Financing a Small Business


Recent Financing a Small Business Articles

Secured Transactions ? the Basics

Nov 4, 1999

Silicon Valley is the home to a number of overnight millionaires and billionaires overflowing in wealth and good fortune. From luxury automobiles to perso...  Read more

Don't Be So Bashful

By Hilory Wagner |  Oct 22, 1999

When it comes to marketing themselves, IPs are their own worst critics. "I'm never doing a good enough job at self-marketing," admits Hol...  Read more

Beating the Night Terrors

By Judy Fireman |  Oct 22, 1999

It's the rare and perhaps non-existent independent professional who doesn't devote a good deal of time to hustling new business. That 3 o'clock in the mor...  Read more

Truth or Dare: When and How to Talk With Your Business Backers

By Jill Andresky Fraser |  Oct 22, 1999

Communication questions Uncertain about how to communicate an unexpected development to your backers? Ask yourself these questions...  Read more

Borrowing Money for Your Business

Oct 22, 1999

Whether you borrow money from a bank or someone you know, you should sign a promissory note--a legally binding contract in which you promise to repay the money.  Read more

Fresh Start: Lifeline from Employees

By Anne Marie Borrego |  Oct 15, 1999

Lifeline from Employees First start : Founder of financial consulting company Catalyst : Deb...  Read more

Heavenly Strategies for High-Tech Start-Ups

Oct 13, 1999

Each week, the web-based, early-stage venture financing firm Garage.com receives hundreds of proposals from prospective high-tech startup companies lookin...  Read more

Taking Stock

By Gerard J. Holzmann |  Sep 15, 1999

Nowadays, fraudulent online stock-trading schemes are common. But even before the first electric telegraph, two bankers committed the equivalent of modern-da...  Read more

Get$$$Now.com

By Susan Greco |  Sep 1, 1999

New online intermediaries are closing the capital gap for companies that have outgrown friends-and-family financing but can't get a backward glance from vent...  Read more

Debt Management and Banking: Establish a Contingency Plan

By Michael Pellecchia |  Aug 15, 1999

Show your creditors that you can handle a cash crunch with a plan for managing crises.  Read more

Action Plan: Debt Management and Banking

By Michael Pellecchia |  Aug 15, 1999

Debt management and cash flow management are inseparable. A poorly managed cash flow will eventually surface as a depletion of working capital. If working...  Read more

Financing Your Business: A Case for Using Some of Your IRA, SEP, or 401(k)

By Brian S. Orol |  Aug 1, 1999

Tap into your retirement kitty to fund your business venture.  Read more

Grand Plans

By Donna Fenn |  Aug 1, 1999

Shoestring start-ups: seven fast-growing companies that were started for $1,000 or less, and tactics to borrow for your own start-up.  Read more

The Best Business Plan on the Planet

By Michael Warshaw |  Aug 1, 1999

Go behind the scenes with one of the judges at Moot Corp., a world-renowned business-plan contest hosted by the University of Texas at Austin.  Read more

The Annals of Bootstrapping

By George Gendron |  Aug 1, 1999

Inc.'s editor explains why bootstrapping is the purest form of entrepreneurism, why Garden.com is the quintessential Internet business, and how to deal with ...  Read more

Local Area Network

By Mike Hofman |  May 1, 1999

By opting to keep her high-tech start-up, Thermagon Inc., in Cleveland, founder Carol Latham was able to leverage her local ties to build a sophisticated net...  Read more

Hot Tip: Make it Quick

By Marc Ballon |  Apr 1, 1999

It pays to be brief and clear. Entrepreneurs hoping to raise money had better be able to describe a proposed venture within 45 seconds or risk losing thei...  Read more

The Fast Track to Face Time

By Ilan Mochari |  Apr 1, 1999

It's the eternal question asked by every entrepreneur who ever tried to raise capital: What do venture capitalists want? The answer, according to the Web ...  Read more

How to Get Rich in America

By Edward O. Welles |  Apr 1, 1999

A look at how companies like Palo Alto's Lunar Design are seeking the long-term payoff by taking equity instead of cash for their services.  Read more

We really know our business. How do we advertise that?

By Alssandra Bianchi |  Mar 1, 1999

Neil Rosenblum, owner of three Manhattan Pet Stop stores, has found a way to publicize his staff's expertise. At the company's Upper East Side location, e...  Read more

The Subsidiary Shield

Jan 1, 1999

If one part of your business carries greater liability risk than others, it may be possible to protect the rest of your company by spinning it off as asep...  Read more

MIT Springboard Sends Internet Company Aloft

By Marc Ballon |  Dec 1, 1998

University's business-plan contest catapults two students into entrepreneurship. For the CEO they hired, it's deja vu The old saw...  Read more

Angel Financing: Dos and Don'ts for Entrepreneurs

By Andy Sack |  Dec 1, 1998

Two years ago, when I was raising capital for my new software company, Abuzz, I invited two potential investors to a presentation I was giving. They invit...  Read more

Upstarts: University Tournaments

By Marc Ballon |  Dec 1, 1998

University business-plan tournaments are spawning a variety of sophisticated start-up companies. Here's what students learn from these contests and why inves...  Read more

The New Deal

By Julie Bort |  Dec 1, 1998

Jeremy Davey, CEO of Pabulum Internet Advertising Agency, acquired nearly all of his company's technology by forging partnerships with companies that owned t...  Read more

The Sting

By William W. Horne |  Nov 1, 1998

Desperate entrepreneurs are easy marks for con men posing as venture capitalists. Here's the story of one business owner who was duped by phony investors.  Read more

The Year of Dealing Dangerously

By Mike Hofman |  Oct 15, 1998

From mergers to IPOs, today's small businesses have a daunting number of possibilities before them. Here are five big deals that winners from the 1997 Inc. 5...  Read more

True Lies

By Jeffrey L. Seglin |  Oct 15, 1998

During their start-up days, many Inc. 500 CEOs tell half-truths to win over customers, while others tell outright lies. A look at the ethical differ...  Read more

The Real Decoy

By Inc. staff |  Oct 15, 1998

To raise cash, some Inc. 500 CEOs resort to raiding their retirement funds. That's nothing. Frank Frazier sold his personal coin collection, seve...  Read more

Office MacGyver

By Shane McLaughlin |  Sep 15, 1998

Paul Kilker, CEO of $15 million GGS Information Services, in York, Pa., was about to perform the last rites over two Hewlett-Packard laser printers. The m...  Read more

Is Internet Financing Too Good to Be True?

By Jill Andresky Fraser |  Sep 1, 1998

Inc. 's finance editor tells what to consider before using a financing Web site to locate investors.  Read more

Obit: Bakery's Failed Recipe -- Employee Buyout

By Eric Hubler |  Sep 1, 1998

A lapse in product quality, outdated equipment, unprofitable contracts, a huge accounting error, and poor internal communications helped put Martino's Bakery...  Read more

What Angels Want

By Jeffrey L. Seglin |  May 15, 1998

A look at the types of ventures angel investors are likely to put money into, and the kinds they'll never touch. The verdict? Think technology, have a niche,...  Read more

The Icon That Almost Wasn't

By Jerry Useem |  May 15, 1998

Henry Ford's venture, Ford Motor Co., was dangerously close to bankruptcy shortly after it started. Were it not for a last-minute investment, the auto compan...  Read more

Smart Money

By Joshua Hyatt |  May 1, 1998

Last fall, Allen Kirkpatrick set out to raise $500,000 from an elite subset of private investors: smart ones. He was looking for backers whose know-how co...  Read more