Pocket Fund

Yo,

My name is Dev Shah and I'm raising $5,000 for Pocket Fund, a micro search fund for small online businesses at my college, Claremont Mckenna.

We have a 3-step plan:

1. Find and Buy a business on Acquire

2. Run said business for 12-18 months (5x Valuation)

3. Sell the business

Bonus: Repeat

Money isn’t the motivating factor here.

The main goal of this fund is to showcase the process of buying, running, and selling a small online business.

We want to show that ANYONE can do this.

Micro Search Fund is committed to open-source practices, meaning all our activities and learnings are shared openly with our members and the broader community.

We believe in removing gatekeeping and providing equal access to information and opportunities.

What kind of business will we buy?

Simple Criteria:

Examples (~$5k): Mobile App with 10 mil downloads, Social media brands with 250k followers

We strongly believe in growing a healthy and profitable business and are not trying to raise money for a moonshot start-up. These are businesses that will be bootstrapped, run with a focus on profitability and growth in a sustainable manner with a focus on systems and automation.

So how will we do this and why us?

We aren't entirely sure how that's kind of the fun of it.

If we knew exactly what to do, then what's the point?

Buuuut I'm sure that wasn't very reassuring so here's some success I've had in the past.

Built a side hustle to $25,000 when I was 18 and now building an Ed-tech start-up around it- Eleven59

Bought Sourcely (source finding Student AI tool) at $500 Monthly Recurring Revenue on Acquire for $4,000 in early June 2023.

Despite college being off for the summer, in less than 3 months we have increased the MRR to nearly $1,500.

This values Sourcely at $1,500 x 12 months = $18,000

$18,000 x 3.5 (Average SaaS Revenue Multiple acc. Acquire Acquisition Multiples Report) = $63,000

I am quite confident of repeating this success with another small online business with Pocket Fund, especially given the platform and help I will have with this project.

How will the fund be set up?

The monthly profits from the business will be used at the discretion of the president of the fund. Profits are expected to be reinvested to drive growth. Leftover funds can be used for club activities.

The club will receive 50% of the selling price.

The Team will receive the remaining 50% of the selling price.

The Micro Search Fund Team will consist of 3-5 members, each with an equal stake.

They will each be responsible for very specific tasks within the business.

The Business Man: Responsible for fundraising, finding the business, selecting the team, and running all operations.

The Tech Dude: Handles all technical aspects of the business. This will depend on the business we acquire, but I anticipate sourcing someone from Harvey Mudd College.

The Marketing Guy: Handles all marketing responsibilities like writing copy, designs, social media marketing, etc.

More members can be added if required but I feel this core team of 3 will be plenty.

Why invest in us?

Do it for the love of entrepreneurship.

Our goal is to help educate and spread awareness. Just imagine how much being exposed to a club like this could have helped you in your early journey as an entrepreneur. That is our focus.

'Investors' will NOT receive any stake in the business.

We'll tackle this project in three phases:

Phase One (with a focus on education) involves fundraising and searching for suitable businesses to acquire by analyzing potential candidates together with all members involved.

Phase Two (12-18 months long), we'll operate the acquired business with an emphasis on increasing revenues while maximizing profits.

Phase Three (6-month duration), we aim at selling off the improved venture for double its initial value if possible!

The Goal?

The Goal has been established as spreading awareness of acquiring a small business like this as an opportunity and proving that anyone can do it.

In terms of returns, we hope to 5x the valuation of the business and sell it for a minimum of $25,000. This can be done by bringing it up to $1,000 monthly revenue, depending on the business.

All team members will get first-hand experience working on bootstrapping a small business. The hope is to educate them and have them take away an experience that they can use to then teach others or do it themselves next time.

All club members will receive plenty of information and access to the behind-the-scenes of running the business and how we grow.

Future plans?

We're only just getting started.

We plan to open chapters in colleges across the US with a focus on recruiting strong and genuine leaders, rather than school prestige.

The This Is Bizness community will continue to grow and so will our offerings so stay tuned for more!

no raffles, sweepstakes, giveaways, or promotions are offered in exchange for any donations made to GoFundMe.