The story behind the birth of Hayabusa Racing③ - Fundraising for a student group

序盤の方に作成した車体

Summary of previous episodes

After experiencing defeat at the world championships, Yamafuji returned to Japan, but was unable to gather members to start a new team. However, he met Mori at a cram school, and gathered new members mainly from his school, and were about to start, but the team was so excited that they didn't know what to do next. They started making the car body, but they didn't know what to do to prepare for the world championships.

First fundraising round

What the team wanted most of all was to raise the funds on their own and compete in the world championships, something that no other Japanese team had managed to achieve.

So we put all our effort into creating presentation materials, particularly emphasizing how thorough our participation was, and boasting about the credibility of the event we were participating in and the high level of our activities (even though we hadn't even built a single car yet). However, at the time we had no place to operate, no track record, and no vision.

When you think about it that way, it feels like a miracle that we were able to raise even a small amount of funds at this time.

By the way, the slides I used at the time were as follows:

Meeting with Yoichi Ito

初めて Musashino Vally で出会った羊一さん

One person I met miraculously was Yoichi Ito. I met him by chance at Miraikan, the National Museum of Chemistry and Innovation, which Mori happened to be visiting. We went to Musashino Valley in Mitaka to talk, and that was our first meeting.

As you can see from the slide above, it is a mystery as to why they supported us in this way, as there was no merit or enthusiasm behind it, but they introduced us to many people from there. Thanks to them, many of our current sponsors are supporting our team.

However, many of the people who were introduced here decided not to support us. As you can see from the first reason and the contents of the slide above, they were too polite and did not convey their reasons or passion.

Days of revising presentations

The most direct example of this was when I went to a company to give a presentation, and the representative asked me to come back in a few months and give another presentation in return, saying he would introduce me to someone I could consult with about the presentation.

From August to December, I sent a presentation to the two people I was introduced to, got criticized every time, then corrected it and sent it back. I repeated this process over and over. Here is what I learned from that experience:

• Presentations and materials are different. A presentation is a tool to effectively advance a story, while materials are sent as materials to help people understand about us.

• Photos and videos can convey information much faster than words. Seeing is believing, as the saying goes.

• What the team is doing (goal) and what it wants to do (vision) are different. It is important to clearly establish these two.

• Student groups also set big visions, but they also set realistic goals.

• The first 15 seconds of a presentation are crucial

• If there is no good return for the team, it is important to make the other team want to support you.

• First, figure out what you want

There's no easy way

However, even if you can make a good presentation, it is meaningless if there is no one to present to afterwards. Therefore, you need to actually go and talk to potential sponsor companies, but if you run out of introductions, there will be no one to speak to.

So, from here on, I just keep sending out inquiries, but the response rate is still low. However, on the other hand, many of the companies that respond to my inquiries are willing to help, so I have to keep sending and waiting. There is no easy way here, so I just have to keep sending emails steadily.

We are currently continuing to send out these emails and inquiries, and with time fast approaching until the World Championships, we need to speed up the pace.