If you are trying to get your business off the ground, then you will be familiar with how hard this is – especially when it comes to the finance side of things. Luckily, there are plenty of options out there. Naturally, every way to fund your small business venture is going to have its upsides and downsides, and completely depends on your personal situation. Let’s take a look at five ways to fund your small business venture, so that you can start off on the right foot.
- Crowdfunding
There are a number of options online these days as far as crowdfunding goes, and the entire concept has become popular with entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere. Crowdfunding is where you set up a marketing campaign on a crowdfunding website around your business, stating what it is and what product or service you are producing, and then the wider public donates to your cause. There are plenty of platforms out there online that can help you set up your first crowdfunding campaign, so that you can not only find people interested in your product, but interested enough to help you bring it to the mainstream market.
- Small Business Loans
Otherwise known as a microloan, small business loans are granted by an institution to somebody that isn’t normally going to be able to get a conventional bank loan. Perhaps you tried to get a bank loan at some point, and they turned you down for reasons unknown – or reasons that are fickle. There are plenty of small business loan companies out there that let people invest in economic opportunities, so it’s definitely similar to crowdfunding, you just go about it a different way. If you want to be able to find a financial boost that you can pay off at some point down the line, this is another viable choice.
- Venture Capitalist
A venture capitalist is similar to an angel investor, which means that they are somebody who has a bit of money to invest, and they want to find somebody who is young and up-and-coming in the world of business that they can give their money to. They want to find a burgeoning business that has huge potential when it comes to growth, as well as ROI. A venture capitalist is also going to look for a share of your company as well, so you need to keep this in mind if you plane on funding your small business venture in this way.
- Personal Financing
The thing about starting a business is that there can be a lot of risk involved. This risk is going to prevent a traditional lender like a bank from taking you on, and giving you the money that you need to get it off the ground. If you have a home or you have savings, then you might want to think about personal financing. This is a great way to make the most of any existing asses you have to boost your business in the beginning, and the good news is that you don’t owe anyone further down the line.
- Presales of Products
Another way to fund your business in the beginning when you don’t have a lot of capital is to raise money by preselling the product. When you presell your products, you are able to make sure that you aren’t producing too many, and end up sitting on a warehouse of goods that you can’t get rid of. It’s also a great way to keep you accountable because you’ve got clients who are now relying on you to pull through with your promise. Pressure like this can be a little intimidating, but if you are someone who thrives under this pressure and you know that it’s just going to drive you to be even more successful, this could be the way that you go about funding your small business.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, there is a lot to be said for finding and researching different ways of funding your small business venture. You can either try out for a microloan from a company that is willing to take you on, or you can even make the most of having a mortgage. Perhaps you might want to sell your product now before you’ve produced it, so that you can drum up a bit of excitement and guarantee those sales. Either way, there are plenty of ways to fund your small business so that you can be successful down the road.
