8 Hours to Initial Success
Starting a new business or project can be full of financial risks which, if handled incorrectly, can destroy your dreams and strain your most important relationships to the breaking point. Yet, done the right way, your favorite idea can be safely launched and funded by following the step by step plan described below.
People ask me, “How long will it take for me to start getting results?” Below are time estimates for each step in the process.
In the Launch & Grow Sequence you will know if you can truly receive monthly payments for your idea within only eight hours of initial work. From there, you can expand monthly revenue to cover your basic personal needs and business operating expenses.
Having your monthly income safety net in place is the best foundation for success in all aspects of building your dream business or project, and makes it much easier to raise larger investment checks to fulfill your mission when you are ready.
How it works
Whatever type of business you want to start, most people are inspired by entrepreneurs and many would love to make modest recurring payments to help someone like you get your project off the ground. A lot of these same people will be willing and able to invest in a soundly designed capital round when you are ready to make an offer to them.
Unfortunately, 99% of new business founders either try to completely self-fund their project, or jump ahead to capital raises without having the ability to survive the effort it takes to conduct a fundraising campaign or maintain integrity with their backers if they somehow succeed. This creates a vicious stress cycle for founders, their families, and their backers. This entire cycle of failure can be replaced with a beautiful growth journey if you follow the steps in Launch & Grow Sequence.
By building a membership of as little as 50 to 100 people around their vision and mission, most aspiring entrepreneurs and leaders around the world can gain enough recurring monthly income to quit or reduce their other income generating work in order to increasingly focus on their own project.
The economic security provided by this monthly income allows you to avoid almost all costly mistakes commonly made by founders. The more you grow your membership, the more you can also pay for certain inevitable costs associated with raising larger sums of money.
The individual step descriptions include expected time commitments for my mentoring students. While I provide all of my training materials to the world for free, if you want the best results, book a free discovery call to see if working with me would be a good fit for you and your goals.
Guide 1 – Your Leader State
Time: 2 Hours
This is my foundational program for all aspiring business founders and leaders!
- I teach you how to write your Project Description and Leader Profile in a way that inspires others to support you and your vision.
- You also learn how to instantly access the power of Your Leader State by reading your new documents to yourself in the mirror.
My mentoring students typically complete this Step during a single 2-hour Zoom meeting.
Guide 2 – Get Paid to Lead
Part A: 6 hours — Reach proof of concept
1 Hour – We use your Project Description and Leader Profile to help you set up your recurring income system on the MakeMyNut App or another suitable recurring income platform like GoFundMe or Patreon.
1 Hour – I will walk you through a secret method for getting super comfortable pitching your recurring membership to others. You will also receive invaluable coaching from me on how to share your pitch with potential members, and learn exactly where to find unlimited numbers of people to contact individually and personally invite to join your monthly membership program.
4 Hours – Here is where you work on your own, applying everything you’ve learned so far to prove to yourself that you can raise as much recurring monthly income as you want. Everything beyond this point is aimed at streamlining the process and doing the work consistently until you reach your monthly income goal.
Part B: 42 Hours — Streamline and repeat the process
1 Hour – We will set up a free, easy-to-use email autoresponder for you with Sender.net for building your funding community and sending monthly email updates to your paid members.
1 Hour – We’ll get you onboarded with a powerful yet reasonably-priced CRM (contact relationship manager) that you will use to steadily grow your membership.
40 Hours – You will use the all the processes and tools you acquired so far to ramp up your recurring paid membership. In the first eight hours you proved that the method works. In this next 40 hours, you’ll rapidly replicate the process to fund all or at least a good chunk of your monthly income goal.
By building your membership community this way, you are also building and educating a large pool of potential investors who will be ready to quickly provide capital, loans, or even large donations for your project once you are ready to roll out a focused fundraising campaign in the next step. You can’t really avoid building a funding community if you ever aim to raise outside money, so why not get paid while you do it?
On the other hand, if you already have a large base of fans or customers, you can greatly reduce the time needed to generate enough recurring revenue to support a serious fundraising campaign, including building up sufficient financial reserves to cover certain unavoidable costs related to raising money such as highly skilled legal work, bookkeeping, and accounting.
Wherever you’re starting from, I will be available for spot mentoring to help you resolve and overcome any issue throughout the process.
Guide 3 – Raise Capital Right
Time: Three Months
For most inexperienced founders, raising money is an afterthought. The fact is, raising money can be nearly a full time job in itself. By building your membership first in the steps above, you will greatly reduce the time and cost normally required to raise capital or grants, but it still takes a big time commitment.
Fortunately, by this point, you will have enough financial freedom from the prior steps to be able to safely put in the time or even hire a Director of Development to assist you in the effort.
2 Hours – You will learn and begin implementing my rapid strategic planning method which will clearly show you how much money you will need, and at what time, to accomplish your mission.
2 Hours – We will develop your Capital Plan which will be your roadmap for raising money.
Most people have heard of Business Plans but hardly any have ever heard of a Capital Plan. The fact is, raising capital is almost like running a second business. Instead of selling your core product or service, when you raise capital, you are actually selling an Investment Product.
Like any other product, investment products need to be designed and sold. And the market for your specific investment products is typically very different than the market for your core products and services. This is why it is crucial to start designing your Capital Plan as soon as you recognize that you will be raising money in the future. Most inexperienced founders wait until it is too late, resulting in failure to fulfill their dreams.
2 Hours – We will master the concepts of the ideal pitch deck and backup materials. While pitch decks are nearly useless when used in the ways taught by inexperienced writers in popular literature, the simple, investor-oriented story that great pitch decks tell when done right is vital to your success both as a fundraiser and business operator.
90 Days – With each of the above steps in place, you will now have the time freedom, financial resources, and roadmap you need to raise your first capital round within about three months of dedicated effort. As with each of the prior Steps, I will be there to advise and guide you at every step of your fundraising journey.
What about tax-exempt organizations?
Tax-exempt organizations are very difficult to start and scale up because they can’t legally raise capital and borrowing for growth is extremely difficult. While for-profit entities can sell Investment Products to raise expansion capital, tax-exempt organizations typically can only sell what I call Donation Products which are generally earmarked almost entirely for program services, not for expansion.
Having launched and run numerous mission-oriented enterprises on the tax-exempt and for-profit compliance platforms, I have concluded that for-profit enterprises are far better suited for addressing the kinds of challenges that interest me personally.
That said, if you are already operating a tax-exempt enterprise, I can help you maximize your ability to raise money for it, and if appropriate, help guide you to the most powerful combination of business platforms and strategies to satisfy your most urgent personal and operational needs, and set you on track to achieve your highest goals. Book a free discovery call to see if working with me is the right step for you.