Carolyn Duncan (whom I know from “The Hundred Dollar Business”) is very active in the great NW working with entrepreneurship. She recently posted a series “Finding Funds In Any Economic Situation”.
From Part 1: Deciding to act like a legitimate entrepreneur, not a dreamer/talker.
Many entrepreneurs think this will happen:
- Get an idea
- Find money
- Start the business
- Make money
- Become rich
- Sell the business
If you believe this, read the post.
From Part 2: Getting realistic and honest with yourself about whether or not your idea has any true merit, and if it is worth investing your own time/effort into.
- Problem
- Solution
- Test Market
- Prototype
- Friend / Family $
- Sell
From Part 3: Spec’ing out your project’s milestones & costs for the next 12 months.
“You need to put on your project manager hat, and scope out basic milestones & costs for the project.”
From Part 4:
“Now that you have a dollar amount in mind and a set of tasks you will be using it to implement, you need to get specific about what type of funding you are possibly eligible for, and then what the process is for approaching those types of financing sources.”
Carolyn writes some great posts. Subscribe to her Big Paper Blog.