Startup Resources

For those that do not want a traditional bank loan, there may be two other options available. This article outlines the basics of these other options.

Crowdfunding is one of the most famous forms of crowd sourcing and it is the latest technique of raising capital for a new venture or project. With the help of this method people can request money through websites meant for this purpose from a large group of people inclusive of the contact in their network and from strangers as well. With the help of this method, businessmen can develop their business and even individuals can get financial support for their special initiatives.

At Entrepreneur Media’s 5th annual Growth Conference in Dallas, entrepreneurs Limor Fried, Jason Lucash and Bryan Silverman were each awarded the publication’s top honors and were asked to share some insights with our readers. Here’s the advice they had for aspiring business owners:

Starting your own business is a great achievement, but it can also be a solitary one. As the “Chief Everything Officer,” everything rests on your shoulders—sales, marketing, business admin, information technology, taxes, accounting and keeping pace with business laws and regulations. Whether you are a solopreneur or in a business partnership, there are some things you are going to need to outsource as soon as you can afford to. Here are four things you should consider outsourcing to an expert.

Our local SCORE chapter here in Southwest Florida recognized that there was a lot of confusion between the commercial borrower and the banks.  We formed a bank loan committee in our chapter and sent each committee member to a bank to have them show us their requirements for obtaining a commercial bank loan.  The banks’ responses were overwhelmingly positive and that started close relationships that continue today.  In this post, I’ll share with you what we have learned and tips you can use to secure a loan for your small business.

Getting a small business loan from a bank can be difficult and time consuming. Each bank has its own criteria for loan approvals and can change its criteria depending on both internal and external events. The best chance you have for getting approved is to present the bank with the information they need, how they need it, and in a professional and concise but complete manner. To that end, here are the major criteria used by most banks in approving loans.

For this article I was hoping to come up with a neat chart with small business marketing benchmarks by industry. Unfortunately those figures do not seem readily (or publicly) available. But I have seen several polls by different companies that all point to the same general “rules of thumb” for marketing budgets. The below levels of dedicated time and money are typical of businesses that are growing and want to keep growing.

It might seem like you have to come up with a game-changing concept like Facebook or the iPod to have a successful startup, but the reality is far different. A recent Nielsen study found that new products, far from having an advantage in the marketplace, are often at a disadvantage. If you’ve got a world-changing idea, don’t give up—just make sure your product launch is supported by plenty of sales outlets where customers can “stumble across” your product, strong marketing and advertising support to make them aware of it, and social media and PR efforts to spread the word.

Business ideas don’t go anywhere without an entrepreneur driving them. With very few exceptions, people with bright ideas never make any revenues, develop any products or became captains of any industries. The reason is they weren’t entrepreneurs. They were just people with a solid idea. It’s not the idea, it’s the execution of the concept that means almost everything.