Financing the growth of your business
October 17, 2012 3 Comments
At, and around, our next Compass meeting on 29 November 2012, we are exploring and developing answers to the following question:
How do you finance the growth of your business, whilst maintaining a sense of self-determination?
We are inviting you to participate in the discussion and share in the learning.
Why this question? Well, in our discussions and work with ambitious business owners over the years, there is always a point that is reached where you start to think “do we carry on or, push on”? Pushing on frequently needs some form of investment and adopting new approaches. So in the consideration of this question, we hope to explore:
- What can ambitious business owners learn from others who are on or have been through the journey?
- What insights can be gained from those who have helped find or provide the finance?
And in thinking about the stories we have heard, the experiences we have gained, together, how might we answer the following important questions?
- How can you increase efficiency within your business, thereby lowering or removing your financing requirements?
- How much do you need and what do you need it for?
- What are your full range of options for finding this finance?
- Is there a way to develop a pro-active and fruitful relationship with a bank? (a topic in it’s own right!)
- What do you need to consider when exploring external investors, whether they be a individual or a private equity/venture capital firm?
- What role does crowd funding play now and in the future?
- How might employee ownership help achieve your goals?
- What about floating your business?
- What other options might exist?
- How do you stay in control of your own destiny, whichever route you choose?
We look forward to the individual conversations, the on-line discussions and the Compass meeting that will form part of the research and we look forward to sharing with you the themes that develop from the exploration.
About adampscampbell
Telos Partners 
Its critical that the business owner commit to the fund raising process if they decide to pursue it, recognise the raising capital and managing external investors is a significant management undertaking, those owners/businesses that dont appreciate the effort will fail to attract the right investors. The process of developing the Information Memorandum and managing that process will demonstrate your readiness to undertake the task. If you set a timetable and dont get it done in the timeframe then that should tell you something. The IM is a fundamental component to test your maturity and willingness and understand your business owners motivations are aligned. At every step formulate assumptions and then test them with the potential investor pool, it will give you practice, get you known and build confidence, investors want high quality management to manage the shareholder value. If you are successful in attracting investors then be real about managing the investor through the lifecycle.
Think through Path to market, Path to Product, Path to Liquidity, Management / People development. – all elements have to support the overall mission and goals.
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