Yaryna Hotlib With Nana Fund

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Yaryna Hotlib with Nana Fund. Welcome.

Yaryna Hotlib: Hello, Lee. Thank you so much. It’s such a pleasure.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn about what you got going on. Tell us a little bit about the Nana Fund.

Yaryna Hotlib: So Nana Fund is essentially my dream of how can I help small and medium sized businesses and especially startups, to get funded and survive through the Valley of Death. The fact that we do even have this phrase, Valley of death, always seemed to me very weird and unfair, because we are all and I mean a lot of governments, state program, accelerators, etc. there are so many incentives which are tend to help businesses to get started, to launch, to survive through the first year, but there is almost nothing out there for the business owners which will help them to get through the second year, up to fifth year, to scale, to thrive and many, many cases, business owners who are just on their year or two are not eligible for loans or a lot of incentive support programs. And yet somehow they need to find their way. How are they gonna build their business? So in my humble opinion, it is super easy to start comparing to survive through many, many years. So this is why I’ve built Nano Fund. Essentially what we are doing. We are scraping the internet. We are analyzing all the available on the internet. Funding opportunities starting from grants through support programs, incentive programs, accelerators, pitch opportunities, tax credits, loans, essentially everything. We are collecting it all in one huge database, then analyzing it, and we are showing to our users only those opportunities. They are eligible to apply right here, right now, and that are tailored to their needs and specific profiles and all that we are doing for free. So that’s why that was essentially my dream becoming true.

Lee Kantor: Now, for the folks that are out there listening, from what I’m hearing you say is to get something launched. There’s a lot of resources and a lot of energy in helping a person get something from the idea stage to something, but it’s once you have something, it gets a little trickier to find funding to get you to maybe that escape velocity. You need to have a thriving business, and that’s where you’re building kind of a database and resources to help that, um, entrepreneur get what they need so they can sustain their business.

Yaryna Hotlib: Yes, absolutely. It is hard enough to build something, but it is much harder to find your first client, your first 100 clients and all of that with a little or maybe sometimes no funding available for you.

Lee Kantor: So even if you have a great idea, if you don’t have the funding behind it, it may never kind of even have a chance to succeed because you don’t have enough resources to sustain kind of that initial stage.

Yaryna Hotlib: That initial stage. Honestly, I tend to believe that you will be able to get through if you do have a great idea. And if you do have a at least some resources to execute it because ideas I mean, everybody has an idea, um, but to be able to execute it well, that might be a little bit more trickier, but just to execute it, just to create some kind of a proof of concept, something small and working. Especially nowadays with the rise of AI tooling, it is possible and it will not be that expensive. But to survive through the stormy timing when you will need to get to your break even point to become profitable. That’s where everything becomes much more complicated, to say at least. And you’re going to need it all. You’re going to need, uh, additional funding. You’re going to need help from your friends and family. You’re going to need essentially everything, including a little bit of magic, just to make that work.

Lee Kantor: So what advice would you give an entrepreneur when they’re in that stage and maybe they’re frustrated? Um, what type of information do they need? What type of benchmark should they have been able to achieve in order for them to get the funding, they’re going to need to get to this next level.

Yaryna Hotlib: It really depends on the type of business that you’re trying to build. But and I mean, there are tons of different, um, types of funding. Maybe you’re building a venture backed type of business, which means just to give the the glimpse of what I’m talking here about, if you know exactly how you can get to $100 million in ten years and you will be able to show this pathway triple, triple, double, double. That means that year over year growth should be like triple triple and then double double. That’s still okay if you can clearly show that path. If you do understand how you can get there, maybe you will be eligible for the venture funding, and you can go and talk to investors. In many cases, we are building so-called, um, well, basically not unicorns, let’s put it that way. Uh, or lifestyle businesses as the venture capital is going to name it. And just to again provide the understanding you can make 200 millions a year and still do not be the venture backed type of a business. So first of all, you really need to understand what type of business you’re building. Uh, who are your target audience? How are you going to sell? What are the financial projections? And the very good source, in my opinion, where you can take a look at the benchmark to get some understanding might be the Risk Management Association.

