What was your first experience with raising funds? (Cairo)

Hello Everyone,

During July had been my first experience directly communicating with investors to raise funds for my business, I had been having my friend Karim from Easy-up do it for me and we already got 6 investors interested but per the regulation of the Nilex I needed 25 to incorporate based on the model we had been working on. But to accelerate things up, I had the chance to be in the position myself.

I consider the experience to be overall positive and I learned a lot from it. made a few mistakes; but normal for first timers I presume.

I did postpone launching the business web-site and start executing the business model till I get the funds I need - as I might need to optimize or even change the business model during negotiation , which put me in the position of doing "nothing" for the time I was mainly focused on raising the funds only.

Also role playing, looking at the situation from the investors' point of view and asking myself the questions I'm expected to be asked during the meetings could have made a difference. Something I need to work on for upcoming opportunities. I don't think I have a communication problem but during the meeting my mind is mainly filled with the details of the business model and I don't have a ready- made answers to some questions to be asked, I just think it up and it might be rephrased better.

As a big fan of ReWork I completely believe in their point of view expressed in "Outside money is plan Z". Yes, I wish I'd go forward with no outside money, but it's just feels exhausting for a long time. ReWork state the following reasons on why to consider outside money your plan Z:

You give up control
"Cashing out" begins to trump building a quality business
Spending other people's money is addictive
It's usually a bad deal
Customers move down the totem pole
Raising money is incredibly distracting
I really believe in these points even stronger now, but that doesn't mean that we don't need plan Z sometimes.

What was your first experiences with raising funds? What tips would you advice a young entrepreneur to take into consideration while going through his first incorporation experience?

- Abdo