Finance Grow Your New Business

Tapping into more than 33 years of small business expertise, the staff of Entrepreneur Media takes today’s entrepreneurs beyond financing their idea and opening their doors to keeping the cash flow flowing and the capital coming in through the first three years of ownership. • Defines funding options ranging from small business loans and angel investors to crowdfunding and venture capital. • Real-world examples of funding and financing plans that work. • In-the-trenches financing wisdom that help businesses stay profitable.

Learn how to grow your small business using sound financial planning. Entrepreneurs need to know how to measure the effectiveness of their operations, human resources and marketing in order to pinpoint inefficiencies and maximize profits. This book outlines all the ways to raise capital and then make it work for you!

With advice from Daymond John, Bobbi Brown, Mark Cuban, Sallie Krawcheck, Max Levchin, Alexa von Tobel, and other successful early stage startup investors, Inc. magazine shows you how to attract and wisely apply your firm’s first precious sources of cash. Bootstrapping, crowdfunding, VCs, payroll, profits—money makes your business boom. But mess up your finances, and the venture can go bust. It’s time to get smart. Let the experts at Inc. guide you through every critical step and potential pitfall. Their on-the-ground reporting shows how to locate funding, manage your money, and smart hack your way to a comfortable retirement. Startup Money Made Easy gathers the best advice from the magazine’s pages, spotlighting celebrated entrepreneurs and inspiring stories. You’ll hear from: FUBU founder Daymond John, who mortgaged his family home for start-up capital—and built a $6 billion empire Makeup artist Bobbi Brown, who turned a modest lipstick line into a profitable 30-store enterprise Alexa von Tobel, who dropped out of Harvard Business School to launch the equity-magnate LearnVest.com Mark Cuban, Sallie Krawcheck, Max Levchin, and other founders who overcame financial obstacles on their way to the top Interwoven with the stories are on-target tips that explain how to: Raise your first $10,000 in capital Power through the lean years Get friends and family to back you up Round up outside investors Go public or sell, while still staying in charge Reward people with great salaries and benefits Eliminate tax season surprises Grow without growing pains And more Cash flow problems are the number-one business killer. Whether you’re dreaming up a startup idea or knee deep in the craziness, learn to shore up your finances and safeguard the business.

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

Who needs investors? More than two generations ago, the venture capital community – VCs, business angels, incubators and others – convinced the entrepreneurial world that writing business plans and raising venture capital constituted the twin centerpieces of entrepreneurial endeavor. They did so for good reasons: the sometimes astonishing returns they've delivered to their investors and the astonishingly large companies that their ecosystem has created. But the vast majority of fast-growing companies never take any venture capital. So where does the money come from to start and grow their companies? From a much more agreeable and hospitable source, their customers. That's exactly what Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Banana Republic's Mel and Patricia Ziegler did to get their companies up and running and turn them into iconic brands. In The Customer Funded Business, best-selling author John Mullins uncovers five novel approaches that scrappy and innovative 21st century entrepreneurs working in companies large and small have ingeniously adapted from their predecessors like Dell, Gates, and the Zieglers: Matchmaker models (Airbnb) Pay-in-advance models (Threadless) Subscription models (TutorVista) Scarcity models (Vente Privee) Service-to-product models (GoViral) Through the captivating stories of these and other inspiring companies from around the world, Mullins brings to life the five models and identifies the questions that angel or other investors will – and should! – ask of entrepreneurs or corporate innovators seeking to apply them. Drawing on in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and investors who have actually put these models to use, Mullins goes on to address the key implementation issues that characterize each of the models: when to apply them, how best to apply them, and the pitfalls to watch out for. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur lacking the start-up capital you need, an early-stage entrepreneur trying to get your cash-starved venture into take-off mode, an intrapreneur seeking funding within an established company, or an angel investor or mentor who supports high-potential ventures, this book offers the most sure-footed path to starting, financing, or growing your venture. John Mullins is the author of The New Business Road Test and, with Randy Komisar, the widely acclaimed Getting to Plan B.

