The Only A-to-Z Course to Learn About the Funding Journey
Instead of doubting if you will get funded, jump on board, get the resources you need so you can have the impact, revenue, and financial return you want.
The difference between successful and struggling women entrepreneurs or small business owners lies in their ability to get the funding they needed to take their business to the next level.
"Women's access to capital is heavily influenced by their ignorance about the funding process."
There is a difference between struggling to start, growing the business for years until finally giving up and getting a job, or stop trying. And building a business worth millions, one that you are proud of, one that generates a massive impact.
It’s the difference between selling a company for a fraction of what it could be worth OR reaping a massive, life-changing return on the work invested in growing the business (and sharing that return with investors, lenders, employees, and the overall community).
It’s the difference between listening to others and becoming a role model. And it all starts with the difference in asking for help from friends who have never raised capital or gotten into the many ways to get funded or learning from experts and discussing with professionals on how to get funded.
✓ Trained thousands of people on creating business models and funding models in 20+ countries.
✓ Invested in 20+ companies that have created thousands of jobs.
✓ Became a Silicon Valley angel investor.
✓ Review hundreds of business plans annually, which gives me an inside view on what the main weaknesses.
✓ Started 10+ companies and three non-profits, so I’m familiar with the challenges and stresses you face—and how to overcome them.
✓ Serveed on 14 boards, and multiple advisory committees to explore how to get manage resources internally and how to create projects with a high-impact.
✓ Invested in 4 venture capital funds in Silicon Valley.
✓ Lived, worked, and traveled all over the world, so I know what it takes to secure funding—no matter where you live.
✓ Earned a PhD in finance and entrepreneurship, and co-chaired the Diana Conference on Gender Issues in Entrepreneurship, which gives me a strong academic grounding on theories about women's access to funds.
and come back as a role model for other women!
The warning is this: women receive a fraction of the funding that men do, and if you don’t do something differently from the large number of women who try and fail to get the funding they need, you’ll be another statistic like them.
This is why I created an exclusive program for women entrepreneurs ready to find the funding they need to make the leap…
Module I - The Core Competencies
Seeking funds is a very stressful process, and the perception that women have more difficulty accessing capital needs to be addressed. We begin the program establishing a solid foundation of confidence and competence, so the process is more enjoyable and does not disempower women.
Lesson 1: Set the Intention and Confidence to get FUNDED
Raising funds is always difficult. Women are less trained to receive blunt feedback and use it to improve their request. In this lesson, you will learn how to create a strong inner locus of control to navigate through the difficulties of fund raising, have an elegant way out, and take rejection as suggestions for improvement, so the process is enjoyable and self-nurturing.
Lesson 2: Understand your funding NEEDS
Defining funding needs is challenging. Women tend to request less funds than they need damaging their chances of success, and lowering the valuation of their firms. In this lesson, you will learn how to translate operational and investment needs for cash into needs for resources, so you can balance your strategic model according to your specific needs and the constrains of each specific funding source, so you become more fundable.
Module II - Unconventional Funding.
This type of funding is called ‘bootstrapping’ in academic research. It makes funding needs disappear, and is fairly common in startups. Unfunding can lead to a lower ‘book’ value of the equity, so it needs to be used wisely.
Lesson 3: Unfunding, making funding needs disappear
Shifting the needs for cash to the need for resources opens new ways of getting things done. Women are usually skilled at this through their roles, yet fail to capture the value created. In this session, you will learn how to use creativity to reduce your funding needs whilst increasing your company’s value, AND your equity.
Lesson 4: Leveraging the Power of Crowds
Tapping in the strength of a large network with limited resources provides new avenues of funding for weak ties. Women are less prone to ask and receive funding this way because they tap on their strong ties. In this session, you will learn how to create a valuable proposition, vet your supporters for funding, and create a milestone plan and take advantage of customer’s feedback and new regulations.
Module III - Emotional Funding.
This type of funding expects rewards but does not require a collateral and is more flexible than debt funding. These funders will share some of the risk and rewards of the company.
