Is Your Business Project, Fund, and Raise Ready? Start Here.
March 3, 2021
We wrote this article for entrepreneurs to be “Project Ready” when seeking to raise funds. Not only are we trusting this will help our Global Leaders Organization (GLO) members have a path to raising capital, we trust this will help our future members realize the benefits of joining GLO. Over the years of being part of Peer-to-Peer entrepreneurial and leadership organizations (EO, YPO, Vistage, CEO, TEC) we have consistently found the need for entrepreneurs to have access to capital. We have also noticed a significant bottleneck between investors finding the “right deals” and a plethora of small businesses and start-ups struggling to find the “right investors.” GLO is a membership platform designed to eliminate that bottleneck while simplifying the solicitation of funds process. This brings us to entrepreneurs needing to be “project, fund, and raise” ready. The first is “project ready.” Each business must be “project ready” to acquire the investment they seek.
What does it mean to be “Project Ready”?
Project Ready means that there is a defined business or project with a plan that is ready to be implemented.
What documents will I need?
These are the documents we consider minimally required to be “project ready”:
- Incorporation Documents: The documentation of the legal incorporation of the company. Securing your incorporation documents should be no problem for any member of GLO. If you are raising capital for a new company, the GLO investment platform will not be a good fit.
- Licenses to do business: Different types of companies need to have different licenses to operate. Your business may not require any license. Your business may require a license for the individual operator or the business. Proof that you have the required licenses to do business is part of being project-ready.
- Business Plan: What is the plan for your business? A business plan can be a simple one-page document, or it can be a well-researched multi-chapter. At a minimum, the business plan needs to explain:
- what you are doing,
- how you will do it,
- who will be doing it, and
- the financials: you’re current and projected
The more involved a business is, the more you ask for a plan you will need.
- Financial Forecasts: Built upon your current financials, you need to answer the questions of how you will pay back a lender or provide a return to an investor. Your financial forecast should show how the established trendlines of your business.
- Due Diligence Material: The collection of the due diligence material is what supports or proves the material in your business plan and financial forecasts. Examples of due diligence material would be principals’ professional biographies, crucial client contracts, appraisals of property, and more. The due diligence material for each industry and company will be unique.
These documents are in no way everything you need to be “project ready”; they are what we ask for as a minimum to be eligible to publish on the Invest.withGLO platform.
Next Steps
To our GLO and future GLO members, you are not alone. You can attempt to assemble the team you need to become “project, fund, and raise ready” but this can take months and a significant amount of cash out of your Piggy Bank. We are here to help simplify the capital raise process while making sure you are in a peer-to-peer network of business leaders like yourself. Take advantage of all our resources in the areas of a community of entrepreneurs, commercial avenues to do business with other members, content that is at your fingertips or through your local chapter, and, without a doubt, access to capital when you need it.
After your company is Project Ready — the next step is Fund Ready.
Article by Joseph Barisonzi and Vince Poscente
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