Entrepreneurship is a tough and lonely journey. It requires one to constantly re-ignite their creativity, coming up with new ideas to counter ever increasing challenges while beating traditional bottlenecks.
One of the major challenges is of course money. Startups may have brilliant ideas but without a helping hand to provide capital most remain domant or even die all together.
However, applying for funding is also not an easy task as fund managers separate chaff from the grain to identify serious entrepreneurs and startups.
So how do you ensure you make the cut?
We got to hear from Sinapis as well as other fund managers during After Hours on May 7, 2015 and if you missed, the accelerator gave great insight into startups funding.
Sinapis has been nurturing ideas and investing in startups for more than 6 years now and has developed a strong curriculum to accelerate startups, boost their business models and launch them to success.
They shared what they look for before funding and/or accelerating any startup and these are;
-Strong lead entrepreneur and team
-Scalability
-Business model
-Sustainability
-Innovation
Sinapis also says these 5 pointers are key for any startups to succeed and through their 16-week curriculum, offer entrepreneurs training on everything business, from customers and HR to financials and operations.
The accelerator also incorporates a business plan competition where winners take home $10,000 in seed capital. This also ensures only the best of the best get through to the fast track fellows which is its final program in the acceleration program.
In summary, the main thing to remember however is that to succeed in securing funding, you as an entrepreneur have to ensure you have a strong and unique idea as well as have a clear business model on top of being a strong leader.
To know how Sinapis accelerates startups, or to apply, click here.
