Obtaining Business Funding for a New Business: Advice from Someone Who’s Done It.
Intro
I’ve obtained funding for business purposes twice and I’m on my 3rd round of funding as we speak. So, I feel qualified to offer some advice in this arena. I want to start by focusing on my favorite way of obtaining funding for new businesses. I used this approach later in the life of my corporation, but it would’ve worked right off the bat. And it’s also how I’m aiming for my 3rd overall round of corporate funding as we speak. After that, we will move to another method that netted me 50k of cash. And we will close with some methods that work for smaller percentage of those seeking funding.
The Most Reputable and Seasoned Approach to New Business Funding
For me, I will never forget when I came across an innocent-looking Craigslist ad. i filled in my information and as I got to know the company, I became more and more impressed. But let’s get to all of their gee-whiz credentials later. Now, we will focus on what you can get, how soon you can get it and what it’s going to cost you.
What You Can Get
You can expect up to 250k in funding over a year in the form of 0% interest credit cards, along with support for liquidating them to cash. My first round of funding was for $30,000 but it could’ve been as much as 50k if Citi and Chase were not holding grudges against me from 2 decades ago. After 6 months, as long as you keep your corporate credit utilization below 50% and your personal profile squeaky clean, you can expect another similar amount of funding. And over a year, look for upwards of 250k in funding.
How Soon You Can Get It
After you contact the company they will look over your personal credit profile and if you can go to funding, then they are ready to add you to the billions they have already funded others. So 2 weeks (1 week lead time on each appointment with them) is the fastest. In my recent funding run, they detected some vestigial garbage on my credit report that had been laying around for years…. really… I kid you not. So, it’s taking a bit longer than I expected, but that’s my fault not theirs.
What’s It’s Going to Cost You
Nothing. We operate as a not-for-profit charity… hahah … NOT! Anyway, I think the rates are quite reasonable for the level of service I get. You can either pay $3900 for an entire year of funding with no additional fees or you can pay 9% for each round of funding they get for you. If you are only aiming for 40k then you may as well pay on the back-end. But if they net you 250k of funding then that 9% back-end fee will be nearly 25k. So it would pay to pay the $3900 up front.
Reputable and Proven
I promised I would dazzle and wow you with a bunch of gee-whiz facts, so grab yourself some popcorn as you flip through this impressive set of bullet points:
- Listed on the Inc 5000 fastest growing companies for 6 years straight
- 1400 Google Reviews with an average rating of 4.9
- 450 Trust Pilot Reviews with the same average rating
- 350,000 social media likes and follows including a ton of LinkedIn Testimonials
Other Ideas for Funding
Now that I’ve shared my favorite platform for funding new businesses, let’s move on to some other experiences I’ve had with funding. My first experience with business-oriented funding was through an organization with a similar focus as mine. They had good funding experts, but they wanted 20% of the funds on the back-end… ouch! They obtained installment loans instead of 0% interest credit cards which means that I didn’t have to liquidate credit cards, but I was facing simple interest charges from day 1.
Conclusion
I really wish I could tell every new business owner in the world about my favorite funding source because I’m so happy with them. But I guess this article will have to do for now. Good luck and all the best.