And the bank said...

And the bank said...

Well, guess what. I have finally heard from the bank, after 3+ weeks. Inefficiency? Procrastination? Well, whatever it may be, the bank said no. At this point I could U-turn and get a job, a salary and pack it all in. But I KNOW there is something out there that will work, a stone that has been left unturned.

This is a hard knock on my fundraising effort. We have gone so far. Larger contracts have been placed and I can’t develop new products without the funding I was counting on. What next?

I spoke to my neighbour, a successful, experienced builder who is going through a difficult time at the moment. He said exactly the same thing. He needed bank support to make a new project a reality. The equity was there to secure the loan but the bank said they didn’t want to make him homeless- can you believe it? I’ve no words to explain my frustration.

I have been speaking with a couple of investors but they want to take their time and my time is now. How do I say “now”, not later? How?

I think you’ll agree with me that opting to run your own business means NOT settling for the easy option. There’s a huge degree of resilience required, which one needs to develop along the way to cope with the difficulties. As the bank said no to lending to the business, we moved on to (another!) personal loan.

Now it’s all about moving forward... due to a grant we got from the East Midlands Food and Drink iNet, we were able to have a PR agency work with us for a few months. This means we were able to write our first newsletter and we also sent loads of samples to magazines and newspapers. I've had my first interview with a glossy magazine which will hopefully mean that there will be more awareness for the products nationally. We’ve had interest from other national magazines, and a large food magazine is talking about writing a feature on us which would be fantastic.

You can find out more about Marcela on the new interactive business website www.inafishbowl.com

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