What No One Ever Tells You about Financing Your Own Business: Real-Life Financing Advice from 101 Successful Entrepreneurs

by Jan Norman

At least 90 percent of all small business failures can be traced to poor management, lack of planning and under-capitalization. In What No One Ever Tells You About Financing Your Business, small... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1419502778
• ISBN13: 9781419502774
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing
• Length: 207 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

This book provides real-life examples of how startups get started and find the money needed to get s

This was a wonderful book. It covers the basics as far as the options one has when planning to start a small business. Do you draw from your savings? Do you tap on family and friends? Do you mortgage your home? Or do you visit a bank and beg for some money? The simple truth of the matter is that there are no free lunches in this world. Starting a business is very similar to buying a car or a house. You can pay for it with cash savings. Or you can put up collateral and borrow the money you need to pay for it. SBA doesn't make bank loans - they guarantee some of them. So don't think the SBA is going to do much for you when it comes time to start your small business. This book covers financing the startup and financing the proven venture. And it does it very well. I loved the part about how business plans will explain how much capital (money) your business needs AND CAN REPAY. This is why banks and other lenders or investors will want to see the business plan you put together for your business venture. I also thought it was good that the author pointed out that lenders and investors rely somewhat heavily on your leadership ability when determining if your company is likely to succeed. Said another way, they will rate you as a leader when evaluating whether your business plan is good. Good plans get money. Poor ones don't. Take a look at the Table of Contents for this book. You'll see that the book covers all the bases when it comes to financing your own business. Well done. 5 stars!

Decent Advice, But Perhaps Not the Advice You Need

The author deserves credit for interviewing all these entrepreneurs and conveying their stories and lessons learned in a clear style. Nonetheless, I found little of value here. I'm not sure exactly why. In part it's because I had heard most of it before. But in a more fundamental way the notion of relying on the advice of successful practitioners carries with it a positive bias that proves less than helpful to struggling entrepreneurs. Her former venture capitalist who founds a financial services company, for instance, has a huge advantage in financial expertise and contacts over most of us. So it's not surprising that his new venture succeeds in raising money. What many entrepreneurs need, in contrast, is advice on how to overcome their very difficult circumstances, including personal shortcomings and destitution. So actually lessons learned from accounts of semi-competent entrepreneurs' failures to obtain financing could prove more realistic and valuable. Most of us are semi-competent at best! And of course entrepreneurs starting up innovative tech product ventures face an altogether more challenging and even forbidding set of obstacles to raising money than those launching a new flower shop or bookkeeping service. The simpler a challenge your business represents, the more helpful this book manages to be.

Excellent, and 101 means 101

I can attest to the fact that author Jan Norman interviewed each of 101 different individuals quoted in this book in the course of researching and writing it. Indeed, she talked to many more than that, just as she had for her other books in the series: "What No One Ever Tells You About Starting Your Own Business," "What No One Ever Tells You About Marketing Your Own Business" and the next one in the series which will be out in early 2006, "What No One Ever Tells You About Franchising." The interviews were detailed, often grueling work and always time-consuming, but invaluable for readers. Each of the 101 persons interviewed for each of Jan's books has a unique story to tell, and her books have shared those stories with countless others. This series of books published by Upstart, a division of Dearborn Publishing, finds its greatest value in the very diversity of the experiences represented by the 101 individuals in each book. For the reader, it is an opportunity not to read some self-anointed "expert" author's solitary opinion, but instead read the real-life experiences of 101 people who have been there and done that. Each book is a compilation of 101 mistakes and/or successes that others learned from, and that readers can learn from vicariously, then apply to their own entrepreneurial efforts.

Ms. Norman Knows What She is Talking About

I don't know if the author really talked to 101 successful entrepreneurs or not. I suspect not. Instead, this book might better be sub-titled 101 tips on financing a business. There are people who simply have to run their own business. It's a lot easier to work for someone else, just show up on time, work reasonably hard, go home a little bit later than most prople and so on. Some of us have a very hard time doing that. I've started several businesses over the years. Each one has been more successful than the one before. Experience has taught me several things. And I'm going to use that experience to comment on some of her 101 tips. Tip #1 - Do a business plan. There are several software programs that are almost fill in the blank. Get one and fill in the blanks. Even if you never show this plan to anyone else, it will force you to think through your whole business. Tip #7 - Start on a Shoestring. It is much easier to get money to expand a business than it is to get money to start from scratch. Re a bunch of Tips on borrowing money - Don't. It has to be paid back. Unless you are very, very certain that you can pay it back in a very short time - DON'T! Tip 46-48 - Yes, yes, a hundred times YES!. Live cheaply. Don't buy the big car, big house, whatever. Tips 77-80 - Government Programs. Forget them, they aren't worth the time they take. Tips on venture capital and going public. This is a basic business decision. Do you want to run a small business or create a public company that you can get out of? This lady understands what she is writing about. But keep in mind that you are talking about your business, your ideas, your future. Read a book on business. Get a business started. Read a book on business. If it works great. If it doesn't, get a job for a while, start another one in your part time using what you learned from the failure of the first one. Read a book on business. Switch to running your business full time. Read a book on business. Repeat as necessary.