Asher's Blog

This morning, I received a message from someone I would describe as a mentee. He asked me to review his pitch deck because he was trying to raise ₦500,000—roughly a few hundred US dollars, depending on the exchange rate.

The message made me think about one of the most important lessons a young founder must learn: before you raise financial capital, you must begin to build the mind that can create, attract and steward capital.

I do not say that ₦500,000 is objectively nothing. For many people in Nigeria, it is a significant amount of money, and any request for another person’s capital deserves seriousness. My point is about scale and method. At that amount, the founder may be treating the absence of money as the main obstacle when the more important questions are about imagination, customers, resourcefulness and execution.

Can the amount be earned from early sales? Can the idea be tested manually for less? Can the founder save part of it, obtain a small grant, persuade a supplier to offer credit or invite a few people who already trust him to support a defined pilot? Does he need a sophisticated investor deck, or does he need evidence that somebody wants what he plans to build?

I am also aware of the humility this situation demands from me. I may look at ₦500,000 and think it should be possible to raise quickly, while I am considering how to raise $50 million for a much larger ambition. Somewhere in the world, another founder or investor considers $50 million relatively small. Scale changes perspective.

The lesson is not to mock a small beginning. It is to understand that your present obstacle may look different once your mind, competence and network expand.

Some people do not get it—until they become willing to learn

What sometimes frustrates mentors is not that a young person lacks knowledge. Everybody begins by not knowing. The frustration comes when a person asks for advice but is unwilling to reconsider the assumptions that created the problem.

Learning requires humility. You must be able to listen without converting every correction into an attack on your intelligence. You must be willing to admit that the way you understand fundraising, product, sales or leadership may be incomplete. You must be able to hear the same principle repeatedly until it becomes part of how you think.

A mentor cannot learn on your behalf. They can shorten the path, expose blind spots and help you avoid expensive mistakes, but they cannot force insight into a closed mind.

At the same time, mentors should remember that understanding develops at different speeds. An idea that now feels obvious to me may have taken years of experience, mistakes and repeated explanation to become obvious. Telling someone once does not guarantee that the person has acquired the context needed to apply it.

So the learner needs humility, and the teacher needs patience. But patience should not become an excuse for refusing to practise what has already been understood.

The first capital is mental capital

Money is not the first form of capital available to a founder. Before money, you have attention; you have time, although not in unlimited quantity. You may have knowledge, energy, relationships, credibility, access to customers, the ability to sell, and the capacity to learn. You have a mind that can identify a problem, combine ideas and design a solution.

Those resources are forms of capital because they can be used to create future value.

This is why developing your mind matters. If you give money to a founder who cannot identify value, understand customers, manage costs or make disciplined decisions, the money may only allow the mistakes to become larger. Capital magnifies what is already present. It can accelerate sound execution, but it can also accelerate confusion.

The first question is therefore not, “Who will fund me?” It is, “What am I becoming capable of building?”

Your mental capital grows when you read, observe, ask good questions, test your assumptions and learn from consequences. It grows when you develop judgment rather than merely collecting information. A person can consume hundreds of books while remaining unable to make one clear decision. Knowledge becomes capital when it changes perception and action.

Build a reading culture

One of my strongest recommendations to a young founder is to read voraciously.

Read Paul Graham’s essays. As a co-founder of Y Combinator and a writer who has spent years observing startups, Graham explains many early-stage realities with unusual simplicity: build something people want, talk to users, do things that do not scale, understand growth and avoid allowing fundraising to replace the work of building.

Do not read an essay once merely to say you have completed it. Return to it after speaking with customers, hiring your first employee or trying to raise money. Experience will reveal meanings you could not see during the first reading.

Subscribe to Seth Godin’s blog. His writing will repeatedly confront you with questions about value, trust, generosity, positioning, permission and the smallest viable audience. The posts are often brief, but brevity is not the same as shallowness. A useful idea should be digested, connected to your circumstances and tested in practice.

Read Carol Dweck’s Mindset. Her work distinguishes a fixed mindset, which treats ability as a verdict, from a growth mindset, which recognizes that capability can be developed through effective effort, strategies, feedback and learning. Importantly, a growth mindset is not simply praising effort while the method remains poor. Stanford’s teaching resources note Dweck’s warning that effort alone is insufficient; learners also need constructive feedback and better strategies.

Read Angela Duckworth’s Grit. Her central idea is that long-term achievement requires sustained passion and perseverance. But grit should not mean stubbornly repeating a broken approach. The purpose is to remain committed to a meaningful objective while continuing to improve the way you pursue it.

Then read beyond these recommendations. Study finance, accounting, psychology, history, sales, technology, regulation, biographies and the industry in which you plan to operate. Read arguments with which you disagree. Learn from practitioners, not only motivational speakers.

You do not need to accept every sentence in a respected book. Reading should strengthen your ability to think, not transfer your judgment permanently to an author.

Read to build models, not quotations

It is possible to decorate your speech with ideas while your decisions remain unchanged.

