How do you know how you can get somewhere that you haven't been before?
There is no Google Maps to building a $100 Million company, or even just a $1 Million company.
The best way to do that is if you have someone with you on the journey who has done it before.
SPARK! puts behind you a core team of supporters and advisors whom combined have created billions of dollars worth of enterprise value.
If we give you a $10 Million check today, you wont be able to maximize its full value because you never handled such a large amount before.
The point we are highlighting is most startups believe that their biggest need is capital, which is not true.
Most startups actually need to develop their execution skills, their marketing savvy, refine their business model, perfect their customer offering and many other such domains.
Once you have developed your execution capability as an entrepreneur you will then be able to extract $10 Million of value out of an amount as little as $500 thousand.
This is also why we are not focused on investing capital in startups because there is a lot of money out there that is looking to invest, but they don't because the right caliber is hard to find.
Our goal is to improve your caliber so that financing chases you instead of the other way around.
How much equity would it cost you if one of your friends wanted to start this company with you?
25-35%?
What if it was an industry veteran?
40-60%?
Launchpad can easily justify taking a much larger equity stake than the 15% we take, in return for all the value we provide.
The reason we limit it to 15% is because we want to empower the entrepeneurs.
We want you to stay in control of your company and retain as much equity as possible because we are here to support you.
All other avenues that lead to acquiring anything near the same value Launchpad provides will lead to you directly or indirectly giving up much more than 15% in equity.
A big mistake many first time entrepreneurs make is they get too obsessed with their idea, thinking its the most precious thing in the world, its the best idea they came up with, and that they should hold onto all the equity like they are holding onto their child.
The fact is you will either become a successful entrepreneur that will then start many other successful ideas in your career or you wont succeed and you will spend most of your time trying to make this idea work and eventually move on beyond entrepreneurship.
So if you are destined to be the first type then you should be choosing the ethical path that gives you the fastest route to success so you can establish a successful track record that will lead to many other ventures throughout the rest of your life.
Trying to hold on to 15% equity because you think you can do it yourself but it will just take you 2 years more, is a waste of those 2 years.