I found joy in sharing the app at summits and workshops and I loved meeting the caregivers for long extended interviews and with families or individuals who needed the help. I was looking forward to implementing plans for online marketing and in person meetings to bring in more customers.
But then the darkness came when everything ended, and a way forward didn’t seem possible.
I remember so clearly that summer when my world came crashing down and halted, bringing everything to a standstill. What was a warm bright, hot morning, turned into the darkest day of my life. My 20-year-old college age son who was home for the summer died committed suicide.
How do you pick up the business when you can’t pick up the pieces of your life after experiencing the greatest loss as a mother? I gave up everything I knew and went through the motions of living, mostly crying and couch surfing between my sisters’ and mother’s place.
It was almost a year after the loss, looking out at the light peeking out one early morning, feeling drained and exhausted from crying most nights, I knew something had to change – I had to change. I knew I had to start living life fully again and find my new normal. My son made his choice, and this was my choice, and I made a vow to live. I wanted to enjoy life and experience everything again, the sun, food, travel, fun, laughs, family, friends, new places, new things, and I needed to start caring for my other son.
The challenge was where and how to start again. Over the next year I attended all kinds of business seminars, conferences, and workshops both online and in person, talking to different people and networking in the community. I signed up for different mentors and their programs, I learned how to craft my story, create webinars, courses for caregivers, spoke on podcasts, learned different tools and strategies, and even put together a 21- day summit broadcasting interviews with 21 experts from around the nation on “Easing the Burdens of Care for Caregivers”. I went through the second phase of development with new functionalities for the app and threw myself into learning more about being successful in business.
All through this time I was funding the business and was not paying myself. I was bootstrapping, in other words, paying for everything myself. It was quite expensive and for the most part I didn’t have a clear plan and was exploring all kinds of marketing strategies from click funnels, to email lists, and ad campaigns, and had lost momentum in the business. I needed to hone down on a business plan and what it cost to come up with the new customer. I needed to track the customers and caregivers from the ads online and via mailers, and the referrals from professionals to see which system works.
I had attended many pitch nights in my own backyard in Silicon Valley and knew that in order to take the business to the next level I needed to be in one of the accelerator programs. These programs are designed to teach you all about raising capital at the early stage with Angel investors, and through the next series of rounds with serial investors, private equity firms, and companies. My first two months were a shock because of the fast-paced program which I had immersed myself in and the world of investing that I had only read about. New terms with cap tables, term sheets, KPIs, valuation, crunch, rake, industry standards, exit strategy, and the ever- evolving pitch deck has kept me on my toes. The demo day with my 9-minute presentation alongside 100 other companies was both exhausting and fulfilling.
Raising funds is a whole new world, and I spend long nights studying the actual steps in funding and how to reach out to investors. I believe in what I am building and know that I will succeed. I am enjoying this process despite the ups and downs and the obstacles. I am alive. I am focused and I am making a difference. Is it easy? No. Will I give up? Never.