Hello, I am familiar with Angel Investors, etc... I have less than good credit, no collateral, and I'm young, but I have an excellent business plan in a proven market with excellent profit margins... My question is...Is it possible for someone like me to find roughly $600,000 - $750,000 in startup funding for a company? Or am I talking crazy? Family and friends is out of the question. As I said, this is a proven industry, proven market (I won't discuss that here)...So tell me DP'ers...Can funding be found for someone like me? Where should I start looking?
Wow that’s allot of start up funds. Not sure if anyone would lend you that much without good credit and collateral. Perhaps try getting a partner or private investors.
Search for investors and try to get the opportunity to present to them. Good ideas with lack of funding usually get taken up by someone else, whether its a day or a year from now!
You can try searching VCs at www.thefunded.com. But it's extremely difficult to get money for just a concept. Why? Because even if your idea is great and you are a stud at execution, there are still a million things that could go wrong and cause you to fail and lose money. http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2005/08/ideas_are_just_a_multiplier_of.html
try finding angel investors or perhaps for big $$$$$$ you might want to find venture capitalists. BTW, make sure you have a solid business plan as otherwise it wouldnt stand a chance!
VCs want big money, and when I say big we are talking more than a one million. For example, Ebay got 5 million in bridge money for 22% of their company. So for him he will have a hard time finding a VC that is interested it throwing out such a small amount of money for any project because they are looking for quick returns, and that’s takes millions to build the company up, hire the right people, launch and market the service. Angels is where your going to want to look, however with Angels or VCs you still will have to provide them a good biz plan, education, members of the board (They like to see names they know). Also there is no “proven industryâ€â€¦ Even in the billion dollar industries you can watch companies come and go at a flip of a hat. I have seen them blowing 3-34 million of CV money. The question is if the market is their and is not flooded or priced to the floor, what’s going to make you standout from the next guy and connect to your customers to convey the value in buying your service or products. I'm not saying it can not be done, but your going to need to build a Corp, and start reaching out to Angels in your local area and try to get them interested in your idea with a killer biz and marketing plan. If you don't know how to do that, just get in your car and drive down the road to the first shopping center, or office complex you see find out who owns it and get ready to act like you know what you are doing, and your comfortable handling large money and biz. With bad money record you don't want your Angel to become a Devil when you blow their money on stupid stuff, as they have more money than you, and can sue you into the grave. Get your ducks in a row, and be ready for anything!