Yaryna Hotlib: Uh, I would encourage you to go to check to visit their webinars because again, what they are doing, they are collecting data within the last 30 plus years about all the businesses, industries, locations, etc. and they have the brief information regarding revenue, profit at different stages at different type of companies. And therefore, you will be able at least to figure out whether you are getting there or you are still has much more to work on or to think about. So it is very important, in my opinion, to figure out where you are and then compare it to the others and where you are from the point of view of those who might have become your possible funding sources, whether it’s going to be investors, banks in many cases, most probably community banks, if we are talking about small businesses and startups. So you just need to realize who might be, uh, of your support within the next period of time. Does that make sense?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I’m just trying to get granular for our listeners. Like, you know, the vast majority of businesses out there are not going to be the unicorn, the billion dollar businesses, the vast majority are going to be the people that are trying to put food on their table for their family. They’re trying to have a nice lifestyle for themselves. The person who, you know, I don’t want to say it’s necessarily a lifestyle business, but it’s a business that’s generating, you know, maybe 5 or 6 figures a year for that entrepreneur. Is there an opportunity for that individual to benefit from your Nana fund?

Yaryna Hotlib: Absolutely. We we’ve built Nana fund essentially to support those folks. 90 plus percent of of all the small and medium sized businesses will be seen as the lifestyle businesses, and they still going to need all the support available out there, especially when we are talking about funding related stuff.

Lee Kantor: And I understand that one of your niches are veterans and their spouses.

Yaryna Hotlib: Yes, absolutely. That’s our first goal. To support veterans and military spouses who own the business, who are just starting to think about that, who are in their transition. And for us, it is very important to make sure that we’re going to be equally supported to both categories, to the veterans and military spouses, because I tend to believe that that is still a big problem, that in many, many cases, when we are talking about military spouses, there are still not being seen as the economically disadvantaged group of entrepreneurs, even though there absolutely are. And they need as much support as any other minority owned businesses. And of course, as much support as veterans needs.

Lee Kantor: So are there funding opportunities if you are a veteran or a spouse of a veteran? Are there things that are uniquely available to you?

Yaryna Hotlib: Uh, unfortunately, not that much. There are not that much of funding which are uniquely crafted to support, uh, only veterans or even smaller amount, uh, support military spouses. There are still tons of funding, uh, available for the businesses in general. And in many cases, unfortunately, when I’m talking to especially veterans, they tend to forget about the fact that they are much more than just a veteran. What I’m talking here about, for example, if the veteran is building a trucking company, right? So from the perspective of the, let’s say, community bank, he’s not only a veteran, he’s also operating in the logistic and the logistics industry, for example, in Illinois. So maybe there is. That’s the case. There are not that much of funding available solely for the veterans in Illinois. Now, you can take a look on the funding available for the logistics companies in the Illinois and also bring on the table the fact that you are a veteran. Does that make sense?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. So it’s the combination and you help them kind of look at all the assets that they have available to them selves that they may not kind of appreciate, or they might take it for granted.

Yaryna Hotlib: Yes, exactly. You’re absolutely right. We are taken into account when we are analyzing our business profiles, all the factors, not solely the fact that you were veterans or military spouses, but everything your industry, your zip code you’re operating in, all the demographic details and your need in funding because it is going to be the, uh, the site of the opportunities we will be able to show my my differ, um, depending on the amount of funding you’re looking for. Because, for example, if you’re looking for $10,000, that’s one story. But if you are looking for a million, that would be the completely different story.

Lee Kantor: So walk us through what it’s like. Say I’m looking for funds for my business. Um, I go to the website. Is that correct? I go to Nana Dot fund, um, to access the website. Yes. And then? Then what happens next?

Yaryna Hotlib: Then you will be asked a couple of questions. Uh, you’re going to need to finish your onboarding. That’s how we’re going to build your profile. And having the information, which we’re going to ask throughout this profile, will be able to provide you access to the different types of funding. As soon as you’re going to finish the profile, you will be my apologies. You will be directed to your personalized dashboard, where you will be able to see, uh, all the funding opportunities splitted into three major categories loans, support programs, and grants. And you will be able to choose whatever you’d like to. You will be able to go to any category, pick the option you like the most and just apply for it.

Lee Kantor: And so there’s no obligation, um, there’s no fee for this. This is all stuff that you’re just doing to serve that community.

Yaryna Hotlib: Yes, there is no fee for that. That’s absolutely right.

Lee Kantor: And then so once I do that, then the financial institutions, then I just start negotiating with them or working with them.

