Nitin Kumar: Vanlonchan Consulting INC. Is ‘2021 Go Global Front-runner International Award’ Winning Management and Fundraising Consulting Co

VanLonChan Consulting Inc. is ‘2021 Go Global Front-runner International Award’ winning Management and Fundraising Consulting co. serving global clientele of startups, growing organisations and international corporations. We work closely with entrepreneurs and management teams in strategic planning, research, analysis, capital raise by offering our advisory services.

Our goal is to share our knowledge, experience and network with our clients so they can overcome their business challenges and focus on their key expertise while we manage their projects and solve their problems.

We work with our clients as a team member and strongly believe in building strong long-term business relationships, some of our clients are taking our services for over 15 years. We work very closely with entrepreneurs bringing social change, women entrepreneurs, ethnic minorities, entrepreneurs with disabilities, immigrant entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs.

Our team of entrepreneurs carry formal business education and experience of running own ventures and share over 15+ years’ experience of running ventures in different continents.

We have worked with clients from various sectors, such as international telecom companies, health sector, construction, technology, AI, edutech, insuretech, fintech, retail, food, medical and many others, on strategic planning, scaling, go to market strategies, financial positioning, capital financing and planning.

We look into a client’s requirement, needs, goals and work with them as a team member to take their business to that next level. On the management consulting services, we conduct business analysis such as 5 forces analysis, PESTEL analysis, competition and feasibility analysis, market research, 7Ps of marketing, new product development, go to market strategy and we also do market research.

On the fund-raising side we raise capital for ventures and startups looking at VCs or Pre-Seed/Seed money in the range of $100,000 to $10 million.

Tell us about yourself?

I carry over 15+ years of running own ventures and offering management and fundraising consulting services to entrepreneurs and senior management team.

While studying Bachelor of Mechanical Engineer from Punjab Engineering College (PEC, Chandigarh, India), I got interested in management consulting and investment banking.

After completion of engineering degree course in 2002, I started my professional career as a Design Engineer and designed products for Mercedes-Benz, ACDelco, Sunjac which led me to learn about production, process management, quality and systems.

Thereafter in 2003, I moved to Canada to study a business course focusing on finance and in 2005 I moved to London (UK) and started working on EU funded social projects in the UK.

While working in the UK, friend of mine who was an accountant and I, realised small businesses were struggling to gain capital to grow especially entrepreneurs from minority.

My accountant friend established his management consulting company and I started offering advisory services to entrepreneurs from minority ethnic background, learnt about their ventures, vision, challenges they were facing and wrote business plans to get them funding from London Development Agency (LDA).

In 2007, I moved to North India to establish my own consulting company and offered services to client organisations from UK and Canada. We offered services to UK based law firms, global food sector clients, Canadian construction companies, UK based IT companies client, international investors by producing reports covering key analysis which led them to make key business and investment decisions.

Since 2011, I am based in Vancouver area of Canada and offering services to global clients from here. Key clients served are HealthBC, Telus, YMCA, Kraft Foods, Sprint IT (UK) and I also act as a Mentor at FuturpreneurCanada, StartUp Canada, StartUp Global and sit on board of venture-judging panels, universities’ PAC (Program Advisory Committee) for entrepreneurship programs. I am also a licensed financial advisor and certified in venture funding from University of Maryland.

I also received award from University of British Columbia (UBC-GoelFoundation) for my charitable work and raised $100,000s for Canadian Cancer Society while working with the society to raise funds for cancer research.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

We are growing y-o-y and touching set goals. I would say I would have kept work-life balance which was a challenge during covid as working hours got longer and longer but at the same time we received international recognition for our team’s hard work.

What problem does your business solve?

We help our clients in solving their business problems. Whether they are making a decision on scaling up their venture, entering in to a new country or need capital for growth or research, we share our knowledge, experience and network with them.

Many talented entrepreneurs need regular guidance and direction and we act as mentors or board advisors and share our opinions and regular feedback.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

I love facing challenges and strongly believe in working hard. My grandfather was a teacher and he has been a great inspiration to me as he wanted to see his grandchildren educated making impact in their lives and touching new heights in professional careers.

My dad worked hard at his job and we had a humble beginning with nothing fancy around.

My mother was a housewife who ensured I was completing my school tasks on time while my dad was working long shifts. I was taught about value of hard-earned money at very young age as many of toys I wanted were not affordable for my parents.

When you grow in such environment and being taught about value of education and hard-work by your parents, you definitely want to make them feel proud. I wanted to study MBA from a university in Canada but it was not affordable by my family so I studied at a college in Canada but I made my mind that I would start my own management consulting and would self-study specific courses which could lead me to start my own venture and serve clients.

I saw opportunity of serving talented entrepreneurs who were lacking business management skills and at the same time realised bigger organisations do need advisory services while making key business management decisions. That’s how I entered in to entrepreneurship.

What is your magic sauce?

At VanLonChan, we are entrepreneurs bringing their experience and knowledge to other entrepreneurs! In the last 3 years, we gave consulting to more than 95 entrepreneurs.

We do not compete with big 4s, because they deal with Fortune 100 companies. We are dealing with startup entrepreneurs or growing companies, as they need advice and strategic planning, and there is a big gap there. We fill that gap, and us being entrepreneurs, we can correlate with challenges they face.

We have gone through the practical approach of running ventures, and very well understand the importance of good strategic planning and raising capital for a venture growth.

This is what we bring when we meet with our clients. We share real scenarios of what could happen. That is the value we bring to our clients.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We are quite focused on fund raising currently. In fact, we had one event recently. The kind of clients we are serving are quite diverse, not only in location.

In the next five years we want to grow more global, with having a presence in other countries as well. As of now, we get connected to entrepreneurs through online searches, but we have plans to setup a base in Europe.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

Starting own venture in a city where you do not know many people is a big challenge. It took me 2 good years of networking with other professionals, potential clients and investors (angels, VCs). Persistence pays and one definitely needs to be strong in such a situation where it is not easy to sell services.

In the beginning, I followed both in-person approach and online presence to showcase my professional services. Being consistent and regularly monitoring data (leads, sales, revenue, projections) and strategic planning helps in meeting set goals.

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

We are looking for talented leaders who want to make an impact in the field of management and fundraising consulting services. We are giving opportunity to young students pursuing business/tech courses as well as experienced professionals who want to work with a team of entrepreneurs and gain experience of understanding business challenges.

We are always open to tie-up with investors, organisations mentoring entrepreneurs, accounting firms and law/immigration firms assisting global entrepreneurs.