For those of you who follow TRIP you’ll know that I frequently reveal our lack of money.  It’s something I’ve got used to and learnt to live with.  I like to think of myself as an innovator and product developer, as opposed to a businessman.  I’m not great at the latter, I don’t like asking for money!  However, we’ve survived for over ten years and are still financially viable (I was going to say strong, but that’d be a slight exaggeration)!  What we’ve achieved with a small budget has been spectacular and part of me thinks that being kept hungry keeps the pressure on me to innovate.

But, I do occasionally fret over the lack of business development. I do wonder what we could do with a decent budget.  I do have a realistic set of ideas/innovations that would make TRIP significantly better.  I do think I could make TRIP the Google for medicine – the first port of call when clinicians have knowledge needs.

So, when I was approached 4-6 weeks ago by someone interested in helping TRIP on the business side, I was excited (and apprehensive).  We had some great chats and interesting exchanges of emails.  I’m thinking the approach may well have stalled but I’m not dispondent and that’s for the following reasons:

  • I learnt an awful lot during the due diligence process.  I received numerous pieces of advice – all free – around various aspects of business, including corporate structure.  I’ve come out of this stronger and more confident than before. 
  • As a result of one thread of advice I’ve been introduced to a venture capital firm.  This relationship isn’t necessarily about raising finance, it’s more about exploring options and business models.

With the new version of TRIP due before the end of the month and all this excitement around business development I can’t help but be excited about the future.  I doubt I’ll ever be a businessman but as long as I keep enjoying my business that’s fine by me 🙂