6 MENTAL TRICKS USED BY RICH PEOPLE !

1.  They tell themselves there is no shortage of money, even when they don’t have enough money.

2.  They think of money as a by-product.

3.  They set their expectations unreasonably high.

4.  They eliminate fear from their life.

5.  They take money as a friend.

6.  They tell themselves that getting rich is easy they just trained their mind for achieving more money.

What is the least amount of money someone has used to start a company and built it up to a million dollars or more?

 We started our last company with no outside money and very little founder money. We grew it to about $12 million in annual revenue and sold it to a Fortune 500 in just under 5 years. How did we do that, you ask?

Well, there were 3 founders and each contributed something very important.

Founder #1: was a serial tech entrepreneur that had a successful prior exit (single, maybe a double at best) and a couple of other small endeavors going. However, what he had that was really valuable was a development team that we could "buy by the drink" from until we could afford our own "bottle". His developers were not strategist but they were very good at implementing what we came up with (btw - the Reid Hoffman quote, "if you aren't sufficiently embarrassed by the first release of your product then you waited too long to release it, is VERY true!)

Founder #2: was a seasoned IT executive with entrepreneurial aspirations who had a very strong business network. What he had was an audience with some very senior tech execs (CIO of F500 level guys) that was willing to listen to what we were pitching. One of those turned out to be our first customer. That first customer proved more valuable than a million dollars worth of outside money!

Founder #3: was me. I had an "entrepreneurial-ish" background (as much a wanna be who fashioned himself an entrepreneur as anything). I had been an IT exec and just completed a 3 years expat gig just outside of London where I got off the plane and founded a business division from scratch (albeit for a public fintech company - but it gave me the confidence that I knew how to start and scale a business). I also had the key idea for the "engine" to run our solution based on my last job.

We started the company on Jan. 3. 2003. It was really just me, a shoebox of office supplies and a laptop. I "squatted" in founder #1's offices from his other endeavor. I would say the other two founders were pretty silent as partners for the first few months (save the occasional strategy meetings, developer intros or customer calls).

In March of 2003, we started pitching our product idea (PowerPoint only, no code), to whomever would listen. We did about 50 distinct customer meetings and finally got a F500 CIO to "sponsor us" to a business unit. By May 2003, we convinced that unit to buy (all futures based) and because we had a great relationship, got them to pay about 50% up front. This was a $500k deal so about $250k. WARNING: This is REALLY rare! I don't advise this strategy as your only course of action to getting capital.

By November of 2003, we delivered the first version of our product and it went live in the business just before Christmas. In February of 2004, they called to say that in their just completed off-site managers meeting, our solution had been voted as one of their best operational initiatives of 2003. They wanted more!

Over the next 4 years we signed many F500 customers (several with up front partial payment terms), only took two small rounds of venture debt (loans we repaid with interest and only a percent or two of equity tied to them) and sold the company on December 7, 2007 (yes, that is Pearl Harbor Day but we also shook hands and agreed to start the company on Friday, the 13th of December 2002, so I guess those are good bookends!)

So, it can be done but you need something that substitutues for outside capital. That can be founder's capital (this is why subsequent start ups after a first success get a bit easier to handle), an earth shattering idea, or, in our case, access to the first potential customer. I would say the first customer for us was way more valuable (we were selling enterprise B2B premise-based software - that's really tough as a small company).

You just need to decide what your assets are that you can put in play!

P.S. If you ever do go to a company and get them to pay for futures based software. ALWAYS wear a poker face that you have already got most of it done or you run the risk of getting a customer but loosing control of your intellectual property. Then you just become a paid consultant.