Getting Funded
Rather than considering Success as the ultimate goal of any business, the New Age Entrepreneurs are considering “Getting Funded” is the ultimate success of their business.
Yes, your business will not get funded unless they see some flesh on the bone.
If you are getting funded for the expansion of the business on the basis of the success it has shown, then it is acceptable. But if you are not able to run the company because of financial crunches and then going for funding, will not be considered as an intelligent move of an entrepreneur.
Business getting sliced
Another important point to be noted here is, your hard earned business is going to get sliced and shared with another one, just for the money. From that moment, you cannot have the pride to claim this as your brainchild because the other person is rightfully going to take his slice out of it. Apart from this you will loose your freedom on running your business.
Loaned rather than Funded
There is another hidden drawback in this. If the person going to fund you is not having any basic knowledge of your business, then your freedom is totally screwed. Here it is better to be called as Loaned rather than funded. Also, if you are getting funded from small VCs, their own work tension, and pressure will also impact your business.
End of the day, your pride, and satisfaction as a business person itself will be in a stack.
Can you avoid this?
Yes, you can.
You need to keep the concept of Funding on a back burner until you have used all your trump cards.
As how the VCs choose to fund, you need to choose to whom you are going to get funded. Seldom, just shutting down will solve many problems than running on a funded money.
Keep in mind. If you have shut down your first business without getting funded, then understand, you are the best to run the funded company at a later stage.
If you take “pride” as the yardstick and go for funding rather than shutting down, your self-esteem will be lost and will eventually halt you in getting into any new venture.
If you keep “getting funded” as the goal of your business, then you are reinventing the wheel again rather than reading from the past market during bubble burst.
So don’t get into the wrong assumption as “Getting Funded is Success”