Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / 7 ways to fund your business

Transcript

7 ways to fund your business · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:09
  Hello! Hello, hello! How's it going? I mean, it's going so well. How are you going? It's going great. We've got a big week, I feel, here at Female Startup Club with this Spotify thing rolling out. Oh my gosh, I know! It's so exciting. It's so exciting and it's been in the works for so long. It's so nice when these things come to fruition and you're like, oh, cool, it's here. Yeah.
• 0:37
  It's amazing. Did you find it yourself yesterday or did they give you a heads up that it's all been rolled out or did you just start getting messages through from people?
• 0:47
  Well, it was meant to launch in January. It got pushed back. And then I kind of got an updated date that it was going to go live. And then I kind of forgot about it because it had been pushed back from January. It was just in the back of my mind. But yeah, now it's there. And I woke up to some cool stuff. So yeah, it's really exciting. Spotify is partnering for everyone listening.
• 1:11
  Spotify is partnering with Thinkific, which is the platform we use to host our courses to kind of integrate things.
• 1:22
  courses into podcasts within Spotify. I feel like I just explained that so weirdly. But anyway, Spotify is now selling courses in partnership with Thinkific. That's it. And your face is very much on the front of the campaign, which is very cool to read all these news articles and Female Startup Club is like right in the center with you there. I know. What the heck? Yeah, it's cool to be a part of it. That was a surprise. That was a surprise. And I was like, oh my God,
• 1:49
  I'm next to Stephen Bartlett. Like, yeah, great. In great company. Love that for me. I know. I'm intrigued to see how it's going to take off. Like if I think about my own kind of use of Spotify, I could definitely see myself dipping into courses. So let's see. And also for people listening, I think it's first rolling out just in the UK, right? So they're kind of testing the UK market before there.
• 2:14
  Yeah. Yeah. It's a pilot that they've launched in the UK. So they'll be promoting it heavily throughout UK. And then depending how that goes, I guess they will be rolling it out globally. So let's cross our fingers. And if you're in the UK, send me a screenshot. I've loved seeing the screenshots coming through. So exciting. So good. So good.
• 2:39
  So for today's episode, I can't believe it's taken us so long to get to an episode where we discuss this because I feel like every time that you interview a guest and it gets to the part of the episode where you ask, you know, what's the money piece behind this? It's always when I perk up and it's like the juicy piece.
• 2:58
  part of the episode. And we often get kind of good comments based on that as well. And so yeah, we chat about the money piece a lot. And I think especially in our communications and on socials and on the newsletter and everything like this, we...
• 3:15
  talk a lot about kind of gender disparity in pay, in funding, how for women, and this especially goes for women of colour, we don't only earn less in the workforce, but we're also much likely, less likely to get access to capital. And I think the stat we often come back to, and it's also kind of the founding stat of Female Startup Club, that...
• 3:38
  companies founded by women receive only 2% of VC investment, which is just wild. And I think it's even reducing. I think last year it was 1.9%, which is just out of this world.
• 3:50
  Oh, yeah, man, out of this world. Out of this world. And I think it often goes under the radar that there are a lot of different funding opportunities and types of funding out there. So I kind of wanted to record this episode to look at all the different ways that you can fund your business, different avenues you can go down that maybe you haven't considered before and to kind of, yeah, shine a light on some of those ways that someone might not have looked at for their business, which could be a good fit for them.
• 4:18
  Yes. Oh my God. I'm so excited. I love this topic. I love these pointers. I feel like we can often forget that there are so many different ways to access capital and yeah, I'm excited. Let's jump in. Let's jump in. To start off with, I kind of wanted to get your take on the bootstrapping versus looking for funding debate. So for someone really starting off in the early phases,
• 4:45
  Do you think someone should be looking at getting funding straight away? Do you think the bootstrapping approach is the best way? How would you kind of look at that from day zero? Yes. Yes. I have so many thoughts on this. Where do I want to start? I guess I'll start by saying there is no black or white answer.
