Thread by @drnten_

How I raised £225,000 7 days before my company @Trimit_app was about to die. Now we are in a new office and @LdnNafe cried in front of his parents and an audience of 50+, when he deeped how far we’ve come. 

- A THREAD -

Here’s one thing I need to make clear before I start:

Glory be to god; I prayed a simple prayer, “God reveal yourself in a way that is undoubtable you.”

For those that don’t know, @Trimit_app , is the UK first app powered mobile barbershop. Through our app you can book a barbershop to come to you. Currently based in London.

Thanks to our loyal customers TRIM-IT we’ve been fully booked for 4 months straight. We’ve shaped up the likes of @AbdiTV , @CharlieSloth , @sneakbo, @GoldLink , @TerrollLewis , @Jaykae10 @EttaBond to name a few. Shout out you man. ❤️👊🏾

After a few months I realised we had a great product and the proof of demand. So, time to scale the business. Let me tell you now, raising investment is not fun. Time wasters, self-doubt and a bruised ego is something you have to deal with on a daily.

Love to my big bro @MrAndyDavis who helped me through the process. I would call him at 2am depressed, disheartened and sometimes even overconfident - asking him to tell his connects to drop me some p’s. I thought it was that easy. Obv you can tell I wasn't very experienced 😂

Before I could even get in front of anyone I had to create a 1 page profile of the company, pitch deck and financials (Very long, but has to be done). Couldn't have done this without the help and guidance from the queens at @ThisIsYSYS .

@MrAndyDavis hammered into my head that raising investment is all about the process. We used @trello to create a list of all the investors that I wanted to talk to. I’d move a name across to a new list based on if I had emailed, arranged a meeting, secured the bag etc

A month had gone by and I got aired by everyone. In fact I’m lucky if I even get a rejection. Doubt started to slyly creeping in. Luckily @fxfegha created a fortnightly Safe-space for black entrepreneurs, so I had support during these times, to offload comfortably.

I don’t want to bait out my investors, so no names. But we ended up trimming a client outside one of our investors houses. He had heard about TRIM-IT and decided to come and have a look at the van.

He was impressed so he got in contact with me, making it clear that, potentially he may invest. Man thought he was smart loool he booked a trim and thought I wouldn't know. Haha Obv I made sure that his experience was amazing 😅🤷🏾‍♂️

We ended up speaking for 6 weeks about everything. It was like he was my big bro. Black guy, so it was inspiring to see a man look like me, slightly older, be able to sow a seed into my life. I’d love to be able to replicate this one day. Goes without saying…first bag secured 💰

I randomly ended up going to Birmingham to get advice from an ex-investor. Imagine going to another city, I start talking about TRIM-IT and @M_Jeevahan overhears us speaking and is like, ‘wait…is that you’ (A stranger at this point)! The universe was perfectly aligning again.

But! BIG BUT…When I explained my business, the first thing the investor said was “well that’s a shit idea.” 😭😭😭Fam, I travelled to birmingham from london, a good £22.75 train ticket to get parred

Funny thing is…at that point I realised I liked him. I fully appreciated knowing where I stood. There’s no agenda on my end, apart from learning, I ended up speaking to the guy for about 4-5 hours, mostly about life.

Anyway, I gifted him with a hairbrush to let him know I appreciated his time an hour later I get an email saying, “Mad question…you looking for an investor ;)”. Can you believe it was the same don that parred me?!

Note: When I’m speaking to investor there’s no stunting, no fake phone voice. If you rate me, it has to be because you rate MEEEE. Black boy from Brixton. Anime watcher. God fearing. Jollof eater. Ghanaian but can’t azonto or shaku on the beat as well. Cool. Back to the story.

Met up with a guy through the introduction of one of my investors and he straight up said, he’s been contacted by a few mobile barbering company’s and essentially the idea wasn't original; a lot of competition, all that jazz.

I was thinking….“how sway ?,” I’m the only one mad enough to put a barbershop in the back of van and allow people to book it through an app. Anyway I convinced a customer to book a trim outside his office during my meeting with him.

Listen to this, so when I told the investor lets go outside to see my product he was confused. Turns out he thought we just a booking platform. * @ambushbuzzworl voice* Sweeet one! He was pretty impressed let’s just say that.

People were walking by videoing the van. One guy came up to me and was like I’ve heard about TRIM-IT. Another guy booked on the spot. We created a crowd around the van. No investor at that moment can deny that this concept was looking delicious. The convo after that was light 😂

It’s wasn't all victories, a few days before I thought I about to close at £300k I lost out on £154k. But, cut a long story short. I ended raising £225k from a few investors. I had no connection to that that world but with support, hard work and prayer I got there in the end 😁

Anyway let me wrap up with one learning:

1. Your biggest breakthrough could be one customer away, one train journey away, one email away. Gotta be resilient and numb yourself to the No’s. You’ll fail more times than you’ll succeed and that's fine.

I was apprehensive about posting this. Raising investment isn’t a real achievement creating a profitable business is. But, I hope this encourages someone like me to keep on hustling or can take something from my story. ✌🏾