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Comment by Faadiel Rehman on September 5, 2010 at 17:10

Addendum to previous comment.

I'd also like to add the while I was building my business I could call or anyone of the group members to assist and they would gladly do so without expecting payment. We were there to support each other, to help each other grow. Weekly meetings brought to bear new ideas for my company, members would put me in touch with the right people to talk to. I had essentially a group of very smart business people helping me stay objective, productive and organized.

I never felt alone or out in the cold. What a fantastic way to build a business. But whats even more fantastic is that the group members had my best interests in mind. I never heard the words "whats in it for me" it was all to help me grow my business. Kind of like a mafia family :)

2 excellent quotes from a book called Rework.

“The business world is littered with dead documents that do nothing but waste people’s time, reports that no one reads, diagrams that no one looks at, and specs that never resemble the finished product. These things take forever to make, but only seconds to forget.”

“There are four-letter words you should never use in business… they’re need, must, can’t, easy, just, only, and fast. When you use these four letter words, you create a black and white situation. But the truth is rarely black and white.“

My 2 cents.

Faadiel

Comment by Faadiel Rehman on September 5, 2010 at 16:59

Hi Kyle,

One great way to get a start-up off the ground in a few short months is to get it funded "obviously". Sometimes however, funding is difficult to find especially when the economy is in a down turn. There are ways around that, that have worked for me and a few of my colleagues. Here's what we did.

1. We established a small group of 10 people.
2. Each business owner chips in anywhere from 2500 to 10,000 depending on their ability to chip in.
3. This money is then put to work for 1 of the members to run either his/her existing venture or a new venture.
4. The members of the group then act as the board for this venture and since they clearly all of have an interest in the venture they all acted in accord with making the venture work.

I've not added all of the gory details but the member of the group that benefits is expected to make monthly payments into the group fund until it has been re-payed. Additionally while that process is occurring he/she is receiving the much needed support to make the business succeed.

You might ask where I learned about this model. I've experienced it, though my company is not in existence today it worked out very well for me and I re-payed and helped fund other small business members with contributions. I stumbled upon this purely by chance when I attended a family meeting with a Jewish friend of mine in NY City. In this meeting were all manner of businessmen discussing openly my friends business idea and how they could all help him to achieve his goals. I've never seen such positivity and willingness to help another achieve success, some business men put upwards of $50,000 into the fund to help this friend of mine.

Of course the wheels in my head were spinning at 200KM per hour because here was a group/community helping and individual, willing to give their money and time. Today he's very successful, his website has 100,000 paying members, he has managed to pay-back over a 2 year period all of the money which in turn was re-used for someone else, being me. I then made sure to pay all of that back into the fund and its been rolled over yet again form someone else.

I started making contrubutions to the fund which in 3 years grew to nearly a million dollars. Each contributing member recieved payments based on a schedule that would not cripple the benefactor of the fund. We kept rolling over the fund to each successive member of the group all of whom are now doing extremely well and they didn't have to give up 40 to 50 percent of their company to do it.

Essentially it takes a community... I believe its possible from personal experience. And not too sound prejudice but thats why some many jewsih people are not in poverty, this is their best kept secret, they help each other. One thing that struck me hard was the following quote from my friends father. He said "give your clients $100 dollars with of value for $10 dollars" and never ever worry about getting the short end of the stick, everybody always wants more and that's why some end up with nothing. So take the short end, give $100 dollars of value for $10 dollars and your business will grow quicker than you expect it to.

Just my 2 cents.

Regards,
Faadiel

Comment by Sima Kobo on September 5, 2010 at 1:07

Kyle, couldn't have put it better!

I feel the same way, check out my blog post about something similar: http://www.glorifieldlabs.com/blog/?p=11.

@glorifieldlabs

Comment by Kyle Thebus on September 2, 2010 at 9:54

Hey Roger

I stumbled across this initiative (website) a couple months ago and I loved the concept. Keep doing the exellent work you doing (hats off to you and the team).

My auto-reply would be to have more expo's and motivational events, where owners of start-ups (and those who "made it") can tell their success/not-so-successful stories and motivate others to persevere. To make people aware of what is possible in these ever tough economic times.

I'm sure there are thousands of money making business ideas, waiting to be conceptualised... I know I have a few of my own.

I really look forward to the newsletter and I hope one day, in the not to distant future... SiliconeCape dream, becomes a reality...

Comment by Roger Norton on September 2, 2010 at 9:25

Hey Kyle, the biggest problem that we face here is not enough successful entrepreneurs. we only have a handful of the Justin's, Vinny's and Mark's. We need about 100 more. That is one of the goals of this initiative, to help encourage that and to support up-n-coming entrepreneurs in doing that. Ultimately the reason that there aren't more like them is because you haven't got there yet.

If you have any ideas on how you could help facilitate the process, please feel free to suggest it. In the next few weeks we will be putting out a newsletter to the community, in this first edition is a call for mentors.

I look forward to your suggestions...