💥Our first Brighton & Hove pod of 2023 was about Entrepreneurship and Freelancing at Platf9rm in Hove - building your business or side projects growing it soundly and finding funding to help make it into your dream enterprise.

🤑 The world of Entrepreneurship and Freelancing can be daunting and full of pitfalls and hurdles— especially when you’re first starting out. The good news is that a lot of the issues you find scary can absolutely be addressed. In fact, you’ll probably prosper through the process of learning.

🤲 The event was filled to the brim with brilliant speakers and attendees — our session was hosted by Vestpod's pod leader, Karen Stenning.

🎙️Our panel discussed practical tips and insights, and our speakers included:

• Neema Amin - Business Mentor and Growth Strategist

• Helen Griffiths - Corporate & Audit Manager from Plus Accounting

• Kristina Pereckaite from South East Angels

• Timi Merriman-Johnson - financial content creator, podcaster, author and founder of Mr MoneyJar

a healthy bank balance and healthy rates

• Get to know your bank and look at your bank statements. Get yourself some good software and keep your bank details up to date and do a cash flow projection. Think about what costs that you've got coming up and how you can budget for them.

• Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Speak to your accountant or a friend and just be on it.

• It’s so daunting as a business owner and very easy to put your head in the sand. We just think it's going great — so get familiar with the numbers and dig into them.

• If you are thinking of starting a business or if you just started one, it's important to always look at your runway — how much time you have left if you were to stop making more money and just keep going as you are now, how much time you honestly have left until you run out cash — then you can plan for it.

• Some of the best bits of advice around setting your rate is if you're just starting out, you've got to test it. You just have to go out there and say something, and then next time you put it up ask around and figure out what other people are charging?

• For example, if you are trying to get sponsorship for something and in your head you might have a certain frame of mind about a hundred pounds being a lot, but somebody else might be asking for a thousand pounds — which is actually not a lot in that situation. That’s why you should ask around and really get to know what's happening in your market.

• Think about your costs, your living costs and what you need to cover and if you've got a minimum rate that you can't go below.

• Place value on your services and have confidence in what you can offer.

FINDING INVESTMENTS and funding

• The world of Venture Capital might seem very hidden and exclusive but it’s actually pretty straightforward. There's people out there who have money that if they invest it, they get a benefit whether it's equity in the company or tax relief. All you need to do is go find more people — and they're humans like everybody else.

• If you're raising equity funding, which is you are giving away equity for money and not debt funding, then you want to just put yourself in an investor's shoes.

• Investors are basically human beings who have had some success — they've sold their business and so they now have some money to spend. Figure out what kind of person would be interested in the industry and in your business and then you go and look for them. It doesn't have to be much more complicated than that.

• Focus on building a relationship with investors. No one is going to invest in your business the moment you pitch to them, especially if you're looking for VC funding. Ask for advice and find out who else you should be speaking to? It's a lot easier for them to introduce you to somebody else than just try to do it yourself.

• There are lots of sources of information out there — it's good to speak to your local Chamber of Commerce. Think about all the funding options and grants that might be available that the grant might suit.

• If you are not trying to give away equity, sometimes another option is partnering with another company that has money.

• There are also tons of grants out there and it's the easiest way to get money without giving anything away. Each grant is really bespoke. Be really clear when you are applying for a grant that this is exactly what you deliver on and you can showcase your business really well. Don't go applying for tens and thousands of grants.

• With companies like Innovate, if you're not successful they give great feedback and there's also an opportunity to go back and re-apply and sometimes, you get a part of that funding. So don't stop at the first — keep going.

• With grant funding, quite a lot of the funding you have to also fill in some of the money yourself. Sometimes you don’t realise that you have to pay for some of the product and services upfront themselves and then they plan a refund the grant. Make sure that when you're going through the application you understand exactly what you're going to get and when you're going to get it.

• Startups and early stage companies can't get debt funding because banks think they're too risky, which is why angel investors came about — to support these companies at those really early risky stages.

