In this Ask Evan episode, host Evan Carmichael answers a viewer’s question about raising capital for a golf apparel business. He explains that the type of funding an entrepreneur can secure depends on the company’s stage: expansion capital is easier to obtain than early‑stage seed money. For a business that already has a product and wants to grow, angel investors are the most realistic source, typically providing up to about $500,000, while venture capitalists usually look for larger deals. Carmichael stresses the importance of finding angels who bring strategic value—industry contacts, sales expertise, and relevant experience—rather than just cash. He also suggests that, given golf’s corporate nature, securing corporate sponsorships (e.g., having brands put logos on shirts for tournaments) can be a viable alternative to traditional fundraising, which can consume a founder’s time. The video is sponsored by TELUS, which is running a $100,000 contest for Canadian businesses; Carmichael serves as a judge and encourages viewers to enter. He closes with a call to like the video and engage in the comments.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of #AskEvan. In today's episode, I'm going to answer a question from one of our readers, Tommy, who wrote in on the TELUS Talks Business blog with a question. Now, this particular post is brought to you by TELUS. They have a new challenge where they're giving away $100,000 to a Canadian business who can talk about the challenges they're facing and how they could use $100,000 to help them. I'm one of the judges, so make sure you go in and vote. I'll talk a little more about it at the end of the video. So Tommy's question is about raising capital. He is an entrepreneur with a golf clothing line and wanted my advice on how to raise money for the business. So Tommy, a couple things to think about. First off, you have to know what investors will finance, and depends on what stage you are with your business. If you're looking for money to grow your company, so you've already set up a business and you're looking for money to expand it, that's the easiest type of money to get. Marketing money, expansion capital is the easiest type of money to be able to get to grow a company. If you're in the startup phase, you're not quite sure what you're going to do, you haven't searched your suppliers yet, that's really early stage and it's not that it's impossible to get money for it, it's just a lot harder and they're going to take a lot more of your business. So if you're expanding or if you're close to the expansion phase, you can position yourself as As already having a business, now you need money to expand, you're more likely to get better terms and more money. So that's kind of the first thing to think about. You're probably in the angel investor category, so you can get money from venture capitalists, angel investors, which are wealthy individuals who want to invest money instead of in the stock market into companies. You can go to banks, you can go to a couple other companies. This is probably too small for venture capitalists to look at, but you might get an angel investor. Usually angels will invest anywhere up to half a million dollars. That'd be a really big angel. But anything less than that, you're looking in the angel realm and not venture capital. And what's important is that you try to find somebody who can give you more than just money. So it'd be great to get the money that you need, but you want somebody who can also give you contacts and experience and can, you know, help your company grow beyond just cutting you a check. So sometimes angels are dentists or doctors or people with disposable income. And they may not have a passion for golf and just want to see a return. Those aren't the ones that you want to go after. You want to go after people who, you know, understand your industry and can help you make some sales, open some doors for you, as well as give you the money that you need. So those are potential angels. The last thing to think about is you may not need to get funding for this. Trying to raise capital can be a full-time job for your business and takes a lot of your time away from being able to actually run your business. Since you're running a golf apparel company, I think that you'd be able to go get some corporate sponsors. Golf is such a corporate game that I would try to go after corporate sponsors to buy the shirts, right? Put their logo on it, whatever. Sponsor the shirt at their upcoming golf tournament, their charity events, and that might be a way for you to get your customers to help you sponsor and fund your business instead of having to go out and actually trying to raise capital for. So a couple things to think about. I hope that helps. If you guys are interested in that $100,000 contest, it's for Canadian entrepreneurs, you can go to theglobemail.com/thechallenge and the details are there on how you can enter. And I'm going to be one of the judges, so I want to see you guys in there entering your entries to see how well you guys are going to do. So good luck. And if you guys like this video, please give it a thumbs up below. I love seeing those come in. And if you have a question or you have something else to add to to Kami's question, feel free to leave it in the comments below, and we'll see you on the next episode.
