Do Cool Sh*t (12 page)

One thing that became immediately apparent after shadowing Rich was that I wasn’t ready to open a big place. His places seemed so intimidating; it took an army to run them. I wanted (and frankly needed) to start small. I decided that my place would at least start off as a counter-service pizza restaurant and not have a waitstaff. I didn’t want to overreach in the early stages.

Do Cool Shit Takeaway

Do whatever it takes to find the person you aspire to be like (in business) and shadow them if you can. Read up about them and find out where they like to eat or like to go out and then “accidentally run into them” (
stalking
is also a good term to use here) and then go for it (don’t wait for your nerves to catch up to you). This is such an important step in figuring out if you really are cut out to start your own version of this business or not, so there is no time to be shy here. Be bold!

While you’re shadowing the person, really take notice of everything they do and be honest with yourself about what you think you can manage for workload. You may need to start very simply and ramp up. This is part of the reason you are following the other successful expert in the first place—to see at what level
you
are capable of succeeding at your starting point. You can certainly dream big and think big, but if you start big, you may fail big. Starting small can help you get going and you can ramp up from there as you gain confidence in your abilities. Then go as big as you want!

STEP 4:
Conduct an unbiased survey to see if there is truly a demand for the service I plan to provide.

That didn’t take long. As I went around with Rich, and everywhere I went, I would survey the people around me. I asked them these questions:

• Do you like pizza?
  
• Do you eat more or less pizza than you did in the past?
  
• Would you eat more pizza if it was made with healthy, organic ingredients?
  

Overall, the resounding feedback was
yes
! Almost everyone would eat more pizza if it was made with better, healthier ingredients. The gluten-free and vegan communities were especially excited that I’d be offering alternatives as well.

Once I had these experiences and conducted the necessary experiments, I felt like I was equipped with what I needed to take my new business to the next level. Even Rich thought it was a good idea, which gave me hope.

I had done my due diligence. Now it was go time. Now I needed to raise money for my new business venture.

8

BUSINESS PLANS
DON’T RAISE DOLLARS,
PEOPLE
DO

Why Connecting Is the Key to Money

Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have.

—E
D
B
RADLEY

M
y palms were sweaty. I had worked so hard to get to this moment. I focused on looking professional and not having a nervous expression on my face, but it was hard to cover up my anticipation.

Was he really going to write the check for $25,000 to help fund my new business? Or was I going to have to go back to square one and try to find funding elsewhere?

Let me back up
a second and tell you how I got here.

I was twenty-five years old and had never raised money before. When I worked in investment banking and then after that, in television, I was paid the same salary every two weeks and never had to even think about that side of the business.

Now that I finally had to think about it, it was so weird and wonderful to see people buying into fresh, entrepreneurial ideas, and to experience raising money firsthand made me a true believer in the American risk-taking mentality.

I have to admit that it took me quite some time to figure out how to significantly increase the likelihood of getting people to say, “Yes, I believe in this, and I believe in you. I want to invest, please.”

Believe you me, my first several attempts were nothing short of humiliating.

I would put on a suit (dusted one off from my banking days—I wondered if they could tell), and would meet the various potential investors at any one of the ubiquitous Starbucks around the city (being in a public setting was less intimidating than a pin-drop quiet conference room—although I tried that too). When I would meet them, I would smile and laugh, trying to soften the intensity of the situation for me, and I always offered to buy them coffee. (Maybe a little kick of caffeine would get them to pull out their checkbooks faster
?
Nope that didn’t work either.)

When I sat down with them, I didn’t have a lot of the answers to the questions they asked because it was my first time pitching my own business and I wasn’t exactly sure what would be addressed in the meeting. I realized I sounded nervous and by sounding nervous, it made me even more nervous. Looking back, I should have written down every single possible question and rebuttal from an investor’s standpoint and had the answers ready before going to the meetings.

In my opinion, raising money is one of those things that nobody truly enjoys doing (unless you’re raising money for someone else or for a cause). It’s hard to find investors, it screws with your ego, screws with confidence, usually takes so much more time than you imagined, and it’s total agony to wait while potential investors make up their minds. It’s one of the most challenging issues for any passion project. We have to remember that investors are people too and they have the right to be indecisive, and all we can do is put our best, most confident foot forward and reassure them that their investment is safe.

Raising money can also be one of the most exciting experiences. When someone hands you a check because they believe in you and they believe in what you are pouring your heart into, it validates everything!

The traditional way to raise money is to put a lengthy business plan together and do a formal pitch to potential investors (i.e., anyone who may have a little extra cash sitting in the bank collecting dust
and
is willing to listen). You have probably figured this out already, but I’m not a traditional person. I never put a lengthy business plan together. Instead, I created a slideshow presentation made up of mostly images, which I could then augment with my presentation. (As I’ve said before, a picture is worth a thousand words.)

