I gave up funding for my mobile App || How to fund your dream with $0

Hey you!

How’re you? It’s a Friday and since it’s “our newsletter” day, it always comes off exciting for me. Tell me, are you really okay yourself? Did you enjoy the week?

Late December last year, on that flight from Nigeria to Uganda, i could have sworn that i knew how each month of 2024 was going to span out, what i was going to be working on building my business, with who, what results i’d achieve et cetra. Infact, i had started to feel like a Mr productivity of sorts, the African version of Ali Abdaal. Just to put you up to speed, i’d planned to have launched 2-3 digital products and my mobile App by April. When i was doing the casual financial projections in my head, I thought to myself, “this is itttttt” Because as per the rough projections in my head, the first 1000 users on the app would take me to multiple five figures of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).

As you must have rightly guessed, am behind schedule. Why? because each product if executed in the manner i initially desired would require a five figure investment. Am obviously not casual about the fact that am behind schedule because i surely know i can do better. What am excited about though is that one of the digital products; The YouTube Millionaire Kit (YMK 1.0) is launching in a few days. ( Let me know if you’d need it by replying to this email)

In abid to source for that five figure funding for my mobile App, i did an informal pitch last week but here’s the surprising bit; 20 minutes into it, i realized i didn’t need that particular money. Make no mistake, i need every coin I can get my hands on for growth, for investment into my creative career, to finance the products i want to launch etc but that particular one didn’t seem a good option. WHY? As creatives, when we’re creating something, we have a rough idea of who we’re creating it for and what it’s intended to solve. Mid having that pitch, i noticed that my would be funders preferred to make changes to my mobile App idea. It would change who am envisioning it for, who’ll develop it, who will manage it. That’s not all, some of it’s features as well. Just so i can bring you in, my desired mobile App is a product that would predominantly be usable by people who’re building businesses on the internet not just in my locality but internationally. It becomes tricky if your would be funders for instance envision your idea different from that. So I told myself I would fund it myself.

Immediately after that, I had a Q&A with myself. I thought to myself, “What happens if you didn’t have money to invest in your dream?” How can you get money to start a business which you didn’t have in the first place?” Do you give up the idea and beat yourself up for the rest of your life for not getting a chance at seeing your baby blossom? May be No. What do you do then? Maybe you partner with someone who has the money you need and is interested in investing in your innovation. Did you notice something? I bet you did. You’ll probably have to reward them with shares in your innovation which may in future restrict your creative freedom at your innovation, or they could wish to switch the vision on your innovation or both which gets us back to where I started. So what do you do? You get the money to fund it by yourself. How? By Bootstrapping. Tech bros and Tech Sis on this newsletter hear this term a lot. But in a nutshell, it means starting a business from 3 income sources;

1. personal savings

2. borrowed or invested funds from family or friends

3. revenue from your initial sales.

Or simply hustling your way out on your business.

That then leads us to our next wonder; how do you raise money in the bootstrap model? Because you were at zero. I think these can be a good idea

1. Obviously funds from friends and family. Could be borrowed or they invest in your business.

2. Money made from your MVP. An MVP simply means a Minimum Viable product that you can put up for sale. If for example your desired product has 15 features but you can launch an initial working product of 5 features, you can make some revenue off those sales. Obviously, an MVP sells at a lower price than the final product.

3. Money made from a Job, freelancing and consultancies. This is self explanatory isn’t it? Fiverr and Upwork are good platforms for you to freelance.

4. Creating and selling digital products. I always like this option because digital products are low to no cost in production and distribution. You can design some of them on your own and sell out big. Last week I wrote about 10 good digital product ideas but the top 4 are; eBooks, audio books, courses, stock videos and pictures.

5. Selling for a commission. The top ways you can sell for a commission is Affiliate marketing and selling real estate. I think these are so powerful because they give you fair chunks of money to invest in your business.

Reply to this email and tell me what’s your best from the 5.

Before I sign off, if you have goodies that you believe this audience or that of my YouTube channel may be interested in, reach out.

With that said, thanks for reading on and see you next week.

Denis!

Get a copy of my digital planner, set goals for 2024 & keep yourself accountable :- https://selar.co/150b1u

If you forgot to jump on my YouTube channel ,you can do via :- https://youtube.com/@denisdahub

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