Founding a company isn’t easy, and one of it’s main difficulties is getting funding. For our startup we’re very lucky that we don’t need much capital to start working, but we needed to get a minimum of 3000€ to start a company.
I thought that it wouldn’t be too hard to find a freelance job and that I’ll get the money like that. But then it wasn’t so easy. I established quite a lot of conversations but I didn’t manage to get the job in the end. The date for founding the startup was coming nearer and I was still quite far away of what I needed.
That’s when I decided to use the 3 Fs (Friends, Fools and Family), even though I really didn’t want to do this because I wanted to get all the money on my own. But I didn’t really have any other option.
I’m quite lucky because I have a massive family, so I decided to do something like crowdfunding, get a bit of money from each family member and with that try get as much money as possible. But in crowdfunding you usually give something in exchange, and I would feel guilty and I think that it would’ve been harder if I hadn’t done this.
I couldn’t give out T-shirts for a 5-10€ donation, but I could give out badges and magnets with out startup’s logo. I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t for 2clickas and Puri & Kutxa, who do magnificent badges and magnets. I asked for 50 badges and 50 magnets and in just a few days I had them, just in time for my first family reunion.
I also prepared a piece of paper with information on what I was doing to give out to the different family members indicating that they could give any amount of money they wanted but suggesting 5 to 10€.
So in the different family meetings and when meeting friends I would go from family member to family member giving out a piece of paper and explaining in person my project and why I was doing this sort of crowdfunding.
It was amazing how everyone wanted to help me and support me and everyone came to me giving me some money. Counting it all up, it’s quite near to 500€, which might not be a lot of money, but it’s what I needed to start running my startup.
Thanks to everyone who helped out!
