How Zuko Tisani Has Convinced Corporate Investors To Back His Play Zuko Tisani's Legazy is a company that plans six international immersions for mainly start-ups, executives and members of the public. He has managed to grow his business from floundering for funding, to attracting large corporate investors. Here's how your business can follow suit.

Legazy was launched with the aim of playing a leading role in the South African digital economy by stimulating the trade on African innovation. Legazy is well on its way to increasing the success rate of entrepreneurs through exposure to market access, partners, media and investors. "Before we were consumers and bystanders of industry 4.0," says founder Zuko Tisani.

"We work with large corporates and Government, speaking their language by understanding what is important to them and not promoting what we think is important," Zuko explains.

"Our narrative is tailored to fit the specific corporate we speak to. A lot of companies make the mistake of shooting in the dark and send a generic proposal to as many people as possible.

"We also realised the return on investment for content was huge. We are well documented visually and with the corporates that sponsor our projects it makes it easier to get funding because we can tell a unique story, a big story and an emotive one that goes hand-in-hand with our proposal and separates us from others."

Zuko offers these top tips for start-up funding success

How do you get people to care enough about your idea to invest in it?

1. Be very clear about how assisting you benefits them. Human nature is selfish. Win-win is not enough. Think more 51% to 49% — give more than you get. How is your sponsor going to be the winner of the day by supporting you? Always bring it back to the bottom-line. Whether it's tax benefits, market exposure or adding value to their supply chain, be careful not to oversell because it can close an opportunity before it even opens.

Do your homework to find gaps to fulfil or to enhance existing projects. Once you have emailed a specific request, lay out end-to-end how you will use the money and how it will benefit them.

2. Be persistent, not pestering. Sending mails to busy stakeholders without response is a norm — try to find other stakeholders, who are more junior and would also have an interest in your project, to assist. Tasteful persistence is mostly rewarded — be delicate but direct in what you want; keep demonstrating you can add value and deserve the sponsorship.

3. Make the vision big and then ask small. It's important to gain and build trust so take what you are given and build on that.

Steps your start-up can apply when approaching big corporates for funding:

1. Differentiation. New is hard to sell and often has tentative buyers in the beginning. However, it's worse to enter an over-saturated market where differentiation is difficult to see. A lot of entrepreneurs focus on the complete market and say things such as, "It's a $10 billion industry'.

Can you skew your value proposition to make a buyer believe it's unique? And can you capture an upcoming market such as Generation Z (the coming economically empowered generation) in your offering?

2. Paper trails. If you are looking at partnering with a corporate find out where they have put their money before, and what it took for the start-up to gain access to those funds. Also look at the companies similar to yours that are succeeding — where is the money in your sector? This will also inform where you will be wasting your time.

3. Timing. It's all seasonal. Keep a tight watch on when budgets are allocated. A lot of companies will inform you that they're not in a good position to allocate money. Find a non-financial resource that you can be offered and leverage their partnership to gain financial support with another sponsor.

4. Know the lay of the land. The winner is the one who has the most information. If you are trying to tap into being a supplier for a corporate, know the decision-makers; know the key influencers. Your business is reliant on relationships.

As connection with anyone becomes easier, it's easier to create solid relationships with decision-makers who can help your business with a signature. But always ensure your proposal offers the greatest value and that you do not only know the decision-maker, but everyone else who is part of supporting the sponsorship.