If you are going the route of raising a small amount of seed financing(<100K) in order build an initial version of your product and gain customers, then you should quickly segment the people you know or meet into two categories: people who like, respect, trust, and share a bond with you and people who don’t.

Most of the people that will fall into the first category will be people that you have known for a while: parents, siblings, college friends, high school friends, etc. A very small number of these people will enter your life after you begin to raise funding, and in most cases, it will take a connection from a friend to begin the relationship and a good amount of time to develop it.

At this first stage of segmentation, don’t worry about who has the financial ability to invest and who doesn’t. That categorization can lead to culling folks who are willing to help you in other ways. Define this core support group first, and if you are having trouble, be generous in adding people who might be on the edges. Once you have this core, nuture it. You will be amazed at how it can grow larger and healthier. Eventually, when you are ready, begin letting your core group know what you are working on. Some will be skeptical, some will be supportive, some will be helpful. Practice your sales pitch on the skeptics, let the supporters give you energy, and take all the help you can get, because you will need it!

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