money

Bugger me, I never speak about money.

Guess it's the upbringing, money was never talked about, price not discussed, what one or others earned or the wealth thereof was definitely a no-no.

That's why I do not push hard to get any investors in my endeavours. Like to go it alone.

But honestly, six years of funding development and other fun is pretty darn hard on the "wine budget" I can tell, confidentially.

And it wouldn't be bad to speed up things a notch either, now that the stuff is gelling.

So when some "friends of the house" showed interest last autumn I was listening.

I'm not a complete novice in such matters - have done six LBOs for my own purse in my earlier life and arranged many an acquisition for others, so the technical side and other aspects of deal making is not an unknown.

That said, the rest of the path, the last few meters to the bank seems to drag out as even rich people have constraints on their cash-flow. Alas, a fact not always included in the discussions.

Must be their good upbringing.

Sigh. Time to push. Or go with another interested party.

Ah, the life of being an entrepreneur...

Comments

[Paul Robinson]

You could of course sell a beta subscription to what you have.

"Give me $x now, and you can spend the next six months playing with this getting a head-start on everybody else".

Do it right, you could go without the funding and retain your equity. Cashflow is always a better option than taking investment.

[sig]

Paul, agree to both points.

But (heh, why always a but...)

I really like the adoption to be a "no brainer", not a "sale" which requires convincing and much song and dance. So we offer it for free to tinker with and sometimes help a bit in building some early prototype or pilot.
Thus the risk for the "buyer/inside evangeliser" is limited to some work and hours while the upside will be as you mentioned.
When in daily use license fee per user and month kicks in, no binding, all upgrades and support included of course.

(Then of course we think that one process will expand to next process (and more users), then next etc. Trojan Horse'y so to say)

I could always wiggle financially sideways as before, but at some point in time one needs to crank up and this seems to be the right time. With that kind of extra pressure my focus wanders and then it might be worth it to part with a bit - expensive yes - and obviously not if it gets counterproductive due to "funny" term sheets. That would make the exercise moot anyway... ;)

[bren]

You could always get a good sales engineer in? ref: todays dilbert, http://www.dilbert.com (that would be tuesdays)