Why Is Funding Source Such A Secret? I Will Not Promote

I see so many ads for startups on Instagram - protein shakes, candy, gum, chips, THC gummies, drinks… and a lot of them are the founders who talk about the origins of the company like, “me and my friend were just talking about how this would be a good product, so we went ahead and made it!”

And I always look up interviews with the founders to see how they got the funding to start/build their company, and they never go into that. They just talk around it, as if they got the idea then the next day just leased a factory and ordered a bunch of supplies then went to market. And it’s not even like these are groundbreaking product ideas, they’re simple things.

But that’s the one piece of information that I want to know: HOW DID THEY GET INITIAL FUNDING??

Did they have an inheritance or hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings? If not, how did they find a financier? Did they get a bank loan? If so, did they put their whole life up as collateral?

For those of us who have startup ideas and business plans for them, we can’t just cold email a VC firm and get a pitch meeting with them. We also probably aren’t in a financial position to get a bank loan (if the business doesn’t turn a profit we’ll lose our house/car and be repaying the loan for our entire life).

So whenever I see these Reels or listen to the interviews I just want to yell at the screen “HOW DID YOU GET FUNDED??”

Seriously, if you have a startup idea, how do you get an investment to get it off the ground (without the risk of ruining your life with a bank loan)? Do all of these people in the Reels have personal connections with VCs?