• 5:04
  This is so different depending on your personal circumstances, the kind of business you're building, whether it's e-com or tech or a digital content business, whatever it is, there are so many different types of businesses. So this isn't a one size fits all. I would say that for me, based on who I am as a person, what I love when it comes to building a business, the kind of people that I've invested in myself through Angel Investments,
• 5:32
  And, you know, from what I've learned in the last 600 and however many episodes we're up to now, I am someone that loves the bootstrapping business, you know, to really get yourself off the ground and potentially raise capital at some point in the future. I'm much more of the bootstrapped marketing gal. I love scrappy business.
• 5:57
  you know, zero dollar marketing. So for me, I always lean towards someone who is, you know, that way inclined to build a business versus someone who's looking for external funding straight off the bat. I think there's just so much you can do and you can be so creative, especially in the beginning before going to kind of raise capital or take on debt. And I also think the more you're able to do in the beginning when you're bootstrapping it, you know, you're then able to leverage that,
• 6:26
  You know, for example, if you're raising capital through investors, you're not going to have any leverage to get great terms if you're raising from day one. You want to build your MVP. You want to prove out demand. You want to get customer feedback, iterate, do more, do better on a scrappy budget. And then if you need to go out and raise or you need to access different kinds of capital, you are coming from a place of...
• 6:54
  you know, data and leverage versus not having anything to get started. So yeah, I'm very much into the bootstrapping vibe, which is probably no surprise, but every business is so different.
• 7:09
  I think it reminds me a bit of the paid ads versus organic approach. And we've spoken a little bit about this on the podcast around how there's really a lot of value in testing your content organically first and then
• 7:24
  putting money behind what works on the paid ads. And it kind of reminds me a bit of this argument as well, this idea of kind of proving out your idea before you put any investment behind it and just seeing if there's any traction organically. Because when you have that, that's when you've really hit something on the head and you've really got something there. Totally, totally. It's all about making sure that you're, you know, really digging into a problem that, you know, that's
• 7:49
  people need solved, a real juicy problem, and that people are willing to pay for, and figuring out the right messaging, finding product market fit, and then amplifying that. And that's really when you want to have access to capital. Let's say you're an e-commerce business and you need a lot of working capital to place big inventory orders and things like that. You want to be able to know that
• 8:14
  that money is going to kind of generate more sales. You don't want to like sink $100,000 into something that isn't proven yet. 100%. And if you get to that point and you get to the point in your business where you're maybe looking at getting some external funding, could you walk us through a bit of a oversight of all the different funding options that are available to entrepreneurs? Yes, absolutely.
• 8:37
  There are so many different ways you can access capital into your biz. And I will say like some capital is more expensive than other capital when it comes to, you know, the interest and the risk and all that kind of stuff. Not all capital is equal. Yes.
• 8:53
  Not all capital and not all money is equal. But I think that we can get caught up in thinking that it's like self-funded or we're raising from investors and we forget that there's, you know, a bunch of other directions in between. And I also think that because the media glorifies the fundraise.
• 9:12
  we can get swept up in this thing of thinking like, oh my God, I want to be, you know, that person in that article without really thinking through what it means to raise capital. So I love talking about this. There are, I think, seven different ways I'm going to cover and we'll kind of like go through one at a time. Some of them are really obvious. Some of them you might not have thought of before, but lots of different ways to access capital. The first is, you know,
• 9:39
  Self-funding. So such an obvious one. You know, you can be using your nine to five job as your investment into your business. You can be using your savings. You can liquidate your assets, stocks, house, car, clothing to personally invest in the business and get it off the ground.
• 9:59
  And a really great example of this on the show that you can go back and listen to is Priscilla from Bang & Bod. Her introductory, like, first few years into business, she worked her nine to five for that first three years because she really wanted to prove out that there was...
