Thursday 21 July 2011

My quest for a business angel...

So on my quest to find a business angel, I have encountered a lot of not so angelic people...
I started the business with nothing but an idea and off course a big, gaping hole, I could see in the market... unfortunately for me, my bank manager could not see the hole, as well as I could... but then, until this day I maintain, that the only hole he could see, was the one at the end of the tunnel, he was looking through.. His hole was called "retirement" and he had no intention of allowing me to influence him in anyway from looking at just the end goal to his career of being a bank manager... Off course, back then, he was  a very important person in rural South Africa....Since then, all authority has been taken away from local banks in small communities and they have become nothing more than brick piggy banks. The only business being conducted in the smaller branches of the banks these days are the putting away of savings and withdrawing  money... off course, the latter will be considerably less as bank charges takes a big bite out of your money... (this is just a little pet peeve, I have)
So there I was... good idea.. blind bank manager!  I had no intention of him stopping me... so I struck out on the road alone...no money... really but the will to make it work!
Being an avid reader, I have often encountered stories or biography about people starting out from nothing and becoming a huge success with billions in the bank...!  If they could do it, so could I! In hindsight I can honestly say, I must have been too stupid to be scared, or too arrogant ... but I have taken this on and now fourteen years later I am still on the quest for my millions..
Convincing people to trust me has always been easy for me... I like to think this is because I am trustworthy, but I think fourteen years ago, in a small, small town, it was mainly the fact that they all knew me and that they had nobody else to do their marketing. I was their angel in the marketing sphere after the deregulation of the marketing councils that until then, have ruled with an iron fist, the marketing of produce in South Africa. It has to be added that in stepping up to the podium, I also took all the risk that they (the farmers) suddenly  had encountered in  the new landscape of marketing their own product... and it is always better to have someone  else to blame if something went wrong!
So I started...stupid but verrryyy forward... and it worked... beyond my wildest dreams, my business grew. It grew so well, it soon left it's cash flow struggling to breath in the dust it created, on it's avid leap forward... and thus began my quest for an angel... of the business kind.

2 comments:

  1. I think your business isn't nearly the only one that suffered from cash flow constraints. I'm praying that you'll end up finding your business angel. X

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hoping you find that angel soon:)

    ReplyDelete