How do You Fund a Food Business [ What is the Best way to Finance a Startup ]
How do you fund a food business and what is the best way to finance a startup? So in this video, marketing food online, we are actually going to cover eight ways to actually get funding outside of your own money. And one of the best ways to do that is to use other people's money, basically. But in this way, you'll have an opportunity to get exposure for your brand, your food product, and your food startup, and make some great connections with potential long-term investors. But these are going to be eight of the best ways to raise money online and fund a food business. So, hello and welcome to the world of online food marketing.It is Damian Roberti, founder and CEO of marketing food online. I'm going to walk you through these websites. There are eight of 'em here. I'm going to give you a little overview of who they are and what they do. And of course, I'll have some links down below the video in our description section to help you along the way as well.
So how do you secure finance for a startup? It's frequently one of the most difficult challenges you'll encounter. If you're trying to get your own business idea off the ground, making genuine connections can take a lot of time. And of course, work when it comes to attracting investors and resources, especially when you don't have either proof of concept, which is the idea of your product being sold in the marketplace, or proof that it actually will sell and that you have a market for it. So this is a great way to get an opportunity to create a page on these websites. Give a little bit of information about what it is that you're looking to create and do, and then look for those people who are willing to invest. And it's great because you can get exposure to literally a million people, and they could all give you $1.
How do You Fund a Food Business [ What is the Best way to Finance a Startup ]
And if you raise a million dollars for your startup, then you've got a lot of people who are interested, but you've got the funding you need to develop your food product, or whatever that product may be, or whatever the business may be. Now, this applies to pretty much any business, to be honest with you, not just in the food industry or food and beverage industry. There are a variety of the best crowdfunding platforms we brought together for business startups. We're going to go over eight of the top startup company funding channels to help you get started. Okay, And from the popular crowdfunding websites and startup accelerator platforms, also, those are great ones now too, so you understand that a startup accelerator is actually a platform that allows you to actually take your existing business. And maybe you've already gotten it off the ground slightly, and you've got some momentum, and you've got some sales, but it's going to help you accelerate your business much more rapidly because of the amount of funds that you can get.
So the first website is number one, GoFundMe. This is one of these crowdfunding sites that pretty much everyone's very familiar with. Gofundme is a flexible start-up business funding platform that can be used for nearly anything, from raising money for a good cause to starting a food business, packaging food products, or even a food truck, believe it or not. If you don't have much time, you can set up a GoFundMe page.In a matter of probably a couple of days, or even less than that, even just a few hours, one of the most startling aspects about GoFundMe is that there is no price for utilizing their platform, and your fundraiser can last an indefinitely amount of time.
How do You Fund a Food Business [ What is the Best way to Finance a Startup ]
So there's no specific timeframe for them. If you're, you know, looking at a lot of these other websites that have a one-month or two-month period, GoFundMe actually has an indefinite amount of time for you to raise money. The only thing you'll lose is a transaction processing fee, so you'll definitely have some type of transaction processing fee along with that. But all in all, it's still going to get you the funds that you need to get phoned. Next up, Number two is Kickstarter. Kickstarter, along with GoFundMe, has become synonymous with internet crowdsourcing. It was launched back in 2009 and has already assessed over 200,000 projects getting off the ground, many of which are food and beverage products as well. The distinction is that Kickstarter is a reward-based platform. So what this means actually is that supporters or investors are rewarded for supporting the project or idea with, like, a t-shirt or unique product, or a pre-order of your food product, or maybe a sample of what you're making, something to that effect.
And they get that in the way of their donation. Another distinguishing feature of Kickstarter, by the way, is that it is a higher-risk campaign platform. So you must set a target or fundraising goal, and you will only be able to access the pledge funds if you need them. So if you actually reach your funding goal, that's the only way you get it. So, for instance, if you set a goal of reaching a hundred thousand dollars for your project, whatever that may be, and you don't reach it, you actually don't get the money. So you do have to get at least a hundred thousand. Now, if you exceed that, you, of course, will get the hundred thousand and the full amount, but you've got to reach that amount. The next one, at number three, is Indy Gogo, which is frequently regarded as one of the top sites for startup business funding.
How do You Fund a Food Business [ What is the Best way to Finance a Startup ]
This actually has a long history of assisting ideas and helping realize ideas that come to the marketplace. It's especially popular among entrepreneurs, as it allows you to start a crowdfunding campaign for whatever idea or product that you want to get started and put out there in the marketplace. So that could be a packaged food product. It could be a food truck, it could even be a restaurant, a cafe, anything of that sort, or even an e-commerce food business selling and expanding food products online. So if you actually started selling products online, or even maybe even an Amazon store, and you wanted to expand your store and you're looking for funding to help people get your food products out there more, you can definitely do that. Now, the only thing with Indy Gogo is that the charge for collecting funds is the same as it is for other crowdfunded crowdfunding platforms.
You can run a campaign on Indy Gogo for up to two months for a 5% platform charge, plus a 3.2% third party processing fee. So that would be like if PayPal or some other third party processor were to handle the payments, they take a small percentage of that too, which actually helps the website help go continue to offer that platform. The next one up is really unique. It's actually called "GoFund her.com." So GoFund is a crowdfunding website for women entrepreneurs and company owners that aims to close the gender gap. Investors or supporters can actually make a one-time donation or set up a monthly sponsorship for your idea or small business on their simple-to-use platform. Now it is available all over the world and can be set up in just a matter of a few simple steps. They do, however, charge a 5% platform form fee and additional credit processing costs as well, which will be passed on to you since you'll be collecting the funds on behalf of those investors.
