The Story:
Learn from the successful entrepreneurial journey of Arman Sood, Co-Founder of Sleepy Owl Coffee about bootstrapping vs funding and the right way to find investors to grow your startup.
Minute 1.01
Arman discusses how they managed to bootstrap Sleepy Owl Coffee for the initial months by living simply in an apartment in Dwarka and using savings from their previous jobs.
Minute 1.58
“If you can’t convince your closest friends and family to invest in you, how will you convince a third party?” – Arman discusses how they approached their ‘friends and family’ for initial funding. This initial injection of funds helped Sleepy Owl scale up their business.
DR Pro Tip: ‘Friends and family’ funding is one of the most common forms of initial startup funding.
Minute 4.22
Arman shares Sleepy Owl’s story when they realised they wanted to raise a round of funding. Being too small, they were asked to 10x their revenue in the next six months by a financial consultant. They re-set their target and achieved it by the end of six months, and got DSG Consumer Partners to invest in their startup.
DR Pro Tip: A strategic investment is more important than just money.
Minute 8.28
Arman discusses why it’s essential to have a good team on board. They had a period where they ran out of money and couldn’t pay salaries to the employees for two months, but the team still stood by them.
Dialogue Room questions discussed in the video:
- What was Sleepy Owl’s initial bootstrapping strategy?
- How Sleepy Owl survived the first few months with minimal cash flow?
- Is it harder to convince friends & family compared to an investor?
- When did you decide to venture outside for funding?
A brief on Sleepy Owl Coffee:
Cold & hot brew coffee sourced all the way from Chikmagalur, Karnataka. These guys are changing the coffee game in India! Quick, easy and deliciously smooth coffee.
Watch Arman speak about the learnings from his mistakes in the part 1 video here.