• 10:17
  you know, demand, that she really solved the problem that she was setting out to do, which was women and men who were having skin issues and acne issues and finding a formulation that really, really worked and was results driven. And so she, first of all, invested her kind of salary from her nine to five and her time into the business when it was in that side hustle early phase. And then once she had proven that out, but still while she was working full time,
• 10:45
  her and her husband decided to invest their house deposit of, I think it was $100,000 or maybe $120,000 into the biz to go all in. But she still stayed working her nine to five job during this period. And when she invested that $100,000 and it wasn't until she hit a certain, you know, she had set specific goals for herself of where the business needed to be before she would leave her day job. And that ended up taking three years. So, you know,
• 11:11
  you know, really going on that journey and taking your time because when you're self-funding your business and you're using, you know, your job and your savings to support that early growth, you're able to make decisions in the business that are
• 11:28
  right for the business, not coming from a place of, you know, desperation for you to take an income from the business. So self-funding, absolutely key. There's a lot of money you can make from the clothes hanging in your wardrobe. And, you know, maybe it's $5,000, maybe it's $3,000, whatever it is.
• 11:46
  you can, you know, hustle to get some cash together. The reality is starting a business. And again, forces you to get creative and look in ways that you otherwise wouldn't. Exactly. Or, you know, take up some, you know, service-based stuff on the side to generate some, you know, extra cash that you can invest. The reality is like, if you're building a business, and especially if it's not a service-based business, if it's e-commerce or tech, it costs a
• 12:14
  You need to invest in some way to kind of get it off the ground. Number two is, and I love this one and I know you love this one too, is grants. I feel like grants are so underrated and people forget what's out there, especially if you're building a business that really has a unique point of difference or you have some kind of really interesting hook into your story or some really interesting thing.
• 12:39
  unique insight that you've taken from your career or your life that you're kind of putting into a business. And there are so many different kinds of grants. There are government grants. You know, if you're in Australia, you can go to whatever state you're in, you can go to the government
• 12:57
  kind of website for your state. And there are just hundreds of grants and they are so wide and broad and niche. And life-changing. And life-changing, absolutely. You can find, you know, business-backed grants. So companies like, especially in America, companies like MasterCard and Amex, they have lots of these kind of grants and websites in Australia.
• 13:21
  The US, like Hello Alice and what's another one? I Fund Women. They're really good for those kind of business-backed grants. But then you can also look to the university that you went to. A lot of universities do have different kinds of pitch nights and events.
• 13:38
  Even, you know, mini accelerators and accelerators that you can kind of go through to access capital. UNSW in Sydney is a really good one. If you are alumni or staff or a current student, you can enter their programs. Then there are philanthropist, you know, kind of grants and money that you can access also kind of through uni and college places. And two of the main ones, you know, when we're thinking about Australia is,
• 14:06
  is the EMDG grant and the R&D tax incentives. So if you're wanting to explore grants, those are some ones to look into. And we have our grant resource, which is updated weekly, I believe, courtesy of you.
• 14:24
  We put all the live grants and accelerators that we can find from really all over the world that are live in that moment and all the details that you need to apply. It's so fun putting this together and also seeing what's out there. And I do think kind of...
• 14:39
  As a woman founder, it's a great avenue to go down because a lot of grants at the moment will focus on minority founders, women-owned businesses as a way to kind of balance the playing field and equal out this funding disparity. Totally, totally. Totally.
• 14:56
  Was it Mesa? She just won $250,000 in, I think, equity-free capital. In a pinch-cut position. Yeah. Crazy. Like, there's some crazy grants going out there. So definitely access our document. We will link it in the show notes. I also post some videos about that on my TikTok from time to time.