Who needs investors? More than two generations ago, the venture capital community – VCs, business angels, incubators and others – convinced the entrepreneurial world that writing business plans and raising venture capital constituted the twin centerpieces of entrepreneurial endeavor. They did so for good reasons: the sometimes astonishing returns they've delivered to their investors and the astonishingly large companies that their ecosystem has created. But the vast majority of fast-growing companies never take any venture capital. So where does the money come from to start and grow their companies? From a much more agreeable and hospitable source, their customers. That's exactly what Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Banana Republic's Mel and Patricia Ziegler did to get their companies up and running and turn them into iconic brands. In The Customer Funded Business, best-selling author John Mullins uncovers five novel approaches that scrappy and innovative 21st century entrepreneurs working in companies large and small have ingeniously adapted from their predecessors like Dell, Gates, and the Zieglers: Matchmaker models (Airbnb) Pay-in-advance models (Threadless) Subscription models (TutorVista) Scarcity models (Vente Privee) Service-to-product models (GoViral) Through the captivating stories of these and other inspiring companies from around the world, Mullins brings to life the five models and identifies the questions that angel or other investors will – and should! – ask of entrepreneurs or corporate innovators seeking to apply them. Drawing on in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and investors who have actually put these models to use, Mullins goes on to address the key implementation issues that characterize each of the models: when to apply them, how best to apply them, and the pitfalls to watch out for. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur lacking the start-up capital you need, an early-stage entrepreneur trying to get your cash-starved venture into take-off mode, an intrapreneur seeking funding within an established company, or an angel investor or mentor who supports high-potential ventures, this book offers the most sure-footed path to starting, financing, or growing your venture. John Mullins is the author of The New Business Road Test and, with Randy Komisar, the widely acclaimed Getting to Plan B.

"This book is designed for people who are just starting a business and for people who want to expand an existing business and need more money to make it happen. There are thousands of great business ideas out there, but if you don?t have the resources on hand, it can be tough to get a business running successfully and financially survive the first few years. It?s even harder to expand an existing business if all your money is tied up in it. Financing Your Business leads you step-by-step through the process of raising capital. You will learn how to measure risk and plan for a profitable future. This book explores all the financing options available so that you can devise a financial plan that is suited to your company and your goals" -- publisher website (February 2008).

United States (US) has one of the deepest pools of potential investors of any country. It has more than 33 million total investors, both accredited and non-accredited. It has been reported that over 9 million US households qualify as accredited investors, with a net worth of over &1 million (exclusive of primary residence). It has also been reported that, in US, there are over 700,000 “angel investors” who are willing to invest their own money in ranges of $150,000 to $2 million. This book will describe three new methods of raising capital from US investors which have recently been approved. It also analyzes strategies for successfully implementing these finance methods. This book is intended for entrepreneurs (both US and international) who are thinking of growing their business with outside capital from US. It will be of importance for all start-up and middle-market companies who are in need of additional capital to grow their businesses. Contents:New Financing Methods:CrowdfundingMarketing the Public Offering Under Rule 506(c)Technical Requirements to Satisfy SEC Rule 506(c)Enhanced Regulation ASummary of US Financing Sources and ChoicesStrategic Considerations:Valuing a BusinessStrategic ConsiderationsAdvanced Planning to Raise CapitalRoll-Ups and AcquisitionsNegotiating with a Professional InvestorAppendices:SEC Regulation DForm D to be Filed Under SEC Regulation DForm C Under the Securities Act of 1933Form 1-A Regulation A Offering Statement Under the Securities Act of 1933 Readership: Entrepreneurs, business consultants, attorneys, accountants, advisors to start-up and middle-market companies, angel investors, private equity funds, professors and students of business schools. Key Features:Intended for entrepreneurs who are thinking of growing their business with outside capital from US investorsDescribes three methods of raising capital from US investors and analyzes strategies for successfully implementing these financing methodsKeywords:Crowdfunding;Venture Capital;IPOs;Angel Investors;Private Equity Funds;Investment Capital;Start-ups;Middle-market Businesses;Growth Capital;Rule 506(C) Offerings;Expanded Regulation a Offerings;Tier 2 of Regulation a Offerings;Roll-ups, Acquisitions;Valuing a Business;Advanced Planning to Raise Capital;Regulation D;Professional Investor;US Financing Choices