Innovation and Startup Funding: The Key To Success
Entrepreneurs are always thinking up new ideas…but what happens when you want to build those ideas into a full-fledged successful business? From the mere thought of building a business to raising funding to operate a successful startup takes not only an innovative mindset but also specific tactical, actionable practices.
Along the way, there are bumps, but don’t get discouraged. Getting funded takes work but there are ways to speed up the process and project your success with the right funding partners. Today, non-family and friends funding occurs at a regular pace; in fact, one in ten startups gets funded professionally?
While this may seem a bit scary, and even daunting, there are ways to significantly increase your chances of receiving professional funding. One way is through the help of consultants like Caio Buchalla, Founder and Analyst Manager of Buchalla Venture Connections. Working with a consultant who understands how to get funded, and who has significant relationships in the industry, means access to potential funding sources you may have never known about.
Founded in January of 2019, Buchalla Venture Connections came out of the need for startups to change the way they present to funding sources. With extensive experience and a deep, insightful, and balanced understanding of how to get funded, Buchalla Venture Connections works to prepare American companies for investment rounds in Silicon Valley. A top tier consultancy offers clients, not only an effective investment strategy, but a means to properly utilize that investment when made.
Startups Must Demonstrate Their Innovation
When working with their business plan, pitching potential funding sources, or even talking about their products, the one piece of the puzzle left out by many companies is innovation. Ironically, it is innovation which is one of the critical criteria potential investors, board members, and advisors want to see upfront. With innovation, a company has a longer life span, can scale, and continue to grow at a significant rate. Without it, unfortunately, companies have a significantly smaller chance of being funded or surviving for the long haul. Caio Buchalla’s years of experience working inside and around venture capital companies has proven that, “startups must make sure that the innovation they are bringing to market has an innate sense of convenience to people because that right there is the key to success.”
He advises all of his clients to, “make sure that people are going to use that product or service without thinking too much because it’s automatically part of their routines. We expect to see in your deck presentation, especially on your milestones, how you are going to keep increasing the technology on your product or service during the years and how it’s going to make you have a strong competitive advantage in the market during those years. We don’t invest in short-term opportunities, we invest in startups that can survive and become a product or service that people would miss if it was not in the market anymore,” Caio Buchalla adds.
Market Awareness: Is It There?
Market understanding and awareness must also be in your pitch deck, business plan, and discussions. A lack of clarity shows significantly less strength from a bottom-line perspective. While this is sometimes a significant challenge for earlier stage startups, it can be done. “As potential investors, we want to understand what the size of the market that you are really starting with is. It can be a specific city or a specific community, but it needs to be realistic,” Buchalla advises.
The venture capital industry wants to see your market understanding and confirm that it is correct. As an Investment Manager in Silicon Valley, Buchalla has seen this firsthand time and time again. Without it, the word “no” became a huge part of his vocabulary. “I started to realize that we were saying “no” to almost 90% when deciding who was going to move forward in our process, and I started to realize that the biggest issue was that startups simply don’t know how to present their business,” he says.
Why Return on Investment (ROI) Is Critical To Translate
Do you have a well-structured pitch deck and accurate financial projections for the next five years? Without that, your deck may be a bit weak. With it, you are in line with what investors want to see. A clear business model with relevant data pertaining to the market you wish to enter or grow in is critical. If you are unsure of how to get this, there are many options from talking with analysts to bringing on advisory and/or board members with expertise in that market who can help with the process. To a potential investor, without a clear market picture, it becomes almost impossible to demonstrate your financial projections, how they will work in real terms, and how you will drive your business forward. This is where a clear picture of your current or potential return on investment becomes mission-critical to achieving funding.
In The Final Analysis: Your Clear Picture
Today, there are startups on every proverbial corner looking for funding and there is a huge difference between those that are funded and those that are not. Understanding what inhibits startups from reaching their potential, means Caio Buchalla and his team are able to not only help startups gain the funding they require, but also assist the entrepreneurs themselves on their journey to success. Buchalla’s company now “helps startups on their way to market, providing a basic structure for growth, along with a business model, problem/solution prototype structure, back-end structure, marketing strategy, financials, a target market and target customer profile, partnerships or potential partnerships, proof of concept, I.P. process, exit strategy, and more.”
With the wealth of entrepreneurs, ideas, and startups competing for a specific amount of funding, it is so important to put forward your best step and come out ahead of the game when pitching seasoned venture capital companies. In the end, the way you pitch them truly says a lot about the durability and strength of your business, as well as that of the entrepreneur(s) behind it.