Getting investment at any stage is hard enough let alone when you are in the early stages of pre- revenue or pre-product. At Appomate, our mission is to make app entrepreneurship accessible for every day Australians and to increase the rate of success of Australian start-ups.
We’ve created the Germinate Program specifically for entrepreneurs who are in that early stage and rely on their first round of external investors, typically referred to as ‘seed funding’ or ‘pre-seed funding’ in the start-up world.
A lot of founders we speak to have a brilliant idea but it’s often the first time in their life they’ve considered building a start-up and have no clue where or how to find investors for their idea. Even founders that have their own money to bootstrap their idea often reach a stage where they need external investors to keep their dream alive. They under-estimate what it takes to get their idea to a stage where it can self-sustain or even start to get traction. Running out of capital is among the top 3 reasons why start-ups typically fail.
The most common misconception often made by founders is that their brilliant idea alone is all they need to attract investors. This couldn’t be any further from reality.
What separates the founders who do get successful seed round investment from those who don’t is not the idea but how well they got the basics of their start-up right and how ‘investor ready’ they are.
Our 12-week program will not only help you become investor ready but will enable you to start getting traction with your seed funding investors.
Every week we will workshop a specific step critical to your fund raising success. You take away your learnings and our templates to prepare the relevant information and documentations. You’ll also get direct 1 on 1 time with one of our fundraising experts every month to review your documentations and receive specific feedback.
By the end of the 12 weeks, you will have gone from someone with just an idea to an informed founder with the right structure and basics in place, increasing your chances of fundraising tenfold!
Developing your story and pitch to the point that you can connect to it with purpose and share it in a way investors will understand.
Discovering and clarifying the different ways you can structure your start-up and its governance and what makes the most sense for your situation.
Mapping out a plan of where you are now, where you want to get to and how you’ll get here.
Identifying and developing a plan of who you’ll need in your team and having the ‘Founders Agreements’ in place.
Getting clear on who your right market is, how big it really is and developing a go-to-market strategy to reach that market.
Understanding the possible revenue models and pricing strategies and what works best for your app.
Identifying potential exit plans for yourself and your investors.
Getting the valuation, capitalisation table and shareholder agreements necessary for your fundraising.
Understanding and identifying different capital instruments and capital sources for your seed round. Tip: VC’s are often not interested at this stage and most funding programs out in the market unfortunately focus on VC’s.
Having your pitch deck ready, as well as a strategy for PR campaigns to build on your story.
Identifying your target investors and creating a plan for networking and contacting to reach out to them.
Getting your term sheets, information memorandum and due diligence documents for your fundraising ready.
You will get the opportunity to pitch your start-up to a group including active investors.