Nose To The Grindstone Nose To The Grindstone

Money, baby, that's what we wanted. But how do you get that money? We weren't quite sure, yet. We knew that we had something nobody had seen before, potentially the "next big thing." The Global Crowdfunding Convention gave us the opportunity to sit down with investors, but we weren't quite sure if we wanted to give up a piece of the pie. At least not yet.

We decided to try our hand with traditional funding. Other people did it, why not us. And Nevada State Bank was known for how much they liked to work with small businesses. We had a meeting with their business lending department where they dissected our business plan, asking questions, and requesting more information. To our amazement, they loved the idea, and wanted to work with us.

As Richard Meeker always, "You've got to cross your t's and dot your lower case j's." And that's just what we did. We dug into the business plan, expanded some areas, fine tuning other parts, and smoothed out the budget. A meeting with SCORE,a non-profit organization for small businesses helped me get the budget formatted in a way that they bank would want. We bumped up the amount we were asking for so that we wouldn't run out of funds part way through development, and viola, money! Ok, it wasn't exactly that fast. There were mountains of forms to fill out, and the process several months to get through, but by the time February had rolled around, we had cash in the bank.

There was money in the bank, a patent in our file cabinet, and the goal of cutting our ribbon for Frameless at the Las Vegas Amazing Comic Con. For that to happen we had to finalize our design, coordinate with 3 different manufacturers, sample and order the packaging materials, revise the website along with the developing the shopping cart, and lock in our placement at the con. It was a complicated ballet that literally had us receiving product and packaging until the morning we had to load in at comic con. Or nerves were raw, we were beyond exhausted, but it didn't matter, because in a few short hours we would be cutting our ribbon for Frameless with all of our friends, family, and loyal fans in attendance.

Money, baby, that's what we wanted. But how do you get that money? We weren't quite sure, yet. We knew that we had something nobody had seen before, potentially the "next big thing." The Global Crowdfunding Convention gave us the opportunity to sit down with investors, but we weren't quite sure if we wanted to give up a piece of the pie. At least not yet.

We decided to try our hand with traditional funding. Other people did it, why not us. And Nevada State Bank was known for how much they liked to work with small businesses. We had a meeting with their business lending department where they dissected our business plan, asking questions, and requesting more information. To our amazement, they loved the idea, and wanted to work with us.

As Richard Meeker always, "You've got to cross your t's and dot your lower case j's." And that's just what we did. We dug into the business plan, expanded some areas, fine tuning other parts, and smoothed out the budget. A meeting with SCORE,a non-profit organization for small businesses helped me get the budget formatted in a way that they bank would want. We bumped up the amount we were asking for so that we wouldn't run out of funds part way through development, and viola, money! Ok, it wasn't exactly that fast. There were mountains of forms to fill out, and the process several months to get through, but by the time February had rolled around, we had cash in the bank.

There was money in the bank, a patent in our file cabinet, and the goal of cutting our ribbon for Frameless at the Las Vegas Amazing Comic Con. For that to happen we had to finalize our design, coordinate with 3 different manufacturers, sample and order the packaging materials, revise the website along with the developing the shopping cart, and lock in our placement at the con. It was a complicated ballet that literally had us receiving product and packaging until the morning we had to load in at comic con. Or nerves were raw, we were beyond exhausted, but it didn't matter, because in a few short hours we would be cutting our ribbon for Frameless with all of our friends, family, and loyal fans in attendance.