Starting a business has been (and is still) the most beautiful adventure for entrepreneurs and the most exiting one for others.
Once set up, there is no way to double back. We are entrepreneur. We move forward and we don’t look back, for no reason. Discover new skills, so far unknown, by doing a thousand actions for our business. Persist and believe in the product no matter what, even failures, disappointments, and so one.
Get the motivation to open ambitious opportunities, make ourselves famous, even when financial resources does not follow.
You might not be concerned, but here is the truth: Open a business in France is difficult. The lack of support for entrepreneurs, taxes or must-be investments to come, are barriers to business prosperity. Fortunately, we still meet optimistic startups, which (like us) think the country still allows us to undertake and even get back on track after a failure.
This optimism shapes a growing number of entrepreneurs. The French Touch is more focused on high technologies than ever, especially in mobile.
Of course, one of the milestone when starting a business is the fundraising. Looking for investors and VC companies is often seen as a strong opportunity for startups which wisely choose not decide a business model. Instead, they let the market decide for them 🙂
It is clear that a funding only based a a simple idea (even brilliant) is increasingly uncommon. Having a prototype or even test the product for real is a must to assess the product attractiveness.
During the next subsection, we list two real smart and relevant ways for a startup to get fundings. For a full list of existing means, you can find many articles on the web on this topic.
IT for Equity.
Few months ago, an entrepreneur came to us with an idea. At this time, he has a well-paid job.
His motivation and his “move-forward” attitude inspired us a lot: He had in mind buying a house with his money, but instead, he decided not to in order to release his product and quit his job the same time.
A solid professional relationship settled between us. He wanted to work with APPSTUD and we wanted to develop his product. However, our financial vision did not match is investment capabilities.
So we spent time on how to make it work: change the functional scope, decrease our profit. It was not enough.
The solution finally came naturally: Why don’t we set up IT for Equity ? We choose to develop his mobile app reducing our costs significantly in return for a share in the capital of this company.
A fully functional prototype has been made and tried by several beta users. Several modifications have been made during the development process based on beta users feedbacks.
During every pitch they attended, the product were showable and could be tried. Results have been positive: This mobile streaming project will be officially released in about two weeks from now and has to date raised 200k euros in early stage. The entrepreneur is currently recruiting his own team.
To sum up this story simply: with a well-thought idea, some mobile agencies can support startups in early stage to develop prototypes, in order to make the fundraising easier. It is a middle major stage before setting up their own team.
Stronger than IT for Equity: Startup co-founding
We recently met Ekito in their beautiful building in Toulouse, France. Just like Xavier Niel and his huge 1000 startup incubator project, but with a deeper support, Ekito can be defined as a Company builder. Or startup co-founder.
Stronger than a multi-skilled designers, architects, makers, or business developers team, Ekito is able to follow a project at any stage. From the very beginning (the idea) to the brand positioning, technical design, media buzz, etc…
It supports the innovative startup MoiChef, offering to anybody to cook a starred chef meal. It is not about reading a recipe, but be delivered all ingredients to cook it perfectly. Great idea, isn’t it ? This company got well known after its buzz with Uber: the drivers were delivering via MoiChef, the products and recipe to their customers. Marvellous!
