Bootstrapping: Finance Your Startup From the Ground Up

Lot’s of people tell me that they have great ideas for a startup, but don’t know how to obtain investment funding to get the business off the ground.  Indeed, these days it’s hard to qualify for a bank loan and private equity investors with an open pocket are hard to come by.  Even when money is rolling, investors of all varieties are more likely to invest in startups and businesses that have generated real, hard numbers that verify their business model predictions.

This leaves many startup owners in a catch-22: to startup one requires capital, but to obtain capital one requires business performance data.  Not to fret, for the most part, we all play by the same rules.  The issue isn’t how to obtain private equity funding, but rather how to startup without private equity funding.  This is where bootstrapping your startup comes in.

Bootstrapped startups take whatever money their owners can raise from friends, family, and their own pockets, and use that as the basis for the company’s financial foundation.  It situations where very little money can be raised through the channels, bootstrappers may opt to take on personal credit card debt to help get the company off the ground.  Regardless of how its done, bootstrappers have one common goal: launch the startup and grow it to the point of profit generation for as little money as possible.

Charles Schwab: Success is Contingent upon Hard Work

Many entrepreneurs-to-be hesitate at starting a company because they doubt their abilities.  A myth has shackled the dreams of many entrepreneurs: that one must be a natural genius to start a company and succeed.  Unfortunately, among those that believe this myth, only the most confident or arrogant dare to pursue their dreams.

Certainly, being a genius can’t hurt. But many great business minds would echo what Charles M. Schwab once wrote:

Most talk about “super-geniuses” is nonsense.  I have found that when “stars” drop out, their departments seldom suffer.  And their successors are merely men who have learned by application and self-discipline to get full production from an average, normal brain.

In his essay “Succeeding with What You Have,” Charles M. Schwab extends this statement to dispel the myth of genius being the key to success.  Rather, Schwab argues, the key to success is hard work.

Leveraging Local Search to Market Your Small Business: Part II

This is a continuation of the series on local search.  Read Part I here.

Consistent Business Listing Information

In the last post,  I mentioned that the need for consistent business listing information in the form of business name, business address, and telephone number could not be overemphasized.  A company’s listing is the one piece of information that ties everything (search engine keywords, user reviews, photos, user generated content) together.  Google, for example, aggregates the web content found with the company’s business information on Google Maps.  So please, please, please, please, PLEASE make sure you information is consistent across the web.  It the single most important thing to do.

Jumpstart the Economy by Stimulating Small Business

Small businesses play a vital role in the American economy.  In recent years, small businesses have been responsible for the greatest amount of job creation in the United States.  In addition, small businesses push trillions of dollars through the economy.  Unfortunately, this recession has come back to hit small businesses particularly hard, as evidence by the commercial real estate explosion and last month’s excessive job losses (Financial Times):

Mid-sized and small businesses suffered the most job cuts last month, shedding 314,000 and 262,000 workers respectively. Large companies – those with more than 500 employees – cut 121,000 jobs.

Despite bleeding jobs more than large companies, small businesses have received much less attention regarding economic stimulation.  For this reason, many are working to increase small business and startup stimulus.

Though startups and small businesses are typically considered risky investments, with the decreased costs in labor, office spaces and supplies that result from a downturn, good business ideas (particularly those pertinent to emerging markets) may make for worthwhile investments.  In a recent article, Reid Hoffman, founder and CEO of the internet firm LinkedIn, calls for a new stimulus plan aimed at jumpstarting the startup and small business community.  As a big supporter of the small business and startup community, Hoffman proposes three ideas to get this economic sector engine up and running.

Leveraging Local Search to Market Your Small Business: Part I

An Introduction to Local Search

The use of major search engines to find businesses and services within a geographic area is one of the fastest growing segments of search.
The overall goal of local search is to make it easy for local consumers to find your small business.  Consider the case of a consumer using a search engine to find pizza in Port Jefferson, NY.  If a consumer uses the search query “pizza port jefferson, ny,” Google will provide that individual with a list and map of matching businesses.

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