• 15:17
  But moving on, the next one is crowdfunding. So crowdfunding is when you raise money from a lot of people, like your community and even kind of angel investors and investors. And it's kind of like raising small amounts of money versus like big amounts of money at once. And so a great episode on this when it comes to
• 15:42
  Well, actually, so the websites that you can use for crowdfunding is like Kickstarter and Indigo. And these platforms also have their own audience built in. So their audience are looking for opportunities and looking for things to kind of buy. A regular Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign is very much kind of
• 16:03
  I guess it operates more like a pre-sale. You're kind of putting your idea out there. You need to hit a goal. You get backers, you know, essentially committing spend to get a product in the future from you. And then there's also equity crowdfunding. And in Australia, those platforms are called virtual and equities. And basically you are, you know,
• 16:26
  Raising kind of capital from your community and investors, small amounts of capital. And, you know, when you hit a goal, that converts into equity for those people. And a great mini series that we did on that specifically was with Amy Bateman from Pleasant State, which is a sunny coast brand in Australia.
• 16:44
  And she talks a lot about, you know, really what goes into crowdfunding, but that's another kind of avenue. And especially, again, when you have a product that really suits a broad audience, you know, Pleasant State is toxic-free cleaning products. So it's something that can go in a lot of people's households. And...
• 17:05
  Yeah, I think, you know, there's obviously a lot still to it. It still requires investment of time, investment of money, but crowdfunding can be a great avenue to pursue. Again, if you have a really unique product or something that hasn't been totally developed yet, that's a good way to go.
• 17:22
  Absolutely. And I think this miniseries, it really shows exactly what you're saying, that it's not an easy route, but she really takes you through the full process, all the numbers behind the scenes. I absolutely loved going through this three-part miniseries. We'll also link that in the show notes, of course. But if you're thinking about it, or if you know someone that's thinking about crowdfunding, I think that's an absolute must to get the ins and outs. And they had a lot of success. They've done so great through that.
• 17:51
  Yeah, and actually they did a crowdfunding campaign through something like Kickstarter, I think, in the early days. And then they did equity. Yeah, virtual, I think, yeah. No, equity crowdfunding was through virtual. But in the very beginning of their journey, they also did, you know, like a regular crowdfunding campaign. So lots of different insights there.
• 18:11
  Next category is borrowing and debt. So obviously this is, you know, more expensive capital. You know, you might have some interest or you might have to pay back with certain terms, whatever it might be, but you can look to friends and family or colleagues, work colleagues, if you do have access to people in your network who are looking to kind of invest or maybe
• 18:37
  Not invest because it will be on the basis that it's returned, but, you know, have some cash lying around that they want to support you with. Obviously, when you're thinking about friends, families, your colleagues, things like that, you can probably get more flexible terms than you would if you were going to, say, a bank.
• 18:56
  But you can also go to banks and get a small business loan. I know in the UK, I think there's a loan through HSBC or maybe it is directly connected to Virgin. And I think you can access something like 20K online.
• 19:16
  for small business kind of startup opportunities. In Australia, I know that Westpac has a specific loan that's available to female founders building small businesses, but you just need to look in your local kind of regions, go and start talking to banks, things like that. Obviously credit cards, credit cards are more expensive and you can also start working with brokers who will go out and find you the best terms and the best...
• 19:45
  kind of capital based on your needs and where you are in the business. How do you find people like that? Is that just a quick Google search in your area to find a broker or is there...
• 19:57
  So yes, you could Google. I would probably go and ask people in my network. So I've been connected to brokers before through other founders. And I think that, you know, depending on what your needs are, it's kind of a matter of asking around, Googling, picking up the phone, all that kind of stuff. And...
• 20:17
  Yeah, getting them to go and kind of do the legwork on the different, you know, compare the different loans that banks are offering, credit cards, all that kind of stuff to see what you can access. They can also go to, you know, maybe individuals or whatever to look at capital there as well. You've got to have those conversations. It's less straightforward about kind of going on a website and finding the information and.
• 20:41
  Um, the next one, this isn't really capital all the time, but they often have capital attached to it is accelerators and kind of incubator programs. So in the US, obviously the most kind of known one in the tech industry is Y Combinator and Techstars in Australia. Techstars is also here at the moment and
• 21:08
  I forget what the accelerator is called. And that program is run through Black, or it's owned by Blackbird, which is one of the biggest funds here in Australia. So you can go to accelerators and then there are also your local kind of community organizations.
