Starting a Business

[Kingbish01]

I'm in the "ready, fire, aim!" camp.

don't get caught up in too much paralysis by analysis...you'll know when your ready-no need to put arbitrary timelines/start dates on things...let the passion of your growing business fuel your growth.

no business will ever be perfectly ready "at launch". they are all works in progress.

hopefully you are young enough to where even if it doesn't work out, it wont crush you and what you will have learned will serve you throughout your life in other endeavors.

p.s. i do agree on getting a good accountant and lawyer. not easy to find-but priceless IMO. call people you know and trust and who are themselves small biz owners for references-you'd be shocked how much people are willing to help and they may have ideas to share.

Great advice, that has worked for me as a business owner.

 

[military_irish]

My ambition fell off for a few months while I dealt with family issues. Now I am back going full force at this business. They only problem I have ran into was getting the funding to start the business. I called and asked about grants. They say they only give to organizations already established and then I called the bank for a business loan and they said they only give loans to businesses that have been up and running for 2 years and show an income of 250k in those two years. I don't know how to raise the money to open our facility, we have a prime location that I don't want to slip away. Anyone have an idea how to get the funding or point me in the right direction?

 

[Quinntastic]

It depends on what the business is for but I just thought I would share something that came up in our town that was really successful.

A business owner wanted to open up a second location of a restaurant. Instead of getting a loan from the bank, he went to a crowdfunding website (indiegogo) and offered the following deal:

For every dollar amount a person donated, that amount + 20% would be given back to the person in the form of a gift certificate. That gift certificate could be redeemed immediately at the established restaurant, or at the new restaurant after it had been open for at least six months. They raised nearly $20,000 and it wasn't going to cost them a penny of interest.

 

[military_irish]

Our's is going to be to help individuals with special needs. The object is for it to be free for them. I've been thinking of going to a crowd funding website but unlike the business owner in your town I wouldn't be able to offer any type of incentive. That will probably be my next step just to get our building set up.