A founder reads “make something people want” and continues building for months without speaking to a user. Another reads about grit and interprets every weak market signal as a reason to continue wasting capital. Another quotes Mindset but becomes defensive whenever a mentor questions the business model. That is not learning; it is intellectual costume.

After reading something useful, ask:

1. What claim is the author making?
2. What evidence or experience supports it?
3. In what context might it be wrong or incomplete?
4. What does it change about my current decision?
5. What action can I take this week to test it?
6. What result would cause me to revise my interpretation?

Summarize important ideas in your own words. Discuss them with intelligent people. Apply them to a real problem. Teach what you have learned without pretending to know more than you do.

The purpose of reading is not to make you sound like a founder. It is to improve the quality of the company you are able to build.

At ₦500,000, rethink what fundraising means

Institutional fundraising is expensive even when no legal fee is paid. It consumes attention; it requires meetings, follow-ups, diligence and relationship management. Equity can also be the most expensive capital a successful founder ever raises because ownership surrendered early participates in future value indefinitely.

For a need of ₦500,000, a young founder should first examine whether investor fundraising is the right instrument.

The best source of early capital may be a customer. Can you pre-sell the service? Can a customer pay a deposit? Can you offer a narrower version manually? Can you solve the problem for one organization, learn from the engagement and use the revenue to finance the next version?

If customers will not commit even a small amount, an investor’s cheque may postpone rather than solve the real problem.

Other possible sources include personal savings, income from work, grants, competitions, a clearly documented loan, supplier credit, or limited support from family and friends who understand the risk. Each source has consequences; a loan must be repayable under realistic assumptions. Money from relationships should still be documented; a grant may impose conditions. A pre-sale creates an obligation to deliver.

Do not take money simply because it is available. Match the instrument to the purpose, risk and stage of the business.

And do not spend ₦500,000 to create the appearance of a business. Spend it, if needed, to produce evidence: a working pilot, customer acquisition, inventory that has demonstrated demand, a necessary licence or another milestone that increases what the company knows or earns.

A deck cannot substitute for evidence

A pitch deck is a communication tool. It should explain the problem, customer, solution, market, business model, progress, team, economics, competition, plan and use of funds. A good deck helps an investor understand an opportunity. It does not manufacture an opportunity that does not exist.

Founders sometimes spend weeks adjusting fonts and projections because the deck feels controllable. Customers are less controllable. They ask difficult questions, delay decisions and reveal whether the value proposition is strong. Yet that discomfort contains the evidence investors ultimately care about.

Before polishing slide thirty, speak to thirty prospective customers. For a very early idea, evidence may be modest: interviews showing a recurring problem, letters of intent, a waiting list with credible acquisition, a paid manual service, repeat usage or a small group of highly engaged users. Be precise about what each signal proves; a waiting list does not prove retention. Free usage does not prove willingness to pay; a verbal promise is not cash.

Your deck should tell the truth about the stage you have reached. Investors can accept uncertainty; they should not be asked to accept fiction.

Think from value, not from need

Many weak fundraising conversations begin with the founder’s need: “I need ₦500,000 to build my app.” The prospective funder is quietly asking a different question: “What value will exist because I provide this money, and what risk am I taking?”

Need alone does not create an investment case. Think about the customer first. What painful, expensive or important problem are you solving? How many people experience it? What do they currently do instead? Why is your solution meaningfully better? How will you reach them? What will they pay? What does it cost to serve them? What have you already learned?

Then think about the capital. What precise milestone will the money finance? Why does that milestone matter? How long will the money last? What happens if the original assumption proves wrong? What can you achieve before seeking more?

The founder who thinks in value sees ₦500,000 differently. It is not simply money missing from an account; it is a resource that must purchase learning, capacity or growth.

The same reasoning applies at $50 million. The number is larger, but capital providers still ask what the money enables, what evidence supports the plan, who can execute it and how risk will be managed. Nobody graduates from the need to create value.

Build hope on something stronger than the business

I also advise young founders to build their hope on the Word of God.

Business is uncertain. Good products can fail because of timing, regulation, distribution, capital, team problems or changes in the market. Hard work improves the probability of success but does not control every variable. If your identity and hope depend entirely on the company working exactly as you imagined, every setback will threaten your sense of self.

Faith gives you somewhere deeper to stand. First Peter 1:3 describes believers as having a “lively hope” through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That hope is not identical to positive thinking about a commercial outcome. It is confidence in God’s character and redemptive work, even when a particular plan changes.

Know God for yourself. Stay close to the Holy Spirit. Read Scripture, pray, listen and remain accountable within a healthy community of faith. Let the Word shape your character, not merely provide slogans for ambition.

You can believe that God will guide, sustain and teach you without claiming that He has guaranteed every business model. Sometimes faith gives you courage to persevere. Sometimes it gives you humility to change direction. Sometimes it reminds you that losing an opportunity does not mean losing your future.

The business is something you steward. God is the foundation on which you stand.

