The Difficulty Of Finding An Investor During Tough Economic Times

I thought I would write this article to not only draw attention to the rough times for small business owners today, but how difficult it has been for me trying to find funding by way of loan or investor for my small business. With The Recovery Act doing nothing so far to loosen up the banking system to give the little guy a chance to create new jobs and take your business to the next level. I’m living proof that this money is not being given to small business owners like me.

In my journey to raise capital the family and friends money is not an option in these times. When trying to aquire a bank loan, even with the SBA raising the Guarantee to 90%, my bank won’t give me a loan because they still want the too much equity. My business does not have any equity due to my business being 99% online ecommerce at this point and having no physical real estate yet. All of my equity is sweat equity by way of the time and effort it has taken me to build my business from the ground up. I have gotten this far by bootstrapping and putting all profits back into my company. I only keep enough product to sell for a couple of months at a time, so factoring isn’t an option.

From the banks own words “a private lender, hard money lender, angel, or VC is your best option”. “Build some equity and then we would be willing to make the loan”. This is not the worst problem to have, but it is a full time job in itself trying to find interested investors to talk to and then there is the paid search services.

I have visited all of the get funded websites ( Angels, Private Lenders, VC, etc) to make my pitch and have generated a lot of buzz and interest in my opportunity. 120 responses at one site. The only problem is that each of these sites wants from $150-$300 per month just to respond to investor inquiries. That is a big problem for me right now because of my financial situation.

I am a full time single father with 3 young boys, and I have not received child support for the last two years so the little extra that could have helped the last couple of years was not there so I have had to struggle to keep a roof over our heads and try to build a business. I also cannot afford daycare anymore now that my boys are out of school for the summer. So spending that kind of money on all of these investor sites without a guarantee of funding is like playing the lottery. On top of that you never know who you can trust.

I have already found out the shady side of looking for an investor when a con artist posing as an investor tried to get me to send him money up front for the “Due Diligence” process. Well, I checked this guy out before hand and come to find out he was not who he said he was. His website did not have the face of a multi-million dollar company which he said he was the CEO of. The bank account he gave me was legit, however, the banking agent said this guy’s name wasn’t on this account. He would not prove his identity to me either. His successful past references were too busy to be bothered and they only had free email accounts at @gmail and @hotmail, respectively.

Good thing I always research everything and and I did some due diligence of my own before considering sending any money. Through my research I found out there is many that were less fortunate than me. This guy scammed about 20-25 others out of $2000-$3000 each and now they are stuck trying to get their money back. If I fell victim to this piece of trash I would be living in the streets with my children.

Ok, Let me bring us back to where I am at this point. I have spent the past couple of years putting myself and my business in postion to become successful and create well needed jobs in my community. I have to deal with the mounting stress of not having capital and watching my business fail before my eyes because I cannot find the money that I need. It is not a matter selling enough product but rather of not having enough product to sell.

Right now I am stuck and not sure what to do or where to turn. I have the never give up atitude, but that is even starting to wear thin due to all of the setbacks. I do know failure is not an option because how am I supposed to find a decent job in this economy.

I want to be the job creator. I want to be the struggling single father success story, to give others hope that it can be done. I want my product line to become a household name because it is seen in 50-60 million households every time my commercials run. I want my products on mass merchandise retail shelves all across the country. This is all possible within the next 12-18 months if I find proper funding for my business. My commercials will be running in 60 days.

I have done all of the research. I have mapped out my marketing plan. I know my competitors better than they know themselves. I have my own proprietary business model that is revolutionary in my industry. I have not seen one competitor anywhere near the level of internet marketing experience or expertise that I bring to a huge consumer market.

When I purchased my first computer 12 years ago my goal was to build a successful business to take care of my family and to give my children the best opportunity to be successful in everything they want to do in life. I have studied how the internet works for over 10 years, I have become a SEO expert. I have become a professional web designer, graphic designer, I have mastered many different software platforms. I have learned internet marketing from some of the best in the world and I still learn something new every day.

Some experts believe the difference between success and non-success, genius and mediocrity, is to have at least 10,000 hours of practice in order to be successful. Of course it does take intelligence and talent, but experts have arrived at the magic number 10,000 hours for true expertise.

10,000 hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week, of practice over 10 years… No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery. I can honestly say I went over 10,000 hours a few years back but due to circumstances have been unable to take advantage of my talents and expertise.

Some might criticize me for writing this article because it might be looked at as desparation? I will say this to those that do, have a little compassion for a father trying to do whatever it takes to keep a roof over his family’s head and make his business successful. It is not easy to go to sleep every night knowing that you are just as close to being successful as you are to losing everything you have.

I know the internet very well and I know how to get my content in front of my intended audience. I hope this article  finds its way to the investor that will help give my company the financial boost it needs. You have to pull out all the stops and get creative sometimes. This is my way! It might not be conventional but if you have read this far I must say “Thank You” and I appreaciate your time.

To make things convenient I have designed a centralized point of information on my company which can be found at KnockOut-Products.com so that no matter how an investor first hears of my opportunity they have a source of information they can go to. This is my simplified method to communicate my opportunity to investors so they will can learn enough about my business. I have also set up a contact form to capture investor interest and respond accordingly.

Thank you

Travis Holzem

http://knockout-products.com
http://knockoutodors.com