. And that was because my husband and I got a warehouse because we were making everything in our home and we needed more room and thought, oh, we'll get a warehouse space and we can set up a kitchen in the warehouse space and then do the shipping from the warehouse space and everything will just run smoothly cuz it'll be bigger and there'll be more room, and had no clue about the different types of insurance and manufacturing properties and commercial properties and all of these other things that we learned as we went along. 

So doing construction on this warehouse kitchen was a lot more complex than we thought it would be, and we needed some money to make that happen. 

Kathryn Finney (01:40): From bootstrapping to venture capital to just plain profits, there are many ways to fund the growth of your business, and it's an important next step that takes thoughtful consideration in this episode to build a damn thing. You determine what's the best way for you to fund your company. 

Some ways that builders can get money to grow their companies is really, um, there's a lot of different opportunities now, and it really depends on whether you're building a startup or a small business. And again, a startup is a temporary organization that you're looking to scale to reach some sort of exit positive event. Meaning you're looking at selling it to a larger company or listing it on initial public offering, or somehow letting go of equity in that company That's a startup. If you say you're building a startup, make sure you're doing that. A small business doesn't necessarily, uh, mean that you're building it to sell. You might wanna keep it, it may be that legacy company that you're gonna keep in your family and that changes what type of money you look for. A venture capitalist is going to wanna invest in a startup, and there are structural reasons why a venture capitalist is gonna wanna invest in a startup. It's not because they don't believe in your business, it's because I need you to sell. So I get the money 

Back I invested. And then some, 

Brian Aoaeh (03:02): I think the question about whether you should raise from a VC or bootstrap is not necessarily known at every point in time before you, um, have figures, uh, some things out. So at the outset, it's usually difficult to tell if the business that you're building, um, if the problem that you're solving, if the customer base is the kind of customer base that lends itself to, to what a VC wants to invest in. So a, as a general rule of thumb, uh, some VCs will say, look, if we can't, if we can't see how your company or your startup gets to the point where it's making a hundred million of revenues a year, it's probably not a venture backable, uh, business. 

My name is Brian Long Aoaeh. I am a co-founder and general partner of Refashion Ventures and I am the co-founder of the Worldwide Supply Chain Federation. So people can debate if that's the right way to think about it or not. But, but as a general rule of thumb, if a startup founder can, can't see how what they're doing gets to the point where it becomes a big company and it's throwing off those sorts of re of revenues, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to talk to venture, uh, capitalists. 

Kathryn Finney (04:33): Now, as an investor, as a venture capitalist myself, I think what a lot of people don't realize, particularly in the black community, uh, is how venture capital works. Um, venture capital really works along this thing called power law, which is really basically that of the 10 companies that they invest in, um, one is gonna be the unicorn, two are gonna be okay, and the unicorn means over a billion dollars and the rest of them are gonna be duds. And so there's a lot of pressure when you take venture capital to scale rapidly so that you could be that unicorn so that you can get to a billion dollars. And the only way you can get to a billion dollars is if you get massive, right? The only way you can get to a billion dollars is if you become the next Google or Facebook or W...