• 21:25
  hubs for startups. So in Sydney, there's one called Fishburners. And wherever you are locally, whatever city that you live in or whatever town that you live in, you can often quick Google, again, looking up what kind of networking and meetups and industry events are held for entrepreneurs or startup founders. And those kind of accelerators can often have money attached to it. So for example, the Startmate Accelerator,
• 21:52
  I think it's set to $120,000. Like if you go through the program, you get $120,000 on a 1.5 valuation if you haven't raised. And then if you have raised, it's $120,000 for 10% of the company. The terms are different, basically, if you've raised previously. So...
• 22:12
  looking into accelerators within the startup community and that kind of thing and in your local cities or even kind of looking to the bigger cities in the country that you live in and applying to those. Where am I up to? Next one, I don't know how many I've done here, but I think five. Five. Yeah. Okay. So then we have rev-based financing. So revenue-based financing is, and we've heard a lot about this on the show as well. It's like you're driving revenue through
• 22:42
  And you plug in your data to companies like Clearco or Waveflyer or Shopify Capital, and they tell you how much they're happy to loan you based on your data. And they'll loan you an amount of money, and you basically just automatically get taken back out every day based on your sales. So you might...
• 23:01
  get that loan to specifically fund your paid ads. And because you have this historical data that's being pulled in from Google Analytics or, you know, your ads or whatever it might be, it can predict if you're going to invest this much money, this is how much you're then going to grow. And then we're going to take this amount out daily plus this amount of interest until it's paid back. And you can do cycles of these. I mean, it's more expensive capital because, of course, you're paying...
• 23:27
  higher interest, but you can, it's like a one-click application, like Shopify Capital or even PayPal does it too. It's all pretty straightforward. So if you're already generating revenue, it's a great way to kind of access working capital to accelerate that growth.
• 23:43
  And then you can also get invoice lending through your local bank. So let's say you have a successful D2C side of the business and you've opened up retail and you've landed a purchase order for $100,000 from a nationwide company.
• 23:59
  supermarket or something like that. You can then take that invoice to your bank and your bank will have that as data, proof that you have this thing that you're going to get the money back when they pay that invoice and they'll loan you the money for that. So that's also a great way to kind of access working capital online.
• 24:20
  when you're going through the process. And then, of course, last and final sort of bucket is going out and raising capital. So raising capital can be done through friends and family. We hear a lot of stories about angel investors and you can also find angel syndicates in your local kind of cities or in your region who support different kinds of businesses. There are plenty of...
• 24:47
  just with a quick Google search in Sydney. Some of the main ones or in New South Wales rather is Aussie angels. Yeah, you can go through angels or angel syndicates and then you obviously have VC money, private equity money, and then you have the more kind of like consumer-facing opportunities like Shark Tank. Okay, brilliant. Wow, I feel like I just talked a lot.
• 25:15
  There's a lot of great tips there. But that's the seven different buckets of accessing capital. Okay, amazing. And do you have any tips for listeners when it comes to kind of how they self-audit themselves or which kind of funding is good for them, depending on which stage of the business they're at and their business idea, kind of what could be your next step?
• 25:38
  Yeah, I guess, again, it's a personal thing and it's no black or white answer. I think when you're auditing yourself, it's important to think about the kind of life that you want and the kind of business that you want and what you're really working towards and things like what's your appetite for risk to understand, you know, how much do you believe in this business? Like you've got to be asking yourself and pondering these types of questions.
• 26:01
  you know, do you want a business that you are just 100% in charge of? You call all the shots, you get to choose how much salary you pay yourself, you get to choose how you spend your days when you're working, when you're not, all that kind of thing. Or do you want, you know,
• 26:17
  high pressure, fast growth, and other people who are calling the shots alongside you who are also heavily involved in making decisions about your business. And they're your business partners. It's not 100% your business anymore. You have sold equity to get that money into your company. So it's very different pathways. Obviously, if you have investors, you are going to be selling that business and they want a significant return on the money that they've put into the business.