• Angel investors want to see that you've proven something, that you've got some sort of hypothesis that you've tested that validated something. Whether it's the product, the market, the customer or the problem.

• You can't turn up with just an idea cause no one's going to invest in just an idea. You have to prove that there's something here, there's something that you've got some grit in. There's two things that investors are looking for: do they think that you can get this over the line or are you going to crumble at the first hurdle that comes along? It’s also important to note that people also invest from an emotional perspective.

• If you are looking for an angel investor, also think about whether this the right angel that can help you in your business? Can they open doors? Can they help with an aspect where your team is currently a little bit weak? It's never about just the money.

• You also ought to be thinking about how you can help investors actually make more out of their money and gain tax relief.

less funding for women?

• There is a legacy situation with there were less women owning businesses before, so now there's less female investors. Angel investor wise, there's 14% of angel investors that are women in the UK, which is quite low.

• However, some great solutions are happening, but it’s going to take time. Female-run angel groups or female groups are an example. There are female investors in those groups specifically investing in female founders.

• Some of these initiatives end up being tick box exercises as opposed to actively investing in people of colour or investing in female-led businesses, however.

• Women also tend to be happier to bootstrap their businesses for longer. Plus, it's a confidence thing. It is very tough raising, you hear a lot of noise before you get to that stage which may be off-putting.

when should you take the leap?

• It is a personal thing to figure out — ask yourself why you created this side hustle. Is it to transition out of your nine to five, is it something to just make extra money or is it something else?

• You need to sit down and think about your finances. Are you planning on re-mortgaging? And if you're running any sorts of benefits at all, is that going to impact how much you get?

• Other questions to ask yourself are: can you live off this income? Is there enough coming in for you to be able to survive for the next 6 months, 12 months? What else do you need to be doing? Is this the lifestyle that you actually want?

Q&A FROM THE AUDIENCE

Q: What are some of the parameters that you'd look for to make something less risky still make a higher return?
A: Ultimately, you need to think about: if this works, how big could it really be? And obviously people think some ideas are stupid and they end up being great. A lot of it is personal judgment. As angel you are looking for ideally for a 10x return because most of your investments are going to fail and return nothing and you lose your money. That’s why at least one out of the 10 needs to return the full amount. You need to show your financial model, not a forecast.

Q: In your experience, how many people go for that emotional connection, rather than the returns?
A: Almost everybody does it for return, but the emotional connection matters as well. The way that angels tend to do it is they'll have say you've just put yourself in the shoes, just sold your business and you've got a hundred million, you've gone to a wealth partner and they've said, okay, we're going to put a lot of this into something that is going to return five x return just slowly over 10 years to pay an income for the rest of your life. And then they'll say, okay, you're going to want some play money to go and do something that you can lose. So they'll say 10% of this or whenever you decide you go and invest in whatever you want, but you have to be willing to lose it.

Q: Do you have any recommendations on how to get pitch ready? Is there anyone you can recommend working with specifically that isn't necessarily a business themselves? You also mentioned about finding the right investors. How do you do that? How do you find people that connect with what you're building?
A: Your pitch deck — there is a lot of information online. There's also lots of events around pitching, lots of places that do free pitch events where you can just get practice in because it is daunting getting up there and pitching and answering questions. When it comes to finding investors, you need to know - how much do you need to raise first of all? If it’s a very small amount of money, so let's say under 250,000, then you are probably looking at high net worth individuals like angels or friends and family. If you're looking at a lot more money, then you might look at a syndicated route or you might look at VC funding. Always check the track record: has this investor invested in my type of business before? How have they performed as an investor? Have them made a good return? How are they interacting with that business? How have they helped that person? Remember, once you let somebody into your business, until you sell your business, they're a part of your business and you're stuck with them. You need to ensure that you are aligned to them and you are happy to work with this person.

Thank you for joining our event and please make sure to save the date for our next one on May 16th, 2023 at Platf9rm in Hove - which will be all about spring cleaning your finances! Please follow our Eventbrite and join our WhatsApp community by emailing hello@vestpod.com