From Zero to Hero: How Funding Turned These Startups into Successful Businesses

Introduction

Starting a business from scratch is like sailing without a compass. But, what if you could get a little help from the outside world to boost your venture? For many startups, the answer comes in the form of funding, which can provide the necessary resources for turning a dream into a profitable reality. Here are a few success stories that show how funding helped these entrepreneurs reach their goals.

Story #1: Dollar Shave Club

It’s a pretty straightforward story. Founder Michael Dubin noticed that buying razors was a hassle – men were paying too much for a simple product, largely because razors had been monopolized by a few large companies. Dubin had identified a gap in the market, and he wasn’t afraid to fill it. He created Dollar Shave Club, a subscription service that would send high-quality razors directly to subscribers for a fraction of the price. But, creating this promising new business required capital. Thanks to a $1M seed investment from the company’s first investor, a foundation that helps young entrepreneurs, Dubin was able to manufacture the first batch of razors and build a website. Winning international success and being acquired by Unilever for $1B, Dollar Shave Club is undoubtedly an outstanding example of how funding elevation transformed Dollar Shave club from a small brand into a well-known brand.

Story #2: Airbnb

Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia met as struggling roommates in San Francisco who decide they could essentially sell a little extra space to travelers and make a little extra cash. In August 2008, the pair knew they needed $150,000 to turn their ideas to action. They pitched their up-and-running idea, but they got rejected thirty times by investors. The capital’s answer led them to devise a risky plan, which eventually led to them securing their desired finance. They established an unprecedented cereal-box project for investors at a big event of Boston. Their scrappy beginnings eventually paid off strong, and Airbnb’s largest round of capital investment came with $112 million—a huge chunk of which went towards European expansion.

Story #3: Slack

Slack’s co-founder and CEO, Stewart Butterfield, previously launched the photo-sharing website Flickr, but after selling Flickr to Yahoo for a tidy profit, he shifted his sole attention to a new entrepreneurial venture — Slack.
Aside from incorporating key lessons and back-end capabilities from Butterfield’s previous endeavour, Slack had a strong value proposition in centralizing different team tools useful to business communication. An effective way of funding using capital markets did not interest Butterfield, which is wise considering if any errors were made, financial accounting fees would not be able to make up for a loss means. Therefore, Slack’s fate transpired by privately seeking funds with smart investors in its travel.
Slack contributed office-oriented discussions across messaging channels and was a stock symbol of go-to. Softbank unveiled its plans to present $250 million to exceed the $1B rounds toward Slack. In total, Slack presented calculations of the means of funding roughly $1.4 billion.

Conclusion

Funding is a critical part of transforming any startup towards success. It is often one of the most essential keys to the early stages of growth. All of these stories shared successful funding strategies from getting investments abroad to going against to capital markets to connect with middle investors. Creative campaigns being made to bring a boost of funding is an unanswered puzzle for every business, and begin-ups can accomplish them using cleverly created tactics – like those employed by Airbnb, Dollar Shave Club, and Slack.