Now I’m not saying that putting together a seventy-five-page business plan isn’t necessary eventually and shows diligence, it’s just that, in the moment, it’s not only about that. (Except when you are working for an investment bank or trying to raise $200 million like my friend Michael, then you may need that seventy-five-page business plan. Raising fewer than $500,000 in $5,000 to $10,000 increments requires a different strategy in my opinion.)

One of the main reasons that people invest is not just that they think the idea is really strong but that they have a strong belief in the person(s) who is going to execute the idea. You must show total confidence in your idea. “Fake it till you make it” is an important tactic, especially at the beginning.

After trying many different ways to get people to buy into my idea, like one-on-one dinners, lunch meetings, formal meetings in office conference rooms (the list goes on), I realized that I needed a much more comfortable approach that worked for
me
.

At this point, I had months of failed attempts under my belt. I took about a week to reflect on why it wasn’t working out and then I realized that I was so uncomfortable in one-on-one situations. I just wasn’t my usual high-energy bubbly self.

I then thought about the situations I was most comfortable in, where I showed my most natural
,
engaging self. I was most comfortable with my friends and family and also thrived in group settings. I was best at parties and events and I was definitely most natural at bringing people together.

I kept coming back to all of our family dinners with the Japanese and Indian communities and how my sister and I would get everyone excited to attend. I remembered how fun our birthday parties were because they were unique—we always added at least one fun twist (there would be current-events quizzes, talent shows, races, and songs), and it made people really want to be invited back the following year.

I had created a successful brainstorming event for the restaurant just a few months prior and it had had a resoundingly positive response rate. Why didn’t I even think to apply that idea to raising money? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! I couldn’t believe I’d wasted six months of awful meetings when I could have created a single event with the purpose of raising money.

If I could put together a few great dinner parties, give people a taste of my new good-for-you pizzas, and present my idea in a fun environment where wine flowed in a great setting, I would win over the entire crowd and get more than one investor on board in a single night, instead of doing time-consuming one-on-one meetings.

So I followed these basic steps to start the process of collecting investment dollars.

CREATE AN EXCITING EVENT

Getting a group to think an idea is good is a lot more powerful and potent than getting one person to agree to the idea. The energy around the idea is what’s palpable and interesting to people. When you are looking around a room and seeing people nodding and engaged, it’s much easier to pull out your checkbook than if nobody is around, right?

So the execution of this event is critical. If it’s not executed properly, then it will have the exact opposite effect: everyone together will decide not to do it.

To ensure that your execution is flawless, here is what I did to make the event a success:

Bring a chef who can prepare food that will excite the senses and leave people satisfied.

If you don’t have a lot of money and, er, maybe don’t even know how to cook, ask a friend who loves to cook and has cooked for larger parties before to prepare a dinner-party meal. Tell them that you will provide all the ingredients and tools and that you will take great photos of the food.

For five minutes of the evening, let your chef friend have the floor to talk about a project that he or she is interested in or working on. This will give them another personal reason to cook for this important event. Again, this goes back to the MB philosophy of mutually beneficial experiences.

If all of your friends are challenged in the cooking department, you can now go to a place like kitchit.com, where you can hire personal chefs for a very reasonable price who will shop/prepare/serve the food for your dinner party. I definitely recommend this option if you can spare a bit of cash.

If you want to cook the meal yourself, that is fine, but then have a friend or hire someone to come and serve the entire meal. You do
not
want to be running around getting people food when you are trying to get in your zone and be the founder of your new business. This ties back into the idea that you have to have confidence and appear in control. Rather, you are an expert in this chosen field (in my case, the restaurant business). Not to mention, it looks pretty awesome when you have someone waiting on all of your guests while you host the dinner.

Should you or a friend decide to prepare the meal, here is a great sample menu. Expect to spend between $300 and $400 for a party of fifteen people.

BEVERAGES

• 1 white wine option (chardonnay)
  
• 1 red wine option (cabernet franc)
  
• 1 vodka cocktail (perhaps a ginger lemonade with vodka—this way people can also have it virgin if they don’t want to drink. Plus, who doesn’t love a great homemade ginger lemonade?)
  
• coffee/tea with milks/sugars
  

APPETIZER

• Fresh arugula salad with goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, and roasted sunflower seeds, with a light balsamic vinaigrette
  
• Hummus, kalamata olives, and olive oil, with fresh cucumbers and warm pitas
  

ENTRÉE (FOR ME, IT WAS HEALTHY PIZZAS; FOR YOU, IT COULD BE SOMETHING LIKE THIS.)

• Vegetarian curry entrée (You can pick up great curry sauce at any market.)
  
• Free-range chicken and vegetables over brown rice mixed together in a coconut sauce.
  
• When things are mixed together like curries and chicken and rice dishes, you don’t have to worry about the food losing its heat when plating, and it makes it more “family style”
  

DESSERT

• A scoop of fruit sorbet and chocolate chip cookies
  
• Fresh fruit with honey and fresh whipped cream (You can easily make homemade whipped cream in ten minutes.)