How do You Fund a Food Business
The following one is seed investing.SeedInvestis a platform for equity crowd funding. Now, this means that instead of being a supporter, backers become actual investors. The seed I invested in is seed. Eat. Maybe you just started a very successful food truck and want to franchise it so you can have more of them in the marketplace.A seed investment differs from a gift or a financial investment platform, and then investors become part owners of your business. So they're actually purchasing shares in a sense. It provides much needed money and a network, which is really super important. Guys, Not only are you looking to get money on these platforms, but also to make a network. You could be potentially producing a food product that gets in front of the eyes of an investor who may want to invest five, six, or 10 million outside of seed investment.
How do You Fund a Food Business
And that's a way that you'll meet them or see them is bond with these platforms. So it's very important to think of it that way as well. So, in essence, it provides much-needed money in the form of a network of potential venture capital investors to high-growth technology or even eCommerce enterprises.So it's had a lot of success with a lot of initiatives, especially in the tech industry, but if you've got something that's food-related that's tech-based, or even a platform or software that could be potentially applied to the food industry, this is definitely something you need to look into as well. However, there's a substantial fee. The fees now include a 7.5 percent platform fee and a 5% equity fee based on the amount raised. in essence, what that means is 5% of the equity of your company will be a fee and somebody will own an aspect or an interest in your business.
Next one up is the startup Explorer. So, Startup Explorer is a platform that connects investors with firms that have a lot of potential. It is mostly active in Europe and in Spain's largest startup communities. This may or may not apply to us. I did notice that the bulk of the information here was from Europe, but if you are one of our YouTubers, you were in Europe or near Spain as well. Startup Explorer investors can invest in startups and share their knowledge and experience with firms seeking finance and resources. So definitely when you want to look at it, if you happen to be in the UK or near Europe, potentially even in Spain as well. One of the most distinguishing features of Startup Explorer is that they invest in each of the firms available to other investors on the platform. Now, basically, what this means is that, in addition to receiving funding directly from Startup Explorer, rising companies are also promoted on the platform for other potential investors to see.
How do You Fund a Food Business
So that's a pretty interesting site, and again, very important for networking. Tiny Seed, which is an online accelerator for early-stage SaaS founders, is up next.This is a software service created by software service creators.And again, if you are in the food industry, about average, and then you've got some type of software or computer software company that is in line with anything as far as painted processors or potential website designers, and it's food related, tiny seeds is definitely the one you want to look at because they are focused on software as a service companies now, which is a slightly different choice than standard crowd sites, tiny seeds co-founder. Rob Weyland actually mentioned that their website is one of the best as far as getting information technology and software technologies invested in and making sure that they grow. So keep that in mind.
Of course, it is, of course, a highly selected program. They only accept proposals from potential firms a few times a year. The competition is pretty rigorous to get in there because there are a lot of people who are applying for tiny seeds. Now, this is one that's a little unusual compared to the other funding sources and websites and crowdfunding sites, because you have to apply to get on it. Next up is fundable fundable, which offers a little bit of everything. That's actually really interesting. It features equity, crowdfund, and rewards-based crowd fund solutions for food startup entrepreneurs searching for money and investors. So it's geared for small businesses and high-potential digital startups as well. So if you have a food business that you're looking to get, check out Fundable. It's one of the better ones, actually, from what I heard for food and beverage companies.
Now, there are also some differences between the pay payment and the charge schedule. So keep this in mind, too, that instead of the platform's percentage fee, fundable charges users a monthly fee to actually build and administer the campaigns, because that's actually something that's going to be ongoing. It's not like you set up a fundraising fundable website and you're going to be there for 30 days. This is going to be an ongoing thing where you can find potential investors for your food business. For their fee-based fundraising, they also charge a three and a half percent credit card processing fee.So just keep that in mind too, if you're on that program. So that's why I was mentioning that this has two different types. There is a small three and a half percent credit card processing fee for rewards-based fundraising.So, so whether you're working on the next big thing, or you're trying to get that food business up and running, creating a fat-free product, launching your food truck, and you're kind of not necessarily low on funds, but you're looking for people interested in investing in your product and even networking, giving you the opportunity to potentially find some really big investors.
These are definitely some websites you really need to check out, and I'll have links down below. You can check them out and do a little more research on your own if you're trying to figure out how to fund a food business. So what's the best way to finance a startup? You ask. Well, using other people's money is always a good idea. Getting other people involved in your projects and investing is always a good thing if you've used some of your money for this.
You're kind of running low on funds and you want to expand, and you've got a proof of concept where you've got a great idea for a food product. You can definitely, again, go to these websites and get nearly a million people or more to take a look at your project and potentially give you money towards it. Be patient with it. It does take time to get this thing done. and, of course, created these websites. Once you get these pages up and running, So do keep that in mind. It doesn't happen overnight, but these are great sources for your startup and for your small business to grow. So I'll see you guys on our next video.