Your expectations are not in line with the realities of how grants work here. No one is going to just give you $50k, refugee or not.

That being said, these are your most likely-possibilities outside of grants:

• Seller Financing + SBA Loan
• Friends & Family
• Loan Sharks
• Convince an Angel Investor
• Work your ass off and save every possible penny for a long time

The “more than 1” is fair … I feel like a cold email is fine to see if there’s any interest, but putting someone on a nurture campaign without an opt-in is where it crosses the line into spam IMO.

I ran a cold email campaign a while back for lead generation for attorneys… it succeeded in bringing in real leads, but failed in converting. The conversion was probably on us though, our pricing was ambitious and that was the feedback we got from almost everyone.

20+ leads responded back with “yes im interested” and maybe about 8 agreed to a zoom call, 5 showed up to the zoom call - two said they were still interested and asked for follow ups but then ghosted.

Im re-packaging the pricing to be a little more easy to digest and will be retrying again in Jan because overall I’d say it has a lot of potential.

Coke and other drinks solve the problem of thirst (in a hot day, after long day of work, etc) or the problem of needing to drink something with food. Try eating your meals without a drink, that’s a legit problem. They just got really good at being the solution in many people’s eyes

They got in early on branding so when you feel thirsty or need something to drink with a meal, a lot of people automatically associate it with needing coke. They are then the perceived solution.

The luxury items = status, they’re solving the problem of insecurity.

I’m guessing you have little to no marketing budget? If so, that makes the answer a little easier.

Invest time in learning digital marketing.

Learn what SEO is and how it works, learn how to do PPC ads on google and Facebook. It’s not something you’ll learn in minutes. So have realistic expectations, don’t take shortcuts (cough fiverr cough).

Some stuff you can do while you’re learning:

• attend local craft shows or farmers market.
• make and post content on social media- all social media. (how we make our candles, experimenting with new smells, how we choose our scents, etc). Make videos, reels, blog posts, etc.
• post on Etsy and eBay (while learning SEO you’ll figure out how to write postings for this)

If you do have a budget: Google/FB Ads, but be prepared to hire a professional.