GreenSoul Shoes Funds Its Operations In A Creative Way

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by Iris Chau

GREENSOUL SHOES
My name is Iris Chau and along with my two business partners, Alastair Ong, Esq. and Stephen Chen we have co-founded, GreenSoul Shoes, which is a social for-profit. Our mission is to shoe underprivileged children around the world in a eco-beneficial fashion. We do this by working with local third-world artisans to produce a 100% up-cycled sandal (that is a sandal that is entirely made out of rubber tires and inner tubes with no staples, pins or glues). For each one that we sell, we give one away to an underprivileged child in need in that same community. Our goal is to shoe 1 million children in five years. You can find out more about us at: www.greensoulshoes.org.

Although Alastair is a successful attorney and serial entrepreneur and Stephen hailed from Bear Sterns and I was an Operations Manager at JPM Chase in the Investment baking unit and we all sound very wealthy, I can assure you that we are not.

Through Alastair's experienced guidance, we have decided to bootstrap our business. That means that we didn't want to take out any debt and did not want to sell equity for cash. So then the problem arises on if you want to remain debt free and keep all of your equity, how can you get some seed capital? We have found at least one very successful way.

THE CREATIVE WAY TO GET SEED CAPITAL FOR YOUR NEW IDEA
We received our seed capital by writing our business plan. Wait, hold on a second, Iris, did you say that you received capital for doing something that any business owner should do? The answer is yes. After writing our business plan, we simply submited and entering business plan competitions - it didn't matter which ones, any business plan competition that we could get our hands on we applied to. To date, we have gotten the following results:

SO HOW MUCH DID YOU EARN?
First place Fordham Business Plan Competition: $10,000
Second Place Queens Business Plan Competition: $6,000
First Place Brooklyn Business Plan Competition: $3,000
Finalist Green Business Competition

So for entering in these four business plan competitions, we have earned almost $20,000 in seed capital, which isn't a lot, but much more than we need. Best of all, this money comes with no strings attached - meaning if I wanted to, I could go out and buy those Manolos and that Prada bag that I've had my eyes on.

OTHER BENEFITS TO APPLYING TO BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITIONS
There are at least four other benefits to applying to business plan competitions.

These business plan competitions are useful in providing a deadline to get you to finally write that business plan that has been floating around in your head;

The process of being judged definitely helped us to cure any potential weaknesses, and expose future problems, and give you an idea of what other people think of your idea;

You get to see at an early stage what other people think of your idea, and also get to see what other people ideas are in starting a company;

You get to be in a community of like-minded entreprenuers, and get to network with judges (who make excellent coaches and mentors), who will largely be people in the venture capital community.

WHERE TO FIND BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITIONS
Business plan competitions are pretty much everywhere. You should check your local business commerce department or check your local library for entreprenuership meetings. Also you should check your Alma Mater, as there is almost certain to be at least one type of business plan competition open to alumni.

If you have an idea that you believe in, I openly advocate that you apply to a business plan competition, and almost any idea will work. The finalists in the Fordham business plan competition ranged from a Medeteranian style restaurant, to a mini-concrete truck to an online wedding registry that connected brides to botiques. Hopefully we'll see you in the finals!

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