Armen Orujyan - Athgo: Inner Pillar

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:06:00 GMT

Athgo Chairman Dr. Armen Orujyan: Intellectual Capital - the Pillar for Success

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:07:00 GMT

The 4 Pillars of Success

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:58:00 GMT

If You Keep it Real, You Will Find Funding!

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:53:00 GMT

Welcome back, my friends.

In my June 27 Blog, we talked about “making constructive enterprises the linchpin of a sustainable environment.” Now let’s talk about funding YOUR brilliant enterprise.

If we keep it real, we must admit the odds may be stacked against us in realizing our entrepreneurial goals. But the bottom line, there will always be funding available for innovations that are transformational – yes, even in this tight economy. However, there are some key words we must keep close to us — passion and honesty.

Passion is important when you innovate because that’s your driver. You need it to get you through all of your challenges and obstacles. There’ll be days when you’re on top of the Mt. Everest and other times you may feel that the whole world is collapsing on you. Passion will help bring you from “doomsday” back on track with your goals.

Another key is that, while you are thinking of these wonderful solutions that you want to introduce to the world, keep yourself honest. Identify, accurately, that there is an undeniable need for your idea, because being driven blindly with passion, without taking into consideration whether there is a real need for your innovation, may lead you to… at best to a great learning experience. Actually, not a bad place to end up if the process was short, swift, and inexpensive, so try failing as quickly as you can!

You have to be honest with your passion. Keep yourself grounded. Continuously check in with not only the “yes” men in your life, (those who will validate what you do all the time, regardless of the value your actions produce — we all have and need those people, they help support our mental state and boost our confidence, so more power to them), but you also need to go to meet experts, consumers, and the constituency who will enjoy your product/service. If you are genuinely listening to them, you will learn quickly and unequivocally whether there is a real need for your idea.

People who provide various types of capital are generally progressive thinkers seeking ideas with true value, if yours is such, you will be funded. If your invention or innovation is genuine and transformational – it will be funded. If you keep yourself in check — keeping it real— your idea will be funded.

Money is always available. In the tough financial market, it’s even a better time to look for money. Why? Essentially the economy is correcting itself. When you have an over-heated or over-hyped economy, a lot of capital is allocated for ideas and projects that are not really addressing a need. Yet, money keeps being pumped into those ventures. Look at all those tech companies that sprung up a decade or so ago. Seemingly, almost any venture that had a “dotcom” in it got funded because everyone wanted to get on the trendy bandwagon without doing the necessary due diligence on the need. But when you are faced with today’s realities, trendy investments have very little chance of taking off.

Today, there has to be an actual and well-supported need for your product to attract serious capital. Supplying the right product will attract the available though limited funding. So, what you want to do is keep questioning the value of your offering and keep checking the objectives of your enterprise.

If you look around today, billions are still being invested in hundreds of thousands of new enterprises. But the money is generally geared toward enterprises that are of a great need to society as a whole. Getting your required investment will be proof positive that you have created a transformational idea that has value. And, funding will be there from family and friends, Venture Capitalists, Government grants, and Foundations.

I would encourage you to stay energized and use social networking sites and other networks to find people to look at your project and market your product. Truth is, the present structures aren’t well designed to support entrepreneurs, especially those in emerging markets, which is why Athgo has been diligently preparing tools to support entrepreneurs worldwide. Expect something from us by year’s end. Meanwhile, continue working on your projects, become a fan of Athgo’s Facebook site where we often post funding opportunities that we come across. Also, check out sites for potential funding such as kiva.org (“loans that change lives”) and prosper.com (“the loans marketplace”).

Remember, keep it real and keep at it!