Startup funding — or startup capital — is the money needed to launch a new business. It can come from a variety of sources and can be used for any purpose that helps the startup go from idea to actual business.
While we often hear about venture capitalists and angel investors when it comes to startup funding options, it turns out that’s just one of the six top sources of startup capital. Of the $531 billion raised in startup capital each year, $185.5 billion is from personal savings and credit, $60 billion is from friends and family, $22 billion is from venture capitalists, $20 billion is from angel investors, $14 billion is from banks, and $5.1 billion is from crowdfunding....
You never hear of anyone winning an award for Best Receipt Keeper, because you’d never find enough entrants to make a contest in that category. Most of us struggle with keeping expenses in order, personal and business. Add frequent work travel to the mix? We’re toast.
About the only thing that we do find a way to manage reliably when we’re traveling is email, which is why Fyle is such a handy new tool.
Fyle is a Chrome extension that lets you track business expenses from your email, automatically capturing expense data and e-receipts from within Gmail and Outlook. You’re off the hook when it comes to manually entering data on your own, submitting expenses late – and for the inevitable loss of receipts while on the road.
Using what Co-Found...
The very first money that many enterprises raise — whether they go on to raise more money or not — is seed funding. (Some startups may raise pre-seed funding in order to get them to the point where they can raise a traditional seed round, but not every company does that.)
The name is pretty self explanatory: This is the seed that will (hopefully) grow the company. Seed capital is used to move past the first steps (product development, for example) and to start exploring what the next stages will be (like growth or a pivot).
Seed capital may be raised from family and friends, angel investors, incubators, and venture capital firms that focus on early-stage startups. Angel investors are perhaps the most common type of ...
Every startup founder has to go through a new product development process, whether it’s formalized or not. Broadly speaking, the new product development process is the entire process of bringing a product to market, starting with recognizing a marketing opportunity and ending with product launch. For some founders, that process may look like a haphazard “drunken walk,” but others prefer a more structured approach.
For those founders, here are three new product development processes that can help guide you as you work to take your startup from idea to actual product. And considering the fact that research suggests that following a clear, structured new product development process, it’s probably not a bad idea to pick one of these — or a comb...
I have a confession — I am in a very unhealthy relationship... with my work.
Here's the thing — I absolutely love my job. I get to sit around and bullshit with Founders all day. This is my dream job, by design. We're normally conditioned to believe that our jobs are some sort of liability that we should try to escape from whenever possible. We want to retire so we don't have to work anymore. I think of not doing my job as Michael Jordan would have thought about no longer playing basketball — it's not how I'm built.
But over time this obsession has created some brutally bad habits that have become a massive liability later in life. Fortunately, I know there are many other Founders dealing with the same issues (because I talk to them all the ...
No one will ever create more guilt over startup failure than the Founder.
Startup Founders have an insane ability to manufacture epic amounts of guilt over their own failures. It's almost like we do some magical alchemy that takes every pound of failure or criticism and turns it into a metric ton of guilt.
But should we really feel this guilty over failing at our startups?
There are two answers here. The first is — everyone does it. But that is of very little help. The second answer is just "no." Failing at a startup is painful but should not be a source of guilt. Guilt comes from our misunderstanding of what actually just happened.
For those that are unaware, most startups fail. Most Founders are doing this for the...
For over 10 years, I lived simultaneously in Columbus, Ohio as well as Santa Monica, San Francisco, and Beverly Hills (don't ask), working in both locations and being very active in the local ecosystems. My family and I were on a plane every 3 weeks for almost 5 years.
A lot of people pontificate on whether a bigger city is better for a startup (and the Founder) but I actually tested it across 4 different startups, raising a family, and genuinely trying to enjoy the best of every city. Here's my take:
While living in LA and SF I met with over 1,000 Founders, more than most people will meet in a city they were actually born in. Big cities naturally attract the most ambitious people, so it's so much easi...
“Inc.” stands for “incorporated.” If you see it after the name of a company, it means that company is legally incorporated in at least one state. The founders have filled out all the paperwork, paid all the fees, and is viewed as a corporation by the government and the IRS.
Let’s look a the structure of a corporation, which most Incs. are. Corporations have three main tiers of management: shareholders, directors, and officers.
Shareholders The shareholders of a corporation are the owners. They’re the ones who “hold” shares of stock. Depending on how much stock they own, they have varying degrees of influence on the corporation — but they don’t make the decisions or run the d...
Just like there are many different kinds of capital round raises for businesses in all stages of growth, there are a variety of crowdfunding types. Which crowdfunding method an entrepreneur selects depends on the type of product or service they offer and their goals for growth.
The three primary types of crowdfunding are donation-based, rewards-based, and equity crowdfunding. This guide looks primarily at rewards-based and equity crowdfunding.
Broadly speaking, it’s correct to think of any crowdfunding campaign in which there is no financial return to the investors or contributors as donation-based crowdfunding.
Common donation-based crowdfunding initiatives include fundraising for disaster relief, charities...
Leadership is a popular topic these days. To become a true leader, you need a combination of skills and attributes. Some of these are inborn, to be sure. However, you can develop your leadership abilities as well.
Entrepreneurial success stories often tip a hat to the literature that supports busy business owners through the thick of the business building experience so, of course, we wanted to share books with actionable advice that aspiring entrepreneurs will find helpful on their journey to building a successful business.
Business books that have already helped millions of entrepreneurs can guide you along the way to obtaining a sustainable business, and being the best leader you can be. After all, being a great leader takes effort — and a ...