• 26:46
  you can't just choose the salary that you want. Investors are going to want to see that money go towards building the business and working towards an exit so that they can get that money back. So it's just kind of having those thoughts, those deep thoughts, asking the people, your close people around you, maybe your partner, your family, and looking at the kind of business you have as well. Some businesses are
• 27:13
  You know, if you're building a tech business, for example, that does really lean into the raising capital kind of blueprint, whereas for someone like me, I'm building a business that is absolutely...
• 27:26
  The opposite of that. This is a digital content play. I'm building a cash flow business. I want to design my dream life. I definitely don't want to have people to answer to and that kind of thing. So it really depends on the kind of business that you're wanting to build. And there are different pathways that obviously you can follow.
• 27:46
  based on that. Yeah. And you make a good point there. Also kind of checking in with yourself, why you entered entrepreneurship in the first place. So if you got into this because you don't want to answer to anyone and you want to be your own boss and decide your own day, then that's worth taking into consideration when you're looking at your funding options. Because even if it's not VC that you have to answer to, if you're borrowing from friends and family, that's still
• 28:09
  you're still answering to someone in some way and that will have an impact in some way of how you're running your business. So totally exactly. Kind of checking in with yourself. If you know that you want to work for yourself and you want to decide your own hours and do what you want and post what you want, and then that might not be the route for you. Do you know what I mean?
• 28:31
  Totally. It's really, it isn't a black and white answer and it really is different for everyone. And, and so many, you know, there are so many different pathways to follow based on what you're building, you know, whether you're an e-com or whether you're a content business selling digital products or, you know, in the tech industry, it's all really different. I guess it, um, pays to do your research and get really clear on what it is, um,
• 28:58
  you're building, what you want to do in the world, where your goals are kind of aligned to. I would also say like, kind of going back to what I was saying in the beginning, it's like the longer you wait
• 29:09
  also you just have more leverage. So the longer you kind of give yourself to figure things out, because sometimes like, you know, you can start a business with the best intentions, but then you've got to try those things to figure out what you do like and what you don't like. And sometimes you're like, you know what, this actually isn't for me. Like, and thank God we didn't take capital because where would we be now? And a really great example of this is when, you know, a couple of years ago when we were going through the process of building the non-alc brand and
• 29:36
  in the UK, we reached that point where we needed to invest, I think it was another 100K into, we'd spent about 20K to get to that point. And then we needed to invest the 100K to buy the grapes, basically, to go through the process of making the actual product. And it was at that point, we had originally planned to take on a few strategic key angel investors. And it was at that point that we were like, you know what? Yeah.
• 30:05
  no, this isn't it. We're going to cut our losses here. That 20K is just going to be down the drain with a lot of learnings, but it's better than taking on another $100,000 from people that we know and having the kind of pressure and having the kind of
• 30:25
  need to stay in the business. We wouldn't have just been able to turn our backs once we took that capital and placed that order. And so throughout that journey, I mean, we learned a lot in that process, but yeah, for me, like I'm so grateful that we didn't do that. You know, we ended up wanting to move back to Australia. We wouldn't have been able to do that if we were building that business in the UK and it was really a retail play. So, well, retail and DTC, but
• 30:51
  there was such a big element to needing to be on the ground. And I'm so grateful that we cut our losses and just moved forward. Yeah, your life would look very different right now, right? It would be a whole other story. And it's such a good lesson. And sometimes the hardest thing is actually to say no and to quit and to give up rather than to keep going. And I think that's...
• 31:16
  You know, the easy thing would be to just like pack it in and say, we're not going to do it. But I think that's actually the harder decision to make. And sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the flow of things and to just keep going. And you've said these things to people and, OK, I'll just keep going and keep going, keep going. And along the way, you kind of lose touch with the original thing that you had in mind or you change. And I think it's so important to stay very, very honest with yourself at different stages of your business. Yeah.
