In 2007, some of my PhD lab friends and I were interested in becoming entrepreneurs. We had very little idea how to start a business. We had no money. But we had ideas.
As we were mulling over the ideas, I was busy thinking of ways to fund them.
One day while we were sitting in our PhD lab, we overheard a conversation taking place in a lab adjacent to ours. There was a man begging a student to work on a project for him. The student refused to help, explaining that the professor in charge of his lab was not interested in continuing the work. The man then asked the student if he would be willing to freelance. The student refused.
I got really excited hearing that conversation. All I knew was that there was a man with money and an important need.
A co-founder and I decided to track him down. The next day my co-founder discovered the man’s name nonchalantly in a conversation with the student next door. We reached out cold to the man and set up a meeting.
Within a month we had landed a contract that would become a massive $250k project for our brand new startup. We funded our startup through contract work.
I smile every time I remember that story. It was so fortuitous. It was entrepreneurial of us to track the man down. It was great to avoid investor dilution and to have financial freedom to pursue our entrepreneurial ambitions. The money enabled us to forego the $100k from Georgia Tech.
What are your fun stories of landing your first startup dollars?
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