Money money money…
This week is a big one as it’s patent week! We’ve got enough money together from friends and family to pay for the patent, so within a week we should be able to start telling the world what we can do for them…
It’s been quite a difficult process getting the money together as I mentioned in my previous blog; people want to know what the idea is before they’ll commit to giving us money, and we can’t really tell them, although in the case of friends and family we’ve told a trusted few. It’s been interesting to see who has given us money though; some of those who you would expect to give money haven’t been convinced, but others who know it is a lifelong ambition to run a company have lent us money on the strength of that alone. They’re kind of backing us, rather than the idea.
It’s been the best way to raise the finance for us: we’re not under the stress from a bank or loan shark to start repayments straight away, and we’ve been absolutely honest with everyone who has lent us money, telling them they will get it back, and hopefully with interest, but we’re just not sure when. This takes the pressure off us, as there’s enough else to think about.
So once we’ve filed the patent there’ll be a lot to do; we’ve been developing the website ready to show potential customers what we can do, and practicing sales pitches to get a first reaction to the business. We’ve obviously had some fantastic training while on the course in America I spoke about in my last blog and I’ve been reading up on marketing to help me prepare and deliver the best possible pitch to potential clients. I think there’s nothing like learning on the job though!
We’re going to go for some big companies first to try and attract other custom; I think once we have one really big name on our books, other businesses will then be far more interested because if we’re good enough to provide a service for a top name, then our services are obviously worth investing in for them too. We’re aiming to be up and running by January 2008.
That’s all for now, all being well I’ll finally be able to reveal what it is our business does in my next blog!
