Protect Your Equity: The Smart Approach To Winning Early Stage Investment

Taking your entrepreneurial idea from an exciting concept to multi-million-pound success story requires significant investment. There are four different phases of the Fundraising Journey — bootstrapping, start-up, scale-up and exit. In those first two early stages, you need to be astute about when to seek investment and the equity you offer in exchange.

Plenty of entrepreneurs are too narrow in their focus at the start of their Fundraising Journey. Instead of having a long-term strategy, they rush to secure funds and give away too much equity and control early on. This mistake comes back to haunt them later on when they exit the company without achieving their financial goals.

So, to ensure that your Fundraising Journey concludes successfully, you need to be smart in the early stages.

Phase 1: Bootstrapping

During the bootstrapping phase, you are likely to be funding the idea yourself. This first stage is defined by the time and money you inject into the concept to test and validate it. You may still be working elsewhere as a primary source of income while…