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Finance: how do i get funding?
TK
TK
Thomas Knoll, COO, Revelry Labs / Investor, Revelry Ventures answered:

I think you might find more luck with a question like, "How do I sell a dream?" or "Want to know how I can make you rich?"

I am going to assume you are looking for funding, because you are trying to capitalize an idea, and that you'd rather convert someone else's money into energy and acceleration than to spend your own money to maintain 100% ownership. (If my assumption is wrong, I'd love to hear why you are looking for funding?)

There is only really one way to create wealth: take a certain amount of capital (money, blood, time, expertise) utilize a particular market advantage to increase the value of that capital, and then withdraw the added value.

So, I assume you are going to invest your time and skill and blood and sweat and tears into your venture. And, I assume you want one or more other people to invest their time and skill into your venture (those are called employee's). But, you might also want some other people to invest their money into your venture (these are called investors). Just like you, and (hopefully) like your employees, they want to get more out from whatever they put in.

You need to convince the investor that you have the ability to utilize a particular market advantage to increase the value of their capital. Just remember, with early-stage investors, they are generally looking for your venture to produce a 5x or 10x return. (I put 100k in, I get 1mm out.) Because they know most of their investments will fail. So, get a 14% return across all their investments over 10 years, they need a few of them to make it big.

So, now that you know all of that, let's answer your original question: "how do i get funding?" To get funding, you need to know why your venture can give a 5x-10x return on investment, know why you solve a problem in a market, and know what your unique market advantage is. Then, sell the dream.

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