But it shouldn't be such a big deal as in fact human beings are, by design, are creatures who need support from the community and resources surrounding them It is just plain weird that sometimes people frown whenever the words "support" and "entrepreneur" are mentioned in the same sentence.
I was browsing a particular web page of MaGIC (A government agencies designed to promote innovation and creativity in entrepreneurship) which you can find here. And the page was about inviting entrepreneurs for a dialogue with MaGIC.
What intrigued me was not so much the dialogue but a diagram which was posted on the website where it showed the life cycle of a start up to maturity. I am not going to post the diagram here (as I dis not ask for their permission) so if you want to have a look you need to go there.
The diagram states the major steps that a entrepreneur, stating up, must do. And if you are already on your entrepreneurship journey, you may find yourself on one of the stages/steps in the entrepreneurship cycle. I find the diagram pretty accurate and would be a useful guide to all entrepreneurs out there, especially to the Bumiputeras.
More interestingly, the diagram also listed the funding requirements / expectations that are applicable for each stage of the cycle. And here is where I would like to put my food for thoughts.
Stage One, Discovery.
At this stage, it says no funding required. To you entrepreneurs out there, this means no funding required for the BUSINESS. You still need to eat, sleep, make call, socialize, travel, eat (i know i said it twice) and these things need money. And this is the first stage where entrepreneurs would need support as you need to stay alive to be able to make your discovery. But it is important to distinguish support for the business and the support for YOU.
If you make the mistake of seeking for grants and funding on the pretext of funding the business at this stage, then you are basically funding your livelihood rather than business. You will get in to trouble when the funding runs out, worse if it runs out just at the time when your ideas are just starting to make commercial sense.
Many successful entrepreneurs that I know makes this distinction and seek to support themselves in ways other than seeking funding for the business. Their livelihood is kept at a bare minimum and they get non-monetary support like living with the parents or operating from the parent's house (that is why many entrepreneurs flourished from the family garage), or keeping your day-job while making this discovery phase. There is no shame in that game (keeping a day job) as it allows you to support yourself (or the brain) but you need to invest your time and off-days for your planned venture. If you are serious about entrepreneurship, it will cause you to be efficient with your time too as you do not have the luxury of lounging at Starbucks (the bucks is going to them) sipping coffee paid on government grants.
Stage two, Validation
I again agree with MaGIC that this would be the first time seeking funding or outside support in the form of cash is permissible, either from yourself or from others. Again I would have to stress that you need to keep the two separate that even if you are taking funding from yourself, you must account it for the business. That way you would be able to correctly identify when do you need to pivot or adjust or decide that the business is just not going to work as it is. If you take out your savings to fund the venture, keep it separate and treat it almost like a loan to the venture and aim to have the venture return it back to you. Of course it is an equity investment and you must be ready to lose it all, but you cannot just take it for granted. Have the discipline to make it work and return your investment, even at this stage. If it can't then you must clearly see when it could and what kind of adjustment that you would need to make.
The second thing that you need to remember that other resources that you used for the venture must be included in the calculation of money spent for the business. That includes the bent-up honda "cub" that you used to make the deliveries or the petrol you used in making the deliveries, even if you are using the same route to go work anyway. That way you would know exactly whether your business would be able to support you the moment you decide to take it full time.
Well, that is all for this time, till next time, work smart and be creative peeps! :-)
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