• 31:43
  So you prevent getting in a situation that you can't get out of anymore. Totally. Totally. My God. Yeah. That leads nicely to the last question. I just wanted to see, could you leave us with one piece of advice for any founders, early stage or later on in their business who are struggling to secure funding right now in this climate?
• 32:08
  Yeah. I mean, again, it's such not a black or white answer. If you're struggling to secure funding, I'd be kind of taking a really deep, hard look at the business. It's really important whether you're at the very beginning of your journey or whether you are multiple years in, it's really important to make sure that you validate your business idea and you have a product that is sticky and people want to buy a second time, a third time, a fourth time. You
• 32:35
  You need to make sure that there's demand for that. And wherever you are in the journey, if you're struggling to kind of access funding, it's kind of being like, okay, well, why am I getting these no's or why can't I access funding? What is it that people need to see for it to be a yes? And so...
• 32:54
  usually that comes back to things like, okay, well, what's the progress that you've had? What's the traction that you've had? And that doesn't necessarily need to be revenue. That could be what's the customer research piece? What is the learnings that you have? Where's the data to back up your hypothesis and your assumptions? So whether you are in that ideation phase or whether you're further along, you want to prove –
• 33:20
  you know, that there is this big juicy problem that you're solving that people will pay for and then taking that insights, data, learnings and using that to access capital. So it's kind of a crappy answer because it really depends on where you are in the journey and what the
• 33:44
  these amazing insights and data points or amazing revenue and growth that you have if you're already into the journey and using that as leverage to access capital. Because it's like the thing where when you are generating revenue and you're experiencing high growth, people want to pour capital into the business. Like it becomes an inbound thing versus being like an outbound thing. So yeah, I think it's like always just really important to make sure that your idea is
• 34:13
  if you're in that early stage is, is validated. The problem is big enough that people want to pay money. And there's a big enough group of people who, who need your product. And I would also say like,
• 34:27
  Yeah, you really need to be solving a real problem that people are willing to pay for and be obsessed with the problem, not the solution. Because the solution iterates and evolves and changes over time as you learn from your customer. But the problem is your null star. And so that problem always stays there. And so when you're just obsessed about this thing that you're trying to solve, you're
• 34:52
  And you're willing to iterate and make changes to your product, whether it's a tech product or whether it's a physical consumer packaged goods product, you kind of like take on those learnings. You then develop something that people really want. And then once you've found product market fit and you've got demand, then taking on capital becomes easier to secure because people are like, yep, we see it. Let's go and let's amplify and scale from there.
• 35:22
  I love that. And people can see it, right? Even not just in the numbers, but in the way you talk about your problem, in the way that you present it and talk to investors, but also talk to your friends and family that just that that passion and that sparkle comes across. And totally. And I think that, again, going back to the beginning, it's like
• 35:46
  I mean, if I just think about myself, I think it's just so when you can be someone who is bootstrapped and scrappy and you're just hungry to succeed, no matter what challenges are in the way, that kind of attitude really shines and people are like, oh.
• 36:03
  Yeah, like I can see it. I can see what you've done on such a small budget. And I think that gets people really excited too, because they, investors and angel investors, for example, are then like, oh, yeah, like you're going to take this money and you're really going to leverage it and make it work to return growth in the business and, you know, evaluation on the company.
• 36:26
  I love that. That's a great note to end it on. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Oh, and I would, I guess the other thing I would say is you can access lots of free resources like our grant document to find alternative opportunities, you know, that are out there in your local area.
• 36:45
  And we will be writing these up in the newsletter for Monday and also tagging and linking anything that we've discussed in the show notes. So if there's anything that you want to kind of check back over, it will all be there. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. That's the pod. That's the pod.
• 37:06
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 37:31
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 37:53
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.