Resilient Book Summary - Resilient Book explained in key points

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Resilient summary

Name: Resilient
Rating: 4.2 (76 reviews)
Author: Sevetri Wilson

Sevetri Wilson

How to Overcome Anything and Build a Million Dollar Business With or Without Capital

4.2 (76 ratings)

23 mins

Brief summary

Resilient by Sevetri Wilson is a guidebook for entrepreneurs, especially black women, who face adversities while building businesses. It outlines actionable strategies for overcoming challenges and building a successful enterprise.

Topics

Entrepreneurial Stories Entrepreneurship Strategy Start-Ups Innovation Inspiration Small Businesses

Table of Contents

Resilient
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Discover how to build a successful company – even on a shoestring budget.

Do you have a brilliant idea for a product that would take the market by storm? Or maybe you’ve come up with a service that would solve a problem many people face. No matter what kind of business you want to create, you’ll need to make some big decisions – like whether or not to find investors, or how to recruit a quality team.

These blinks will guide you in exploring the pros and cons of the many options available to you throughout your business journey. Once you’re clear on the best way to structure your company, you can start making your entrepreneurial dream a reality.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

the powerful ingredient that wins over investors;
the secret to business success; and
what investing and marriage have in common.

You can successfully build a company without investors.

If you’re like most fledgling entrepreneurs, there’s probably one major thing on your mind – money. How much will you need to turn your amazing idea into an actual product or service? Where will you find the money? Media hype about startups who’ve landed millions from angel investors might make you think fundraising is the best option. But that’s not always the case. You have an alternative: bootstrapping.

Bootstrapping involves using the resources you already have – typically your own expertise and a small amount of your own money to cover initial costs. This is how author Sevetri Wilson grew her first company – Solid Ground Innovations – into a seven-figure business. And, depending on the type of business you want to start, bootstrapping might be the best option for you too.

The key message here is: You can successfully build a company without investors.

Bootstrapping founders get a number of perks that founders with investors miss out on. First off, they retain full control of their company. This means they can make their own decisions and don’t need to host regular board meetings with investors or report on outcomes.

Bootstrapping founders also retain 100 percent ownership of their business. This is different from founders who need to share a percentage of their equity with investors. While having investors gives founders more cash up front, this will eventually need to be paid back in the form of dividends. Bootstrapping founders, on the other hand, get to keep all the profits.

There are disadvantages to bootstrapping though. Limited cash can slow growth, and you’d be taking on the entire financial risk yourself. But if you don’t need much capital to set up your company, and you can start selling your product or service quickly, bootstrapping may be your best option.

So, how do you decide which financing model to use? Begin by considering four questions: Will it be low-investment to start your company? Can you start your company without needing to hire anyone else? Is there a clear market for your product or service? Are you an absolute money management expert who can control any impulses to break your budget?

If you answered “yes” to each question, bootstrapping will work for you.

Founding a company is demanding, so reflect on the personal cost before you begin.

If you’ve seen The Social Network, the film loosely based on Mark Zuckerberg’s experiences founding Facebook, you’ll have noticed something – plenty of people have the same great idea. But having a great idea and being able to turn it into a marketable product are two different skills.

Launching a business or startup is a huge undertaking, which is why so many people never manage it. It’s important to realize that your new venture is going to change nearly every aspect of your life. And the chances of failing are high. Only one in ten startups become viable companies, and of those, half fail within five years. So, before you begin, reflect deeply on whether this is the right journey for you.

If you need to outsource work, recruit wisely.

When Wilson started Solid Ground Innovations she didn’t initially need to hire anyone else, which was partly why she could bootstrap. But her experience with her second venture, Resilia, was completely different. Wilson wanted to build a tech platform for charities. But while she knew her customers’ needs inside out, she was no tech expert.

Because of that, Wilson needed to hire a team of platform developers – and the most cost-effective way to do that was by engaging freelancers. Most founders hire freelancers to avoid the costs that come with having employees. But freelancers won’t necessarily have as much buy-in as employees, and they’ll be working off-site – often in another country. So, if you want to collaborate successfully, you have to hire the right people.

Securing investors is less about your product and more about you.

Wilson was a 19-year-old college student when she became an entrepreneur. She’d come up with the concept for an online newspaper called B-NOW, which stood for Black News Our Way. She ran the idea past her professor, Dr. Leonard Moore. Enthusiastic about what he’d heard, Moore wrote Wilson a check for $150 so she could file an LLC.

At the time, Wilson didn’t realize that Moore was essentially her first investor. While Wilson bootstrapped B-NOW and her first official company, Solid Ground Innovations, the experience of receiving financial support from her professor taught Wilson an important lesson: relationship building is an essential part of fundraising.

Use the power of story to win over investors.

When Wilson was sharing her idea for B-NOW with her college professor, she was telling a story. As a young, Black woman living in Louisiana, Wilson faced many challenges. By publishing B-NOW, she wanted to draw together local students from two different communities – those from Southern University, which was a historically Black college, and students from the predominately white Louisiana State University, which Wilson attended on a full Pell grant.

Story has the power to capture the listener’s interest and motivate them to take action. In Wilson’s case, Dr. Moore wanted to help by giving her the money she needed to incorporate her business. By carefully preparing the story of your own entrepreneurial journey, you can harness the same power to get the seed funding you need.

Carefully evaluate the real cost of every pitching opportunity.

There’s a lot of hype around competitions like TechCrunch Disrupt, where early-stage founders pitch their companies to investors. If you win, you not only get glory – you get the capital you need to build your product or make that essential hire.

But these events come with a price tag. When Wilson attended her first pitch competition in upstate New York, she had to pay for her own travel from Louisiana, plus accommodation. Then, moments before her pitch, she was thrown off by some last-minute feedback an investor had given her and made a complete mess of her presentation. The whole experience was a disaster – one that wasn’t worth the time and money it had cost.

Repeatable revenue is the secret to a company’s success.

There’s a certain glamour to the sales world – schmoozing with potential clients, cutting deals, popping champagne when you land that big account. But in truth, what makes your business a success in its early stages is far from glamorous – it’s a process.

When you first launch your product or service, what you need more than anything else is regular, predictable income. You need to know that Process A will lead to Sales Outcome B. Repeating this process generates steady cash flow. And that consistent cash flow means you can plan how to reinvest your revenue to grow your business.

Keep a level head when it comes to subsequent fundraising.

Once you’re successfully running your business and customers love your product, you’re ready for a Series A round of funding. Series A round refers to a company’s initial round of venture capital financing; it gets its name from the type of stock sold to investors in exchange for their funding.

The size of Series A round funding varies depending on the company and its needs. While you may think the more money you raise the better, that’s not always true. What’s more important to focus on is how much money you’ll need to reach your next major company milestone.

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What is Resilient about?

Resilient (2021) is an intimate account of entrepreneur Sevetri Wilson’s journey from self-funding her first company to securing ongoing capital for her second. It provides early-stage founders insight into every step of building a business – from initial concept to securing the finances needed to scale.

Best quote from Resilient

The holy grail for many businesses is predictable, repeatable, and scalable revenue.

—Sevetri Wilson

Who should read Resilient?

Aspiring entrepreneurs
Innovators looking to turn their ideas into marketable solutions
Startup founders who need to raise capital

About the Author

Sevetri Wilson is a serial entrepreneur who started her first venture in her teens. She has founded two companies and is the first Black woman in New Orleans to have raised more than $1 million in venture capital. In 2010, Wilson received the Jefferson Award – what’s considered the Nobel Prize for public service – and she has been featured across news outlets for her work in business and technology.

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