Regardless of if you have a large company listed in the Forbes Platinum 400 or a seasonal ice cream truck business, you will need financing to survive and prosper.
Whether you borrow $1000 from your parents to buy production components as Dell Computer founder Michael Dell did, or you need $1 million from a bank to expand your manufacturing firm, sooner or later you need to ask somebody else to loan you money now so you can make larger gains in the future.
Accepting the need for financing as a reality of the entrepreneurial life is a key step to setting up [...]

For most homeowners, a house is the largest investment that they’ll ever make. With this in mind, it can be a large source of financing for various ventures, including a small business. This can be done through either a home equity loan or a home equity line of credit (HELOC).
If you own a home and a business, borrowing against your home may seem like a viable option when money is tight. Hold your horses, though. This is a major decision that involves a bit of a gamble. Let’s see whether or not you should borrow against your home to finance [...]

Securing a reliable funding source for your business is easier if you can demonstrate that you have a realistic grasp of the costs of running your new business, plus a plausible plan for generating revenue.
The research involved in gathering data for your budget is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks of starting a business. It is also the most essential.
Before you do anything, resolve to save every single receipt and every single invoice involving your company. Even if your accounting system is just a shoebox to start with, take two of them, label one for receipts and one [...]

Securing financing for your business is a process of compiling solid, factual material such as a great business plan, a reasonable budget and a projected look at when profits can be expected. Add to that one less tangible factor to complete a winning equation. That is a positive attitude.
Becoming an entrepreneur takes a great deal of courage and confidence. We have to believe in ourselves and in our own idea. Convincing others to invest in our dream is comprised of two main factors: 90 percent is your ability to present the facts that support your claim that your new business [...]

Chase and LivingSocial announced the launch of a new small business grant program. The program aims to demonstrate the company’s commitment to small business growth. Offering up to $3 million to small businesses across the nation, the program also has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Up to 12 individual grants of $250,000 will help small businesses with capital and marketing resources needed to grow their business.
“Small businesses are invaluable to the growth of our economy, and the ‘Mission: Small Business’ grant program is designed to provide small businesses with the solutions they need to grow and thrive,” [...]

If you have credit problems or haggling with a banker isn’t your cup of tea, peer-to-peer lending may be a viable alternative. Peer-to-peer lending involves borrowing directly from another individual without going through a traditional financial institution. Although it can be as simple as borrowing $1,000 from your friend, it is now done so quite frequently over the Internet.
So, if you are considering this method of financing, you may wish to know what the pros and cons of doing so are. Let’s find out!
Pros
Lower Rates
This is not a certainty. However, interest rates on peer-to-peer loans can be lower than traditional [...]

Sure, some analysts say that the economy is rebounding, but are you feeling it?
Whether the economy is rebounding or not, the experiences of the past few years have taught many of us that times can get very hard here in the United States. With this in mind, you may wonder why or how anyone would start a business during tough economic times.
Naturally, starting a business in a down economy will be more difficult than when good times are rolling. However, if you are willing to put in the time and effort to do so, the rewards can be outstanding.
Let’s take [...]

Getting any business off the ground requires a certain amount of money, and often that means going into debt to secure start-up funds. If you borrow money from a lending institution and need to pay it back over a specific period of time at a special rate of interest, you are engaging in what is called “debt financing.”
There is a cost to having this money available to you, as you realize when you calculate the cost of paying back the loan. If you borrow $1,000, you will need to pay back that amount, which is called the principal of your [...]

Bridges connect the “here” and “there” on transportation routes and in stages of life. In finance, bridge loans connect businesses with where they are and where they want to be. They are short-term loans that allow certain circumstances to occur before the business can put permanent financing in place.
When are they a good idea?
               For healthy small and medium-sized businesses, they can be particularly useful to secure timely, excellent deals in real estate or other business acquisitions. They can usually be secured faster than permanent financing by using real estate as collateral.
Bridge loans usually range in the areas of $100,000 [...]

Entrepreneur Henry Ford used to say that “before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.”  It is still good advice when you are starting a new business and trying to lay the groundwork to secure loans and investments. Often forgotten is securing insurance. Yet the majority of lending institutions want confirmation that their potential clients have at least their basic insurance needs covered.
Precisely how much insurance you need and what kind varies from state to state and sometimes even county to county and municipality to municipality. As part of your “getting ready” process, check with the insurance regulator in [...]