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How to Fund a Small Business- The Entrepreneur Start-Up Money Hunt
Written by: Ellisa BrennemanArticle Overview: Young and mature entrepreneurs alike, often get creative in finding money to start their own small business. Having the assistance of a business mentor can greatly improve your chance of success.
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How to Fund a Small Business- The Entrepreneur Start-Up Money Hunt
From the person who wants to start a landscaping service to the Harvard graduate that is going after their own commercial consulting firm. Young and mature entrepreneurs alike, often get creative in finding money to start their own small business.
As the economy continues its historic crisis, many people look to get rich by starting their own business, two questions usually come up. How can I do it and how much business start-up capital do I need? A typical small business can get started on anything from no money down knocking on doors for work to less than $2,500. For example, try handing out printed business cards at local community trade shows or events. You may also want Internet access with email or cell phone services. Many Fortune 1,000 CEOs launched their businesses with $10,000 or less. And more than a third of those CEO bootstrappers started with less than $1,000.
If presently, business start-up money is not an option for you. Do not fear as there are several steps you can follow to ensure that whatever business start-up money you do have, no matter how small, is able to stretch. Finding money may be as simple as asking mentors in your community for work. Many successful entrepreneurs find start-up money, grants and loans using all inclusive support centers.
It is also important for you to cut back on expenses in your personal life. In the beginning you will have to make sacrifices. Write out your monthly personal budget and cut out non-essentials, such as going to the movies, eating out or buying the unnecessary new shoes.
Did you know the average person that uses coupons saves 12% on their family food budget? So if you are spending $600 a month on groceries and household items by using coupons, it saves you $78 per month. Cutting back on coffee drinks saves the average person $28 per month while cutting costs for spa salon visits and beauty products saves over $45 per month. That's a combined total savings over $150 per month to invest in your home-based business more than enough to get the word out by securing a web domain name and creating an online business presence with any of the website hosting services.
During the first year of business, it may be appropriate to ask close family, friends, local organizations, and wealthy individual "angel" investors in your community such as lawyers, doctors, professors or established business owners to come onboard as partners in order to raise more money to invest in building your business.
Financing your business on credit cards may save time and allow you to keep business expenses separate from personal ones. But without careful management, credit cards can quickly put your start-up on the sidelines. Half of all start-ups are financed with credit cards. But be careful: Sky-high interest rates could bury you for years. Plastic can jump-start any business, but use it wisely.
Inevitably as your business begins to grow, in order to raise significant capital it is valuable to write a business plan. Your business plan must address a real market need clearly demonstrating a realistic path to profitability building real assets on the balance sheet. Keep it straight forward and less than 20 pages with factual graphics. Learn to take advantage offree community library resources including standard computer software courses such as Microsoft WORD and Excel both excellent tools for writing your business plan. Include full historical and projected financials within the body of your business plan. If you lack the requisite skill sets or need third-party objectivity you may want to hire a professional business plan writer to do it for you.
Remember more than half of the world's self-made millionaires are entrepreneurs or self-employed professionals. Historically, small businesses have always been the engine of growth in the economy with entrepreneurs who saw a need, met it and made a fortune in the process. Stay organized, keep a focused positive attitude.
Phrase du Jour: Venture Tourist
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About the Author: Ellisa Brenneman RSS for Ellisa's articles - Visit Ellisa's website  Ellisa Brenneman started her career, after receiving her Bachelor Degree from the University of British Columbia, with the Canadian government merging academic rigor and business savvy to produce and disseminate research findings. She has been published multiple times in scientific journals for her research findings. A born entrepreneur; her zeal for entrepreneurism soon took hold. She's started green businesses and has vast experience managing public, media and investor relations for small-cap public companies. Ellisa is the President of Ethos 360. Ethos 360 provides entrepreneurs with affordable one-on-one coaching, business growth consulting, custom business plan writing, branding and capital raising services so they can launch and grow their businesses. Visit www.Ethos360.com for additional information, email info@Ethos360.com or phone 503-501-2444 to schedule a free consultation. Click here to visit Ellisa's website   Memorandum Template 1 Memorandum Template 2 |
Related Forum Posts
My entry
- 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read
- this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody.
2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto.
3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book
Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
These maybe the coldest franchises out there:
- Here are the worst 15 performing franchises in regards to having the highest Small Business Administration (SBA) loan failure rates. The list is dotted with sub sandwich shops, fitness centers and car shops.
WORST FRANCHISE LOAN FAILURES Failure %
1 OBEE'S SOUP SALAD SUBS 55.56%
2 LADY OF AMERICA 41.94%
3 COUNTRY CLUTTER (BED & BREAKFAST) 41.18%
4 COPY CLUB 36.36%
5 ALL TUNE AND LUBE 35.71%
6 PICKERMAN'S 35.71%
7 PHILLY CONNECTION 35.59%
8 ROLY POLY ROLLED SANDWICHES 34.78%
9 COTTMAN TRANSMISSION 34.48%
10 HAIR COLOR EXPRESS 33.33%
11 LEE MYLES AUTOMOTIVE TRANSMISSIONS 33.33%
12 GODFATHER'S PIZZA 33.33%
13 SMOOTHIE FACTORY 33.33%
14 BLIMPIE 31.39%
15 GOLF U.S.A. (RETAIL GOLF EQUIP.) 30.77%
Source: Small Business Administration, SBA Loan Performance Within Franchise Code for the Period of FY 2001 - 2005
Exclusive: Interview with Results
- Hi Forum Members,
I'm helping start up a Business Coaching and Consulting company here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (a Subsidiary of RSC Business in Los Angeles).
As a Research and Development Intern I am required to practice my listening and interview skills by surveying Small and Medium Businesses on thier Business.
This Survey is designed by RSC Business to also assist the Business being interviewed more insight into their own business.
I am looking to interview about 30 businesses across North America over the span of 3 months.
At the end of these interviews I will be publishing a report of the results and they will be made available for free to the Interviewees. The Report data will include responses from a minimum of 100 interviews.
I would like to extend this opportunity to members of the Forum.
If you would like to have this short 20-30 minute interview conducted on your Business and you reside in North America please send me an email or PM.
Please contact me at andy[at]jvprosperity[dot]com to arrange our interview and to get free access to the results when they are published.
Re: Biz Plan Competition
- i just wanted to say that posting Small Business Events on CanadaOne is a great resource. Thanks Julie!
New Small Business Topic
- Hello everyone,
I'm on the lookout for new topics to add to my site. We just launched a Franchising section and are planning Human Resources section. Do you have any thoughts for a new section?
Here's a list of what we currently have:
Angel Investors
Branding
Bank Loans
Business Coaching
Business Plan
Franchises (New)
Insurance
Legal
Marketing
Public Relations
Sales
Small Biz Loans
Venture Capital
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