Recipient TidBit : What Do You Wish You Had Done Before Applying For The Seed Fund?

As part of their participation in the Business Vitality Seed Fund, we asked each of our recipients a series of questions to get their view on entrepreneurship, the Seed Fund process, and other entrepreneurial related TidBits. The following is their answers to the question: What do you wish you had done before applying for the Seed Fund?


Five by Five Tonics

I always wish I knew financials better. Even after years of preparing and learning small business financials, I still wish I knew more. There is no substitute for rolling up your sleeves and getting very well acquainted with what “funding” means for a business. There are so many definitions for that term.

For more information on Five by Five Tonics, please visit their website or find them on facebook!

Social High Rise

I was pretty well prepared before I had met with the seed fund. I had recently closed an Angel Round of funding from a group of local Chico investors, so I was in fundraising mode. With that said, I wish I had spent more time crafting a more articulated pitch and slide deck. You can never be too prepared for pitching your business and this was no exception. Although I feel I gave a good pitch, I came away wishing I had spent a little more time rehearsing my talking points and keeping things brief. As a result, I was asked to prepare a more formalized business plan to give to the review board. It was a good experience to put together this plan, but I think I could have gotten away without it, had I been more prepared in my presentation.

For more information on Social High Rise, please visit their website or find them on Facebook!

 Upper Park Designs

There is nothing I wish we had done before applying to the seed fund. We came in knowing the plan for the next year and knew what money we needed to get us there. The only issue was showing a track record of sales to the board. We had only been selling for a few months and had proven our returns, although we needed a little more proof behind the numbers. I would suggest to anyone applying to the fund to have a track record of sales (at least a few months) and then build solid projections over the next year. We went in with our current sales and did not spend enough time on the projections based on those sales. I believe this would have provided a little better faith in the vitality of the investment from 3CORE. That being said, everything worked out in the end!

For more information on Upper Park Designs, please visit their website or find them on facebook!