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Bootstrap Startup Finance is a craft that is very widely used in the creation of new ventures. In tough economic times it can be a matter of survival. For many entrepreneurs, it is a natural [...]

Corporate Venture Capital Directory—USA: The Corporate Venture Capital Directory—USA lists most of the big corporate investors. Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) involves large firms taking an [...]

Small Profits and Quick Returns (SPQR): Think as big as a Roman Emperor and start with small steps towards building your own empire. The reason for a big vision is to have clarity of purpose. The [...]

Let Thousands Invest in Your Startup: Use a Community Round, which lets thousands of your startup’s customers, users, and fans invest alongside VCs and angel investors. You may feel anxious [...]

Fast or Firm Growth: Most of the time founders cannot simply make a choice between a startup’s fast or firm growth, when setting the priorities of new venture development. They get the [...]

Mission Driven Capital Directory—USA: There are more and more sources of seed and venture capital which have a bias in favor of sustainable business. Their number is growing very rapidly; this [...]

Funding for Female Founders: According to Pitch Book in February 2021, venture capital funding overall has surged in recent years, but the numbers haven’t leapt forward for female founders [...]

Equity Crowdfunding Directory—USA: Equity-based crowdfunding allows people to invest in an early-stage, private company (a company that is not listed on any stock exchange) in exchange for equity [...]

Equity Crowdfunding from Friends and Family: per this Founder Institute blog, “a Friends and Family round typically results in anywhere from $10,000 to $150,000 in funding that allows a startup [...]

Funding the Benefit Sector: The Benefit Sector is emerging to fill a gap in the ability of the three traditional sectors to produce balanced benefits for society as a whole1. Social (nonprofit) [...]

Business Incubator and Accelerator Directory—USA: According to Carl Schramm, there were 1,600 business incubators and accelerators in the US in 2016. The Business Incubator and Accelerator [...]

Sources of Startup Finance: creating a new venture is going to require money. The sources of money are almost endless. The successful entrepreneur will be financially ingenious about finding ways [...]

Equity Crowdfunding for Purposeful Startups: Wefunder is simply the best way to raise capital from people who share your intent to change the world for the better, and with whom you want to build [...]

Purpose and Profit Framework: Today, it is finally safe to say that collective business wisdom accords purpose and profit virtually the same weight of importance in planning and leading a [...]

Missed Opportunity for Startup Funding Family Offices and Venture Capital: Founders of new ventures are frequently ignorant about an excellent source of equity investment: family offices. With [...]

Exit Strategy by ESOP or Co-op: An Employee Stock Ownership Plan or Co-operative Ownership are both increasingly popular options as exit strategies for entrepreneurs and small business owners. My [...]

Sweat Equity: You have heard the term ‘sweat equity’. It is the opposite of ‘financial equity’. Many entrepreneurs pride themselves on their sweat equity. Frequently they [...]

Expansion or Extension: Management ‘specialists’ talk about Stretch Goals, or even Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals, or BHAGs. Venture capitalists, with whom you are probably not [...]

Loans from Family and Friends: The first port of call for borrowing money for startups is family and friends. Historically, promissory notes have acted as a form of privately issued currency. [...]

Variance Analysis: The monthly activity of comparing either/both of forecast/budget numbers with actual out-turn proved for me to be a really critical management task. It’s all about data [...]

Risk Mitigation Tools: Entrepreneurs that survive tend to be very good at risk mitigation, or considering the downside risks of their actions. Ignorant people tend to describe entrepreneurs as [...]

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics that will measure outcomes against strategies set at the level of the whole venture, a function of it, and even an individual department. You can [...]

Goal Tracking Tool: Here is a very simple goal tracking tool I devised. You can copy or adapt it for your own use. You can print it or, better, keep an electronic version on your desktop so you [...]