I’m the CEO of a fast growing company that is a little over one-year-old. We have grown from 4 employee’s to around 175. We funded through friends and family and we have been far outperforming our sales / revenue goals. We manufacturer our products in addition to selling them and our ability to scale our unique manufacturing process has been our biggest bottle neck. We are now thinking we may need outside funding to overcome this bottle neck but this is one area of the company that none of us have any experience in. (Raising money in anyway) and we are still very new for banks to really be interested.
Questions
Where can I connect with a mentor / solid consultant to help guide us through growth and funding?
7 answers from the community
A· Mar 27, 2015
If you're at a stage where "around" 175 employees (you should know that #) are producing for you, all of the above should be cake. You just need a plan. If 175 people are doing legitimate things then outside advisors, investors, etc should be interested. All the best.
A· Mar 27, 2015
Find companies that had a similar growth trajectory, but are a few years ahead of you (and roughly where you want to be 3 years from now). Then try to get the founder/CEO of that company to mentor you.
A· Sep 1, 2015
Seriously? This person has grown the company from 4 to 175 people and you want him to go ask some other CEO to work for him for free and help him/her raise money? It baffles me the entitlement in startup community.
No, just pay for a business broker. If you have 175 employees, that means that you have plenty of money to pay for a broker dealer to seal the deal. It should be easy for company of your size because you have finances in order, revenues, COGS, etc.
A· Mar 27, 2015
Thanks for taking the time to respond guys. To begin the process of talking to outside advisors, where do you guys usually start? LinkedIn? I've reached out to my network I know but nobody really had anybody they would recommend.
A· Mar 28, 2015
Go to conferences and meet ups and just network
A· Sep 1, 2015
ACG.org is trade organizations for mid-market broker dealers. Don't waste time going to conferences, you can find a ton of brokers at this and similar organizations. Just Google them and check their web sites and deals they have closed in the past. They will take 5% fee, retainer, but of you are growing nicely, it should be an EASY process for you. Good luck
A· Apr 10, 2015
employee #176 should be a manufacturing engineer with experience . He will be much, much cheaper than outside investment. Money typically doesn't solve manufacturing bottlenecks, people do.