Yaryna Hotlib: Yes. For now that’s the case. But we are working with the couple community banks. We are negotiating currently to make sure that we will be able to provide to our users completely seamless process. What does that mean? That after you will Well on board and prepare all the needed documents with the help of nano font. Because just to give you the example I’ve just seen, how does the personal financial statement look like it is? Seven page document you need to fulfill to be able to apply for the commercial loan, and it is so easy to make mistake and or even couple or a lot of mistakes while you’re fulfilling the document. And according to official statistics, business owners are spending or wasting around 25 hours to fulfilling the document. So we are currently building the digitalized way to fulfill the document much easier. And as soon as you will get it along the other side of documents such as your balance sheet, PNL, etc. basically the typical set of documents, you will be able to apply them directly to the bank, which means that the bank will be able through Nanappan directly collaborate with you, and the amount of time both sides are going to need to spend will be decreased significantly. So I would encourage everybody just stay tuned. And like within the next two months, we’re planning to launch these opportunities and provide the direct access to community banks.

Lee Kantor: Wow. That’s going to be amazing. And so that’ll be a nationwide.

Yaryna Hotlib: Yes, we’re we are working nationwide. Um, and we are providing access to all the sources without basically paying a lot attention to the specific industry or, and location regarding community banks. Uh, most probably not going to be for the very beginning. Uh, nationwide, we are talking currently with the couple of community banks from the Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Maine. So these four states are going to be our pilot projects.

Lee Kantor: And then, um, so the service it one services kind of do it yourself and that’s no charge. And then you’re building this more robust do it with you service where you’ll help the person with their forms and get all the paperwork right.

Yaryna Hotlib: Yeah, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: Wow. That’s amazing. So right now where can people go to learn more? What’s the website again?

Yaryna Hotlib: It is Nana dot fund as simple as this.

Lee Kantor: Nana dot f u n d. You just go there and you can, um, begin immediately. Right? You can get some information right away.

Yaryna Hotlib: Yes, absolutely. You can begin immediately. As soon as you’re going to be ready. Just give it a try. Check it out. What’s going to be the funding sources available for you? And I would encourage also folks who are thinking about, uh, scaling their business to the different state or whatever. Also to go and check there is the opportunity through the update your profile, just change the location and check it out. Whether money is available out there in case of yes, which support programs can help you to scale to the different location, or to build your business out there without spending way too much energy. Or if you’re thinking about moving because I know that there are, especially after Covid, we can see a lot of moving around the country. If you’re thinking and you’re not sure what might be the best location to open your business or to move your business to, again, I would encourage you just to go pick that specific location you’re thinking about and check what type of support is already available out there, what type of support you can get, and you can start to build up that relationship even before you’re going to move, to make it just easier for you.

Lee Kantor: And then the amount of money we’re talking about here, is it like a thousand to a million or like, what’s the range of, uh, funding available?

Yaryna Hotlib: So if we are talking about grants, in most cases, that’s going to be up to maximum 20,000. I would say if you are talking about pitch competitions or, uh, the accelerators, the amount of money going to be ranged from 10 to $100,000. That I’d say was the maximum amount I’ve seen. If we are talking about support programs, in many cases they are. They are not about just providing you money in many cases. Uh, the incentive of the support programs is to help you save money. Just to give you an example, if you go to or you are operating in the child care space in Colorado, Colorado will help you to do the reconstruction in case if you need it. And they will cover up to 80% of the, uh, all the expenses of this reconstruction work or in state of Maine. If you’re gonna or you are operating in a logistics sphere, they’re going to cover up to 25% of your utility bills. So these are like types of programs which are helping you to save some money, or for example on, um, on job training, also going to cover the costs up to the specific amount of money for you to go and to train to obtain different type of certificates. And that might be starting from 2005 hundreds anywhere up to uh, seven, 7500 per one employee. So it really depends for loans. Again, if we’re talking about SBA startup loan, there’s going to be around, um, uh, $50,000 and up to even half a million. So it depends from the type of the company and from the type of the funding you’re looking for.

Lee Kantor: And then just by going to Nana fund. You can play around and see where you stand and what’s available.

Yaryna Hotlib: Yes, absolutely. You can see right away how many grants, support programs and loans are currently available for you and we are updating our database. We are doing all the analysis and scraping every week, and as soon as we will find anything eligible for you, you’re going to get the notification. So there is no need essentially to spend unnecessary time. Once you will have created the profile, we will take care about all the rest.

Lee Kantor: Well, Irina, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Yaryna Hotlib: Thank you so much for having me. It was an amazing conversation.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.