SPCleantech as Pre-Accelarator Point for Polish start-ups organized on 13.10.2016 the forth workshop “How do I find the money to start my business?” of the series of 6 workshops and 2 conferences. The aim of the workshop was to provide experiences of Polish and Scandinavian mentors to Polish start-ups and coaches. SPCleantech is working with a group of experienced mentors from Denmark, Finland and Sweden.
Entrepreneurs focus on their solutions, their customers, their markets. An investor thinks about all of the solutions available on the market and all of the potential customer segments. Learning to think like an investor will teach you to think about the bigger picture.
More importantly, it will teach you what investors look for in companies they fund and increase your chances of getting funded.
“If you come in with a theory and a plan and no data and you’re 1 of the next 1000, it’s going to be far, far harder to raise money” – Mark Andreessen
Funding the Business
- To get funding, entrepreneurs must learn to think like investors
- Investors care most about the Four Ms: Management Team, Momentum, Market Opportunity, Money
- Road test your startup before launching
- Carefully examine your industry, market and team
- Startups raise money in 4 ways: profits, debt, equity and donation
- Angel investors and venture capital firms investing in startups are hoping for 10X returns on their investment
- Venture capital can help startups at various stages in exchange for equity
- Think about your startup’s equity from the start, and don’t sell it too easily
Our mentors:
This time besides Rafał Szczepanik our mentor from Scandinavia was Visa Virén from Finland.
Rafał Szczepanik-CV cv-visa-viren-fi
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- Rafał Szczepanik (PL)
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- Visa Virén (FI)
