Making Web Money January 2022

Mistake Costs Entrepreneur $300,000 Heads Up! There are several juicy entrepreneurial lessons here for you to find – I point some out but see if you can spot the rest.

31 year old Sabeena Ladha launched her vegan cookie dough company in June 2020.

Lesson #1: Just because there’s stuff happening (a global pandemic, for example) doesn’t mean you can’t get stuff done.

She named her company Deux, which is pronounced “dough”, which I find irritating as heck, but that’s just me.

By the time Sabeena went on Shark Tank to ask for $300,000, she’d already raised $1 million in venture capital and brought in $630,000 in revenue.

Lesson #2: Think big and move fast because… why not?

Who says you have to slog away for years before creating your success?

She uses a direct to consumer Instagram sales strategy with placement in 40 Whole Foods locations.

Lesson #3: Combine online with offline tactics for maximum effect.

One of the Sharks, Robert Herjavec, noted that he didn’t like sweets but wanted to invest in her rather than the company. He offered Ladha $300,000 for 15% of her company’s equity.

Ladha then went on to haggle over the specifics of the deal, causing Herjavec to pull out.

Now I know the author of this article (link below) states this was a mistake, and perhaps it was. Billions of dollars of sales have been lost because the person doing the selling didn’t know when to stop talking.

However, I’m going to give Ladha the benefit of the doubt here, which brings us to…

Lesson #4: Know what you want and don’t give away the farm to get it.

I think Ladha didn’t want to give 15% of her company away, which is why she was haggling over terms. To her it was more important to retain as much ownership as possible rather than raise more money. (Remember she already had $1 million in venture capital and $600,000 in sales.)

However…

There is more to this story than just money. Herjavec is a seasoned entrepreneur who could have guided Ladha to even greater success. It’s possible that giving away the 15% of equity would have eventually put millions into her pocket she otherwise would not have earned, but we’ll never know.