I recently found myself in a situation where I lost a few of my close friends because of money. It all started when I was looking to open my business, but I didn’t have the funds to do so.
Found a few friends to do the business together, but did not want to come out with money
I eventually found a few friends who were interested in investing in my business. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to open my business, but I quickly realized that I had to come up with a price for them to invest.
I didn’t want to set a price too high and scare them away, but I also didn’t want to set it too low and not get anything out of it.
I decided to bluff them to come out with more money
So, I decided to set a price with the intention of making it look fair from their point of view but the main point was that I did not want to come out with so much money myself.
I told them that their share percentage would determine on how much money they invested and said that I had put in $60,000 for 60% share of the business and asked for $10,000 from the four of them for 10% of shares each.
I was the main shareholder but in actual fact, I came up with nothing and even profited $8,000 from them as the costs to start up the place was only about $32,000.
I had marked up the price to them and had came up with nothing to get 60% of the shares.
They each agreed to pass me the money which I had asked for first, but had asked me for a detailed proposal on the costings of the business so that they could see if their money invested tallied with share percentage.
Time passed and as I had been delaying passing them the detailed proposal, they started to investigate and found out that the start up costs of the business were not so high.
They confronted me about it and I had no choice but to admit what I did to them.
They asked me back for the money but I had already used the money to fund my lifestyle and hence could not return them a cent.
The friendship went downhill from there but to me it is afterall still business and it is always a case of willing buyer willing seller.