Entrepreneurialism – Business Plans and Financing

Well you got your idea and a patent at least you did a search and found you can patent your product. On to financing: Well the conventional wisdom of financing is to get a good business plan with all the great financials and profitability within a year then head to the bank. While I believe that you could be the one this will work for it has never worked for me. These days it seems hard enough to get a house loan let alone a startup business loan. If this option has worked for you in the past I would love to know about it. Please post a comment saying so.

Let me first say that a good business plan is a smart way to start once you have the idea and know you at least can patent it. A business plan will help you to figure out your startup cost, projected earnings and break even analysis. It is also important to have an executive summary and mission statement because if you don’t have a plan mapped out then you don’t know precisely where you are going or who your target market is.

A business plan will also help you obtain financing even if you don’t use a bank. There are many resources on the web that can help you get started with a business plan. One program that I like if you can afford it is Microsoft’s Business Plan Pro. You can buy one right now off their site for just under $80 for the standard edition. If you are planning to develop a website it is a good idea to map out how you want the site to look. I again turn to Microsoft for this Visio is the program that I used. This program is pretty expensive though so you may be able to start with Microsoft word. It probably won’t be as pretty but it works well enough.

One of the best ways to finance a new project and the one that worked for me in this case was to turn to relatives or friends. If you present them with your business plan cost analysis and the other financials and offer them a percentage of the company you intent to start they may want a piece of the pie and may be willing to help you fund it. Some of the world’s wealthiest companies started this way Facebook being one of them. Other sources of funding include:

• Angel Investors

• Government Grants

• Crowdfunding website

Angel investors can be worth your while but they usually want a good chunk of your future company and a quick return on their money guaranteed before they are willing to invest with you. Most of them have very good business sense and will often want to be involved with the business decisions. This can be a good and bad thing depending on how you visualize running your company. Angel investors can be found by looking on the internet or better yet angel investment groups closer to home. One good resource for this might be the popular business site Linkedin.com. You could join groups designated for angel investment purposes people looking for funding and people who have funds often gather on these groups for the mutual benefit of all.

Government grants can be hard to get I have looked into several ways of doing this. None of them have worked for me but if you are of a certain demographic then it might be worth looking into. There are many government grant designated for women and minority groups looking to start a small business.

Crowdfunding is also a viable option. Crowdfunding is a way for several people to collectively give their money for your startup. There are websites where you enter your business details and some of your business plan. You may need to provide information so the site can assess your credit risk via your credit score. The lower your credit score the higher the return the crowds expect. But if you have a good credit score you can obtain funding for a promised moderate return. Then people can view your information and business plan and help fund part of it or if they really like it then they will fund all of it. Check out some of the sites below that can help you get started:

• kickstarter. com/

• rockethub. com/

• quirky. com/

• pozible. com.au/

• profounder. com/

This list is not compressive so keep looking until you find the right one for you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *