The biggest challenge faced by both Beginning and Experienced Wealth Builders is raising the money they need to start, buy, or expand their business activities. This guidebook shows these entrepreneurs how, and where, to get the money needed for their business moneymaking enterprises. Even if the Beginning Wealth Builder (BWB for short) or Experienced Wealth Builder (EWB), has poor credit, a history of bankruptcy, slow pays, or other financial troubles, this guidebook shows him/her how to get the loan, venture capital, public (or private) money, or grant they need. Since businesses vary widely in the amount of money needed, this book covers getting funding from just a few thousand dollars to multi-millions. Businesses covered range from the small mom-and-pop type activity to the successful firm having up to 500 employees. Either type of business can use the many hands-on directions given in this book.

Going into business or expanding a business is an easy process. It does take some forward planning and personal fortitude to make it happen. Documenting your plan and working on your plan will help make your business successful. This book describes the items that need to go into your business plan and will eventually become part of your plan of execution. These items should be researched and well documented in a format that represents a business plan as described in the book. The topics discussed in the book apply to small businesses and large corporations. A business plan is a document that describes all of the aspects of your business. Items such as financial data, products and services, location, and activities that will be conducted during your business operation and should be included in this document. The book is laid out in an outline format. Each topic in the book can be a topic in your business plan. The descriptions in the sections can be replaced by the information that is specific to your type of business. After you have sufficient data, you can use this plan to obtain financing, do additional detailed planning, and eventually molded to use as a guide for daily operations. If you already have a plan or existing business or business unit, this book will help you to improve your current plan for additional successes. If you see topics which may not apply to your type of business, it is still good to include these subjects in your plan to show that you have considered the topic and documented that it does not apply. Since many businesses fail due to lack of planning, now is your opportunity to create a plan that will better equip you with the knowledge you can use to make a success and prevent failure. Financial planning may be the most important topic since the principle of having more income than expenses is part of the basis of running a business. Understanding how and where income will be achieve and what your expenses will be is crucial to having a positive cash flow making money! This subject is covered in this book along with other supporting topics, which contribute to the success of running a business. Scenarios are included in several chapters. These show that as you make your plan, you will need to include different options, one or more which may come to fruition as you start your business. These may also include contingencies, or options, which you exercise based on real cost and income numbers. A plan should include as many facts as possible and enough scenarios to show that you have considered the variance that comes with any business. Variance could include number of patrons, number of employees needed, or changing cost of goods and doing business. The financial cost of doing business could include rent, office materials, cost of goods to be sold, or other intangible costs. Once you have read through the book, you may want to use the book as a reference guide. You can review topics, which may be more complicated and require you to further document your plan. You should add topics that apply to your type of business and document those items in your specific business plan. A good business plan now is better than a perfect business plan that is continually updated and never gets quite ready for use. There comes a time when the businessperson has to complete his/her documentation and start executiontaking action. Your plan can always be updated as you proceed with your activities of opening your new business. Start your plan, make your outline, and fill in the details as you obtain the information needed. Once you are satisfied that you have covered the subjects needed for your type of business, set your plan into action. Follow your plan, and you get your new business started. Now get yourself motivated and start Going Into Business To Stay in Business!

The Founder's Dilemmas examines how early decisions by entrepreneurs can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, including quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders as well as inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them.

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.

While raising capital has never been easy, it has become a lot more difficult over the past few years. The dot-com debacle has made investors skittish, especially when it comes to financing early-stage start-ups. As a result, more and more entrepreneurs are being forced to compete harder and harder for a spot around the money well. At the end of the day, all most have to show for their efforts are tattered Rolodexes and battered egos. What they need is the competitive edge that comes with having a friend in the business–an advisor who’ll cut through the mumbo-jumbo and tell them in plain English how to get the money they need. What they need is Raising Capital For Dummies. Whether you’re just starting your business and need a little seed capital to launch your first product, or you’re looking for a little help expanding an established business into a new market, this friendly guide helps you get the financing you need to realize your dreams. You’ll discover how to: Tap personal sources of financing, as well as family and friends Approach customers and vendors for financing Hook up with commercial lenders Find angel investors Get an SBA loan Raise cash through private equity offerings Woo and win investment bankers and venture capitalists Venture capital guru, Joseph Bartlett explains in plain English the capital-raising strategies and techniques used by some of today’s most successful businesses, including tried-and-true methods for: Assessing your financial needs and creating a solid financial plan Researching sources of financing and making first contact Finding, contacting, and convincing angels Getting your customers to finance your company Understanding and exploiting matching services Exploring commercial banks, savings institutions, credit unions, finance companies, and the SBA Qualifying for a loan Working with placement agents Raising cash through IPOs and mergers From raising seed capital and funds for expansion to IPOs and acquisitions, Raising Capital For Dummies shows you how to get the money you need to survive and thrive in today’s winner-take-all marketplace.