Most people rely on small businesses for their daily upkeep and in many cases, the small business has great growth potential, but lack of capital holds the owner back. So, we expect those looking for alternative sources of capital to start a business in Kenya to post their proposals here. The few projects of that nature we have received rarely meet our publishing threshold denying the creators a chance to get capital.
This guide should help you if you want capital for a small business such as a shop, kiosk, auto-spare shop, cybercafé, Mpesa [insert yours here].
Business Proposal Problem Statement
Every proposal we publish must clearly state the problem that sparked the idea to seek business capital. Necessity, as the old saying goes, is the mother of invention and therefore we expect you to have a specific need that you want to fulfill which drives you to seek capital – we do not fund projects posted just to take advantage of free money.
For small businesses, you can talk about the location where you are:
- How many other businesses are similar to yours?
- Is there a high number of likely customers?
- What penetration strategy do you have that will make your business the go-to location and not the others?
If your business is already in existence, talk about the opportunities you have not been able to exploit –
- Maybe you don’t have enough capital to get deliveries from wholesalers directly at your premises, so you waste time and incur costs going to collect the items from the wholesale outlets.
- Maybe, your space is limited and there is a space next to yours that someone just vacated
Break Down Business Capital Budget
For any proposal, the budget is the key pillar. As we already stated elsewhere, the budget you quote is the only verifiable aspect of your project that we can verify. For most small business proposals, we see vague quotes like Ksh50,000 for stock, which make the budget unverifiable. Raising capital to start a business through crowdfunding requires openness so you should break down your budget into its constituent parts. For example:
5 units of 20-liter cooking oil at Ksh2,000 each – Ksh10,000
10 sacks of 50-kg sugar at Ksh4,000 each – Ksh40,000
Remember to quote the sum total needed for your project at the end. Every proposal must also have the minimum capital to start the business to take advantage of cases where we raise lower amounts that what we target.
Full Project Details Explaining Business Capital Usage
This is the final section of your proposal and it should focus on the implementation of your project. You can talk about the timelines. For example, if you get the funding will you do everything at once or will you use a gradual approach?
You can also talk about the expected returns at different stages of your project. Remember to state how the project will be useful to the MavenCORE community in general since the community’s efforts help you in finding capital to start the business. To simplify it, say how much money you want to give back to MavenCORE when your project succeeds
What To Avoid?
Sometimes in a bid to make the proposal seeking capital to start a business in Kenya seem more useful, people include irrelevant information or outright ridiculous claims. Such should be avoided since they achieve nothing of the sort.
- Things you will do for other communities away from MavenCORE with the proceeds of your business. For example, whether you plan to build your mum a house, pay school fees for your siblings or donate to your local church, MavenCORE does not need that information to give you funds.
- The money you get is not a loan, so do not make extra ordinary claims like paying back everything within a very short period. Only the 20% you promise to give from your profit matters.
If you follow these tips, your proposal will be published immediately. Alternatively, we can connect you with a professional writer to create the proposal for you at a small fee.
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