Update on funding and progress..

Having built my two initial businesses a long while ago from only a handful of coins and sweat, I had never fully appreciated how much effort and the challenges that are involved to get an innovative idea and turn it into a fully-funded start-up... but I am on a new and exciting learning curve!

When I got involved in Go4Fresh, we needed a small amount of working capital to build the first batch of machines, and had applied to a government funded body for this "friendly" investment. That may not be the correct terminology, but since start-up investment (made famous by TV's Dragons Den) often means parting company with a large chunk of the equity of the business, and this doesnt, then to me it's friendly! That funding has taken since at least last November to get close to realising and, since it is essential for us to buy the components to make the initial batch, our launch date has slowly slipped away.

And so it was that today, after a long, long journey, and an application form that's been back and forth across the internet between us so much that it has its own Airmiles account, we (and Colin, our superb supporter and mentor from the Gatwick Diamond Hub) found ourselves sat with Zoe and Martin from Finance South East for them to quiz us on final queries and details from our funding application.

And it seemed to go well. Very well in fact. The "concerns" pile didnt last long and we had no trouble backing up the information they had received, then we swiftly moved on to how we would be using the money and where the development may continue in the future, and had a good, healthy meeting culminating in the enjoying of some of our fresh food delivery partner company's excellent sandwiches - Thanks Nibbles!

In all, it was a really good meeting and at the end Zoe and Martin advised us that they are recommending us for the final consideration, at the panel on the 28th of May - Hurrah!

What many may not realise is that, in addition to completing the development work on the batch of production machines (by using an outside contractor we are "productionising" the units so that they can be made as cost-effectively as possible, redesigning to use standard components where possible), negotiating with sites, partners and suppliers, developing the branding, the marketing and new opportunities, we are also having multiple meetings, comversations and reviews to business plans to try and make everything as watertight as possible to attract that all-important external funding.

It's hectic!!

So, fingers crossed for us on the 28th, please!

That's incredibly close to our launch date of the 6th June, so we may have to work some wonders to get our production units actually made by soon after that date, but I have some ideas... and the sooner some machines hit the ground (well, offices, hospitals etc) , the sooner we start to earn some revenue!