“If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will do it for you.” – Kobe Bryant. As for this famous quote from the legend of the basketball world, I am a firm believer in that as well. That is why I often tell my potential clients that no one will invest in your idea if you’re not willing to invest first!
Because you can’t expect someone to believe in your idea more than yourself.
But let’s get things by order; let me first explain why I feel strongly about that quote.
A typical week for me is five to ten calls with entrepreneurs with ideas at various stages, at a pre-seed stage, seed stage, or far more excelled. That is why I love what I do – you get to learn and discover new ideas, people, and challenges.
That’s where Appy excels and can genuinely help.
However, 50% of those calls go something like this:
“I have an idea; it’s like the new Facebook/ Airbnb/ Uber and will make billions. Can you do everything for me for free, and I will give you some equity?”
The short answer is no.
But my emotional answer is that my two little children don’t eat air, I need to feed them food – real food. That means earning money for our expertise to get them from the idea stage to the prototype.
Once we’re past the prototype stage and looking at an MVP, we might consider for the right ideas discounting our costs or even co-investing but selectively.
The truth is, no one will invest in your idea if you’re not willing to invest yourself first! If you’re not willing to invest some money in your idea, that shows how much you believe in it.
Yes, you might invest time, but you’re being rewarded for that with learning. Putting cash on the line genuinely demonstrates that you believe in this.
I had a call this week with an entrepreneur with great drive and focus. Once we talked about the costs to go through our Prototyping Workshop (£3k), he said, “I need to do this, I don’t have the money now, but I’ll save up for it because I believe in my idea”.
And now, I believe in him as an entrepreneur.
