How I Secured a Six-Figure Investment To Start My Dream Business
Written by
Nicole Spector
Edited by
Levi Leidy
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When Octavia Goredema made the decision to create her own tech startup, Fire Memos, roughly a year ago, the odds were not particularly in her favor. The main hurdles to overcome had nothing to do with her plan or business model, but rather her race and gender.
Goredema is a Black woman, and, according to recent data from Crunchbase, Black women received a mere 0.34% of total venture capital funding in the U.S. in 2021. Goredema had never raised capital before, so she had the added disadvantage of being inexperienced in that regard.
But, Goredema persevered and managed to raise a six-figure investment for her tech startup.
In the hopes to empower others to chase their dreams of launching a business, Goredema spoke with GOBankingRates about her journey to becoming a highly successful entrepreneur. These are four key moves she made to secure a six-figure investment to launch Fire Memos.
She Created a Pitch Deck and Shared It With Her Mentor
“The first thing I did was create a pitch deck that detailed the business opportunity,” Goredema said. “I shared that with my mentor at Dell’s Women Entrepreneur Network, made updates based on his feedback and from there I started to raise capital.”
She Spent Several Months Fine-Tuning Products
Goredema spent several months in development and invested time in reviewing, testing and fine-tuning Fire Memo’s initial features.
She still does this regularly to ensure the business is as strong as it can be.
“We continue to make updates and add new Fire Memos features every single week,” Goredema said. “It’s really exciting to be able to continue to add components that enable our subscribers to record and evaluate their progress at work.”
She Worked With a Highly Active Pre-Seed Investor
Gordema received her first investment from Techstars, which she described as the world’s most active pre-seed investor, with a team that has invested in over 4,000 startups across the globe.
“Securing that investment required us to submit an application that included a pitch deck,” Goredema said. “We then took part in a series of interviews with the Techstars team. By the end of a comprehensive interview process we secured a six-figure investment and were accepted into the Techstars Anywhere accelerator.”
She Hired a Legal Firm To Ensure Due Diligence
Gordema didn’t go through the fine print of securing an investment alone. Wisely, she retained the services of a law firm to help make sure everything was clean and kosher.
“Before an investor wires the investment funds, you will need to successfully complete due diligence,” Goredema said. “Due diligence refers to a comprehensive appraisal process that an investor will undertake before committing capital to your company.”
The legal firm Goredema hired specialized in startups — an important factor.
“Their team worked side by side with me to prepare everything we needed to close the investment,” Gordema said. “If you’re planning to raise capital for the first time, make sure to have an attorney on standby to work with you to complete necessary paperwork before, during and after you close your investment round.”
Gordema’s story is real-life proof that even when the odds are stacked against you, if you have a solid business plan, a savvy mentor, an experienced legal team and all the determination you can muster, the dream of being a successful entrepreneur can be realized — possibly more quickly than you may have thought.
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