Lesson 5: Founders, Family, and Friends
The first funders of any organization are Founders, Family and Friends, they take the initial risk of understanding what need of the market the organization solves. Women usually have less resources (cash, experience, network) to ramp up the steep learning curve. In this session, you will learn how to create a milestone-based plan to de-risk your company, leverage on other’s resources, avoid emotional battles, and nurture healthy social/commercial human relationships.
Lesson 6: Small Short-term (Angels) or Long-term (Partners) Investors
Other sources of early funding include weak ties that are used to funding new or young ventures, these are either Angel Investors or Equity Partners. In both cases, they invest their own money. Angel Investors seek to have a temporary ownership of the equity and evaluate their return in the increased value of their equity. Equity Partners have a long-term horizon and evaluate their return in dividends. The differences in these types of investors impact the strategy of the firm, and viceversa. In this session, you will learn how to decide which type of investor meets your vision, and how to find, evaluate and close deals –or not- with them.
Lesson 7: Venture or Vulture Capitalists
The most professional and fast-tracking type of equity investment, Venture Capital has a dual good/bad reputation. Only 1% of companies receive any form of Venture Capital, so this type of funding is not recorded in evaluations of funding. 15% of companies that received VC funding have a woman on the executive team, and 2.7% have a woman as CEO. In this session, you will learn how to create a strategy that fits with a VC criteria, how to select VC firm, and what to expect in the process.
Module IV - Leveraged Funding.
Lesson 8: Debt
Leveraged funding involves backing up funds with some form of collateral or insurance. Women fund around 22% through debt vs 25% for the general population. Debt has very strict and specific criteria that involves a careful combination of collateral, cash flow, and risks. In this session, you will learn how to balance these three conditioners of debt, find local allies, and use the various forms of debt to grow your firm.
Module V. The Final Details
Funding is fundamentally a human process. Despite knowing the different types of funding, and having the confidence to seek funding, the process itself involves a series of iterations. The “pink” effect seems to validate the difficulties that women face with regards to funding: the income gap (women are seen as less valuable than men), the purchase gap (women are charged more than men for services and products), and the feedback gap (women receive less valuable feedback than men). Yet, women and men are actively seeking ways to reduce this gap.
Lesson 9: Valuation and Negotiation with Ease
Focusing on data, you will learn how to validate your points and highlight the strengths of your deal, diminish risks, and facilitate the negotiation process. You will also learn how to receive feedback and use the tips from lesson 1 to keep you focused, clear, and energized through your funding process. A particularly important aspect of this session is how to managing rejection and disparate suggestions.
Lesson 10: Crafting a Funding Strategy
The funding process is dynamic and heavily influenced by the ecosystem. Developing a funding strategy helps you avoid traps, select and close on the best funding options for your current situation and align the different elements of the funding process. By doing this you maximize your learning and increase your funding options.
Lesson 11: Business Stages and Funding - Bonus
The multiple funding options can be aligned to the different business stages. Balancing the strategic intent of the business in stages allows you to identify the best funding option to take you through the particular stage and get prepared to the hurdles that are formed naturally as the business progresses.
The program is 10 weeks long. Every week, you get 2 pre-recorded lectures less than 30 minutes each, plus a series of supplemental short videos, along with worksheets, exercises, and simulations. There are also one-hour biweekly calls done live, where you can ask questions—and they’re recorded for you to view later as well.
You’ll have access to the program for 12 full months, giving you plenty of time to practice, test, improve, and close funding deals.
You’ll also get lifetime access to our Facebook and LinkedIn closed group, where you can ask questions and get support from the community, and maybe even find clients, suppliers, or partners.
And equally important, you’ll become visible to a group of Silicon Valley Angel Investors who want to support smart women like you in getting funded. They are part of this experience because they’ve seen too many ill-prepared women entrepreneurs fail when making pitches because they:
✓ Don’t know the basics of angel funding
✓ Are too early in asking for angel funding
✓ Are too late in asking for angel funding
✓ Have mismatched expectations because they don’t understand the funding process
✓ Don’t know the language to even communicate properly
As an investor myself, it is PAINFUL to watch someone unprepared try to have a conversation about a potential investment. I want to make sure you are fully prepared to get funding.
