Fast Five Friday: The cereal story with real fundraising lessons

Hi,

Welcome to Bankrolling Tomorrow, your no BS guide to capital raising.

Happy New Year - 2026 has just begun, and I’m genuinely excited. It feels like a year built for momentum.

Calendars are already packed, and the plan is simple - fewer forecasts, more shipped work.

I know you received my main newsletter already, but I’m sure you were looking forward to my bite sized information pieces. First of the year. 

This week I broke down Kellogg’s capital raise.

As we already know, Kellogg’s has a backstory that’s… unusual. A little unsettling. But mostly fascinating.

But if you don’t, here is a quick catch-up. Cornflakes were created to make breakfast deliberately plain - a “clean-living” cereal served to keep temptation in check.

The irony? That anti‑indulgence idea turned into a sweet, everyday habit, and helped fuel a brand ultimately valued near $40B.

Anyway, drama aside, Kellogg’s is a tight capital‑raise case study with takeaways you can apply directly to your business.

So here are 5 things you can pick from Kellogg's and apply directly to your business today:

1/ Lead with evidence, not optimism
Show that people already buy and come back without discounts. Think steady orders, waitlists, and predictable cost per unit. Proof beats a clever pitch every time.

2/ Make the product match real taste
A small tweak turned a clinic cereal into a household staple. Same idea for you: minor changes that line up with what customers actually enjoy can multiply demand. Test, learn, ship.

3/ Spend to remove bottlenecks
W.K.'s raise funded machines, capacity, distribution, and reach. Aim your money at throughput, stock availability, delivery speed, and reliable customer acquisition - the stuff that turns demand into revenue.

4/ De‑risk the ask
Walk in with clean per‑unit math, stable costs, and a simple “£X in → Y capacity → Z sales” path. The clearer the mechanics, the quicker the yes.

5/ Build for steady, transferable operations
Years of consistent delivery stack up - and make you easy to own. Document how work gets done, avoid relying on you personally, keep the numbers predictable, and make it so another operator could run it on Monday.

Put simply, momentum comes from order: start with real pull from customers, clear the blockages to serve more of them, run a clean, predictable shop - and let time multiply the result.

Thanks for allowing me into your inbox every week.

If you have any questions, or want to discuss any of my rants on these topics in depth, reply to this email, and I will get back to you ASAP.

Talk soon,

James