Smart Ways to Source Funds to Kickstart Your Dream Business as an Employee

So many employees have these creative business ideas in their heads but don’t know how to get started with them because of funding.

In this article, I will be sharing easy ways you can raise money to either kick start your business or just to push the numbers forward if you already have a side hustle. Of course, all of the ideas won’t work for everyone.  You just need to think through them and see the one that is easiest for you based on the peculiarity of your situation.

Pull your resources together

When it comes to raising money, the first thing is to have started. People find it easy to help when you can demonstrate commitment based on what you have been able to achieve on your own.

What you see most times are people who are begging with an empty hand. This should be a no no if you want helpers and value keepers to take you seriously.

Like Steve Harris will always say, “every big dream of yours has a smaller version, start from there.

At least register the business, trademark, patent or copyright the idea if need be. Get a website, create social media pages and look for followers, draft an idea plan and begin to execute. Then, go look for people who can help you to scale it.

You don’t need money to start, you need money to scale.

Vusi Thembakwayo, South African entrepreneur

Approach friends and colleagues

When number one has been sorted, then approach friends and colleagues.

Most people have this erroneous belief that our friends and colleagues can’t help and mean no good. This is not true. Just as much as we have those who won’t help us, we also have a lot more people in our networks who will be willing to help us run with our dreams if only we ask them. Know the right ways to ask and show them what will be in it for them should they accept the proposal.

Friends and colleagues provide us with a low hanging fruit option when it comes to raising money.

When I started active investing, I didn’t start everything with my own money. I provided part of the cash and told some trusted friends and family members who joined me and we pooled funds together to start investing. And in about 12 months, we have done millions of naira in investment turnover with just a fraction of that being my own personal cash.

That’s how helpful friends and colleagues can be when you know how to approach and enlist them.

There is also nothing wrong in talking to your family or church members about a soft loan or even a non-interest long term loan. A family member might just say yes.

Join saving schemes aka esusu

Join a collective savings scheme aka Esusu. Assuming you work in an office or have access to good minds, you can bring such people together in a collective savings scheme where you all contribute money on a regular basis and take turn on the cash.

Let’s assume that you have 10 people who are willing to pool together 50,000 naira monthly, if you are the first to take turn, you will automatically be privileged with 450,000 naira of other people’s money that can help you kick start your business either full time or on the side.

This way, while you are still making money from your primary income source (maybe a job), you will immediately also start to get a side income from the business which will help you to continue your contribution while scaling your business.

Term credit

Use term credit. This is a situation where you agree with suppliers to offer you their products while you pay them as you make sales.

A powerful relationship like this with vendors can afford you the opportunity to access goods without staking your own money.

Superstores do this a lot. They take possession of goods and use sales on return strategy to pay for the products. That means, they pay the suppliers as they make sales instead of using their own money to purchase the products.

You too can try this strategy out and see if it helps you get started or scale what you have already started.

Become an agent

This is a process where you serve as an agent to a product.  You don’t take possession of the product in this case. You just advertise and direct buyers to the actual seller for a cut or commission of the transaction value.

For example, I have a lot of friends who sell cars but don’t have any of them in their possession. They just use social media to advertise and when they get business, they refer and take their commission.

This can be an easy way to save up money to start your own business or even become a side hustle on its own. 

Apply for grants

Apply for grant opportunities. Governments at all levels and even private organisations organise pitchathon and if you have a viable business idea, you can win grant money and attract other opportunities that can get you started.

Though competitions are usually tense, it doesn’t stop you from trying if you feel that what you have deserves some attention.

Find a wealthy partner

Find a partner with money. In reality, largess is not equally distributed. Some with money don’t have the ideas while some with the ideas lack the money. This can work in your favour.

If you have a viable business idea, you can look out for people with money that you can convince to pitch and start your entrepreneurial journey with you.  They don’t have to do much. They can just be dominant partners and give you the money while you front and run the business and share profits.

Apart from being partners, you can also find angel investors or equity investors to help your journey.

Angel investors don’t have any interest in partnering with you in the business, they just give you the money and wait for their returns.

Equity investors, on the other hand, invest in your business and actively participate in making decisions and running it because they need to recoup their money quickly and exit.

So whether it’s a partner, angel investor or equity investor, you need to know which one will serve you best and look for it.

A lot of people have kick-started their grand ideas this way and you can also join them.

Crowdfunding

This is a new creative way of raising large sums of money from a pool of targeted people.

Individuals, startups and even mature companies have accessed funding opportunities by bringing a group of people together, pitching their ideas and asking them for individual investments.

This works well for both parties because while the investors wouldn’t be parting with so much, the law of large numbers will work in favour of the fund seekers.

Final words…

I have seen these ideas work for people and I know that they can work for anyone including you!

Why don’t you pick the one that hits home the most and give it a try?  I hope you will.

To your #moneysense.