start up capital | wealthymatters

Sources of Start-Up Capital

April 13, 2011 8 Comments

As Adrian from 7million7years puts it:

Start-Up capital almost always comes from the Four F’s:

– Founders – What does your personal ‘balance sheet’ look like? Do you own a house, car, etc. Many a business has been started by refinancing existing assets, borrowing money on credit-cards, and so on. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

– Friends/Family – These two groups will invest small amounts – from $100 to $10,000 each. Pull a few together and you may get enough. Usually, they are investing in YOU, so financial results are less important to them. But, if you have a business plan that reads well, and you have a wide circle, you’re ready to start asking!

– Fools – These are seed-stage investors who MAY invest in an idea, but they are VERY hard to come by. You probably need more than one co-founder (one-man businesses are usually seen as too one-sided), and you will need to demonstrate a business with good upside

Filed under Entrepreneurship Tagged with co-founder, founders, friends and family, personal balance sheet, seed-stage investors, start up capital, upside

Mohnish Pabrai

March 6, 2011 1 Comment

Mohnish Pabrai is an Indian-American businessman and deep value investor.He is the managing partner of the Pabrai Investment Funds, which he founded in 1999.He is also a member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO) and a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE).

Monhnish Pabrai first trained as a computer engineer. He then spent nearly two decades in the tech field.In 1990, he quit his job working as an engineer for Tellabs in Chicago and abandoned his master’s thesis at the Illinois Institute of Technology to launch TransTech, an IT consulting and systems integration company, which he funded with $30,000 from his retirement account and $70,000 from credit cards.His father encouraged him in the endeavour,saying that it was the right thing to do as staying at Tellabs and following the staid boring corporate path was high risk. Starting a business on the other hand was low risk, could give high returns and high adventure. As Monaish was single at the time there were few complications and in the worst case, he would lose everything ,which wasn’t much anyway,and could declare personal bankruptcy and start over. By 1999, Transtech, which had grown to 200 employees and $30 million in revenues, held no thrill. So he sold it. And during the tech boom,he started another company, internet incubator Digital Disrupters, which had a very painful and swift demise due the tightening of capital markets .In 2000, he sold TransTech to Kurt Salmon Associates.During late 1999, with nine other investors contributing $100,000 each,Mohnish started Pabrai Funds with $1,000,000 in assets. Pabrai Funds was modelled on the original “Buffett Partnership.” Read more of this post