Yesterday I had a perfectly horrid end to a perfectly horrid day.
It started off in the morning as I was reviewing the weekly cash flow for my business. I did not need to be a financial wizard to realize that I needed more cash than what the organization had or was going to generate over the next 4 weeks to run the operations.
This was compounded when later on in the day I touched base with another entrepreneur friend of mine to compare notes on ‘start up funds’. A year ago, my friend had done the rounds of meeting with with VC, angel investors and other HNI’s to help him kick start his ‘for profit’ social venture. I was naturally keen to gain experience from someone who had gone down the path.
The net gist of the hour long call that we had could be summed up in his two words ” NOT HAPPENING’. The last attempt I had made with Angle Investors had been some 7 years ago when I had kick started Impact Marketing . I had hoped that the 7 intervening years would have changed the outlook. My fellow entrepreneur’s pearls of wisdom bore down like a pack of cold ice on my neck.
Refusing to let one entrepreneur’s wisdom bear me down, I searched Google and came across this fantastic blog by Mukund Mohan who is an angel investor himself apart from working with Microsoft Ventures. In one of his blogs Mukund similarly sums up the Indian angel investor scene as stating that there aren’t more than 10-15 truly angel investors in India. ( for those interested in this space, Mukund’s blog is a must read!)
Having these two bits of experience’s corroborating each other pretty much summed up my day yesterday. If what both my friend and Mukund were saying was true, how was I, a novice when it came to raising start up funds hope to achieve my dream of raising 3 crores ( $ 500,000) ?
Are Angels in India really consigned to be like the Virgin Mary? You know she’s there…but you really cant reach out to her!
