Helpful Information
Types of Ideas Funded
The Wildcat MicroFund was established to help entrepreneurs in a wide variety of fields and industries.
No one industry is viewed as more important or deserving than another. The diverse Wildcat MicroFund team and its partners are not necessarily concerned about scalability, but are more interested in providing assistance to a wide variety of individuals and opportunities that demonstrate a need in the marketplace and the potential to become profitable.
If you have a physical product, service, technology platform, food-based business or other idea, your concept may be a great match for the Wildcat MicroFund.
Zero Equity
We take absolutely NO EQUITY in your product, service, idea, or company ever! Awarded funds do not need to be paid back. Monies awarded from the Wildcat MIcroFUND are completely free funding to help new ventures make progress, achieve their dreams, and improve their chances of success. This is our way to promote problem solving, encourage new venture creation, boost our local economy, and make a difference in our communities. Funds available for award have been provided by generous partners and sponsors, government grants, and other community stakeholders to help entrepreneurs succeed.
Mentors, Networks and Access to Capital
We have partnered with the Entrepreneur Association and Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) across the State of Utah to provide expert mentoring to help you every step of the way.
Experts in various fields of study and business industries support the MicroFUND as judges and often connect successfully with awarded entrepreneurs to assist them in growing their businesses.
You get more than just money, you get a network of business professionals, mentors, and tools at your fingertips to help ensure your success.
What is Customer Validation?
Asking your family and friends if they would buy your service or product and invest in your business is not the best way to validate your idea. Asking other people to design your product is not going to inform your intuition about your product either.
Customer validation is a way to find out more about your target customer and what others are willing to purchase and the amount they are willing to spend. Customer interviews are a great way to discover pain points about the current situation and is sometimes a difficult task but a fundamental process to investigate the mindset of your customer. Validation helps you determine if your assumptions are correct about your product or service.
Check out “Talking to Humans” to learn more about customer interviews. When doing product development, it is important to find out what your customer’s problems are and how they’re currently solving the problem.
What is a Milestone?
A Milestone in GetFUNDED by the Wildcat MicroFUND is typically a well researched business hypothesis with a timeline and identified priorities and goals to get accomplished. Accomplishing these priorities utilizing GetFUNDED awards turn into milestones for your business. A lump sum is awarded and it is expected you will make judicious use of the award. Many times we see a multitude of milestones lumped into an application. This can be a signal that the applicant is trying to do too many things at once or has not entirely thought out their next priorities and goals. This can be a major pitfall in getting through the application process and leads to your application being denied.
When determining your milestone ask yourself: what are the top three priorities for my business. Is this really a milestone? Is there another priority that needs to be accomplished first? Can I split this into several milestones? How long will this milestone take me to realistically complete? If you break it down into smaller priorities and goals, you might be more successful at accomplishing those milestones.
Impact for Entrepreneurs
- Recipients receive funds based on execution of business principles
- Entrepreneurs learn skills in managing funds, teams and projects
- Participants are connected to expert mentors and learn to solve problems in a business setting
- Community grows through the creation of impactful businesses