In the course, I’ll take you through everything you need to know, step by step, so you’re 100% prepared to get funded now and in the future.
We use different ways to transfer knowledge.
Whether you learn by doing, watching, or listening, we've got you covered.
Also, extra support on our closed Facebook Group, Q&A sessions, and open mentoring.
You’ll also get access to Silicon Valley angel investors (including myself!), thanks to the relationships I’ve built over decades of co-investing and collaborating. This access alone is priceless, especially if you don’t live in Silicon Valley and can’t spend a significant chunk of time here every year cultivating relationships.
Only a small percentage of funds go to women-led companies. We can go on and on about the many reasons why, but there is ONE thing completely under YOUR CONTROL: learning how to get funded.
“This is the missing piece of the entrepreneurial puzzle, the perfect complement to Steve Blank and Eric Ries’ Startup books. It’s quite refreshing because quite often you read all about how someone was awesome and their ‘glory days’ type stories rather than ‘I made a mistake once, here’s what you can do to avoid it in case you’re making that same mistake too’. I would highly recommend this program to anyone.”
-Angela Han, Marketing Titans, Australia
“Alicia asked me questions and mentored me along the way to help me understand where my story was strong and where it needed improvements so I could adjust my application and pitch accordingly.”
-Marwa Nur Muhammad, Co-founder, Trance. California
“Great course to learn about the different level of financing a business.”
-Brenda Sullivan, Thompson Street Farm LLC. Co, USA
"I got my first wow at the start of the program. “How to think” have given me the most awesome self-reflection points to implement not only in my business, but in my life.”
-Monika Siriah, Vedglobals, India
“I can’t thank you enough. For the first time, I can have a proper conversation with an investor, and talk about my valuation and deal terms clearly. I have never been able to do so before, no wonder I haven’t been able to close a deal in over a year.”
-Cristina Suarez, My Plaza, Spain
"Your topic inspired me a lot and provoked me to know more.”
- Sadia Abdul Qadeer (Lecturer), Effat University, Jeddah- Saudi Arabia
When you join Women Get Funded, you join a community of like-minded women entrepreneurs who are getting the funding they need to build the businesses of their dreams.
There are 2 ways I can support you in getting the funding you need:
A quick overview of what is included:
✓ All the videos, lessons, checklists, calculations, and more
✓ 5 recorded one-hour Q&A sessions
✓ Closed Facebook and LinkedIn community groups
✓ A pitch critique with a seasoned pitch mentor, who will give you a minute-by-minute critique of your 10-minute recorded pitch, so you’re polished and prepared to succeed during your next pitch.
✓ Introduction to a preselected audience of angel investors in Silicon Valley (this network took me years to build; you get access simply by becoming a Gold member).
✓ 1 full hour of one-on-one private mentoring with me, so you get direct access to my insight as a Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur.
✓ 3 group coaching sessions by a professional angel investor from Silicon Valley, so you can learn from someone who hears hundreds of pitches a year.
The Silver package is all pre-recorded, so you can access it at your convenience. For the one-on-one sessions, we’ll schedule at a mutually convenient time, and you’ll also receive recordings of these sessions.
How is this different from other courses on startups & funding?
Other courses focus on a piece of the puzzle, like pitching, but they don’t connect all the dots and show you how to implement a 4-5 year plan for achieving your dream. They also don’t provide you with clear simulations so you feel comfortable about your numbers. Our unique approach focuses on funding as a process, not as a series of unconnected events that confuses you. Every single action that you take can get you closer or further to another funding mechanism, and you need to know why you are making certain choices and the consequences.
Will I get access to all the course material at once?
When you enroll, you’ll get immediate access to the Week 1 training so you can start right away. After that, you’ll receive the trainings week by week. If you want to go faster, just email us and we’ll release the next week’s training early.
Do you guarantee that I will get funded?
We do not guarantee that you will get funded. This is an educational, transformational program, and the results depend very much on your own work. There are many individuals wanting to shift the numbers for women entrepreneurs, but you need to be prepared to work.
If you have other questions, please send them to info (a) womengetfunded.com so we can answer them.
Program of the
Wealthing ® Institute
© 2020 Alicia Castillo Holley
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