Bangalore: “One fine day we got a call from an investor from Dubai who wanted to invest in our company, and within 24 hours of the talk, the fund was credited in our account. They were the real angel for us,” says Abhishek Shah, Founder and CEO, Fetise.com.

But meeting their angel was not an easy task. They faced several rejections before the angel landed on to fund them. Their idea of being an exclusive online store for men was appreciated by some investors, but they rejected to invest by saying that every idea is not fundable even though ours was a great one, some said it is not profitable and few other said that the idea is not likely to go for IPO. Few of the investors were not interest to invest small amount and that too in a small company. “They said, ‘we want to invest in large amount, so it would be great if you come later and tell us why you need big amount of fund’. I was not able to understand the concept of these investors as we cannot exceed our requirement of fund and enlarge our idea suddenly to raise a huge amount of capital that we don’t require,” he adds.

Rejection Isn't Failure, Failure Is Giving Up, and Fetise team denied giving up. The journey of Fetise started when four young and enthusiastic individuals Chetan Bafna, Abhishek Shah, Somya Tambi and Subir Ghosh founded the company in March 2011. They raised $5 million of seed funding from a group of angel investors through a TV show, Starting Up. They were thrilled about the show and saw it as a stepping stone. They met the investors on the show, and later had a long duration of offline discussions with one of the angel investors Mahesh Murthy.

However, the journey was not an easy one as they were criticized on the live show. As an investor, they tend to focus on how the startup can do well and find ways to do better in the future. Their job is to safe guard their money. The offline discussions included a long process of meeting the angel investors for more than 6-7 times. Each discussion meant adaptability in business plan as per the demand of the investors.

In each round of fresh meeting, the investors focused on the changes that they adapted in their business plan and finally succeeded in grabbing the seed fund from them. The investors are experienced people and they know the market and the trend much better than we do. It is important for the startups who seek funding from angel investors or the VCs to keep on updating their business plan to make the company and the product or service marketable.

Raising fund is not an easy task. After being refused by many investors, Fetise were still in touch with them, providing them updated information about their organization. They let them know what they have done, or are planning to do. Keeping in touch with the investors and involving them in the business despite their rejection is one of the wonderful way to entice them to come one day and say, ‘hey we are interested in funding your idea’, rather than going to seek funding from them.

For startups, it is about differentiation from the increasing competition that will help them catch the eyes of the investors. The major challenge for investors in India has been choosing a great team, which can lead the budding startup to a fully-fledged company that is able to respond to the competition. As a startup, it is important not to over kill it or over pull it. Rejections play a crucial role in the development of the traits of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs usually live in their own world of fantasy, thinking their idea to be one among the million brilliant ideas. But, when they get rejected, they realize themselves and try to find out what was missing.