Fill your mind with faith, truth and possibility

Fear narrows imagination. When every thought begins with why something cannot happen, the mind stops searching for a route.

This is why I habitually ask, “How can we make this happen?” The question does not deny risk. I often begin by considering the worst-case scenario. But after identifying the downside, I return to possibility. What would need to be true? Who has solved a related problem? What resource can be rearranged? Which assumption can be tested? What would a smaller version look like?

Possibility thinking is not wishful thinking. Wishful thinking desires an outcome without accepting the work, evidence and correction required. Possibility thinking believes a route may exist and becomes disciplined about finding it.

The fact that other people have achieved something proves possibility in a general sense, but it does not prove that your circumstances are identical or that your method will work. Study what was transferable, what advantages they possessed and what your own context requires.

Feed your mind examples of courage, integrity, invention and perseverance. Be careful about spending your most alert hours consuming fear, gossip and stories designed only to provoke anxiety. Your mental inputs influence the questions you ask, and your questions influence the possibilities you notice.

Your subconscious is not magic

I sometimes express this strongly: if an ambition never enters your consciousness—if you cannot genuinely imagine, understand and prepare for it—you are unlikely to build the capacity to sustain it.

But this should not be interpreted as a mystical formula in which thinking about wealth automatically produces wealth. Visualization cannot replace value, skill, capital, timing or work. People can believe intensely and still be wrong.

The practical truth is that your underlying beliefs influence what you notice, attempt, practise and tolerate. If you believe significant achievement belongs only to a different class of people, you may never study how it is built, approach the relevant relationships or remain in the process long enough to learn. If you begin to see the outcome as possible, you can work backwards into capabilities, milestones and decisions.

You must become capable before the opportunity becomes sustainable. Someone who receives sudden access to money without judgment may lose it. Someone who enters a large role without the character and systems required may be overwhelmed by it. This is why internal development matters before visible expansion.

Become wealthy first in knowledge, discipline, credibility, relationships and capacity to create value. Financial wealth then has a stronger structure in which to remain.

Use a sharper axe

Working harder without developing your mind can resemble trying to cut down a tree with a blunt axe. Energy is being spent, but unnecessary resistance consumes the effort.

Abraham Lincoln is often credited with a quotation about spending most of the time sharpening the axe before cutting the tree, although the precise attribution is uncertain. The principle remains useful: preparation improves the productivity of effort.

Sharpening the founder’s axe includes learning how customers buy, understanding basic accounting, improving communication, studying the industry, recruiting people wisely and building emotional discipline. It includes learning how different forms of capital work and what obligations accompany them.

But do not sharpen forever. A perfectly prepared axe that never touches wood produces nothing. Read, then build. Learn, then sell. Seek counsel, then decide. Reflection and action should continually improve one another.

Four forms of capital to build before the cheque

Before asking for money, strengthen four other forms of capital. First, intellectual capital: your understanding of the problem, customer, industry, business model and risks.

Second, reputational capital: evidence that you keep your word, use resources responsibly and finish what you begin.

Third, relational capital: people who trust your character, respect your ability and can offer information, introductions or honest correction.

Fourth, customer capital: users, contracts, retention, revenue and proof that the solution creates value.

Financial capital is easier to attract when these forms are visible. More importantly, they improve what financial capital can achieve after it arrives.

A founder with only money has runway. A founder with understanding, credibility, relationships and customers has a business taking shape.

What I would tell the young founder

I would tell him not to be ashamed that he needs ₦500,000. Every large company began at a smaller scale than it later reached.

I would also tell him not to make the amount psychologically larger than it needs to be. Break it into a specific purpose. Determine the smallest amount required to test the key assumption. Ask whether customers can finance part of it. Earn or save what you can. Approach people with evidence, not merely enthusiasm.

Read Paul Graham. Read Seth Godin. Read Mindset and Grit. Build a wider reading culture and revisit important ideas until they affect your decisions. Find mentors, listen with humility and return with evidence that you attempted what you understood.

Build your hope on God rather than on one fundraising outcome. Fill your mind with faith, truth and possibility. Ask how the goal can be achieved, then submit the answer to reality through disciplined action.

Do not try to raise money merely because fundraising looks like progress. Build something useful. Find the people for whom it is useful. Learn how to reach them and how to serve them profitably. Let capital accelerate value rather than disguise its absence.

One day, you may be preparing to raise an amount that currently feels unimaginable. When that day comes, the fundamental questions will remain the same: what value are you creating, what evidence do you have, why is this the right capital, and have you developed the capacity to steward it?

Before you raise capital, build your mind. It is the first asset every other form of capital will depend upon.

References and further reading

• Paul Graham, Essays, including “Do Things That Don’t Scale” and “Ramen Profitable”.
• Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog.
• Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. See also Stanford’s discussion of growth mindset and effective learning.
• Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
• Eric Ries, The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.
• 1 Peter 1:3.

This article provides general educational commentary. Founders should obtain appropriate legal and financial advice before issuing equity, accepting investment or borrowing money.