So, yes the epiphany moment happened (refer back to Part 2) and I was like ignorance on fire!  I could not wait to tell everyone of my idea.  It was simply CRAZY that no one was already doing this.  The more I thought about it, the more excited I got.  I started thinking to myself, who can I talk to about the idea to make sure I am not crazy?  This simple idea could really create an opportunity where almost everyone could make money.

A few industry professional discussions later and I had substantiated the idea – it had legs!    Now what!  I began talking with people I know that either had money or had started a business.  Everyone loved the idea (some were a bit slow to embrace the business model but came around) but those that could help fund the business had their money tied up or were holding on to their cash because the economy was in the tank.  That is, except one person… truly an angel.  Not an angel investor, but an angel in my life.   She fronted me the money to get started, which I did.

A few bad decisions later, including months of waiting on a website developer, I was out of cash and back to square 1.   Back to the drawing board…

Not deterred, I kept selling the idea.  Along the way I received some bad advice that really slowed us down.  In talking with an Arkansas based investment fund manager I was told “this feels like a million dollar deal”.  Not that it was worth a million dollars, but that I needed to raise a million dollars in startup capital.    The good news was that the fund manager said they were interested in funding the idea at the $500,000 we just needed to find a co-investor for the other $500,000.

Lots of hard work finally paid off.  I found a partner willing to put in $500,000 in the way of services (IT, accounting, marketing etc…) This was an established company, profitable and in business for 10+ years.  Great!  We went back to the investment fund manager, told him the good news and asked that we get the opportunity to make a pitch to the fund’s investment committee.   Several days later we were told that they were not interested.   WOW…