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Abstract

The Smart Startup

Startup Financing for the Rest of Us or What to Do When Investors Say "No,
Thanks."

* Home
* Venture Capital
* The Smart Startup Guide
* Angel Investors
* Coaching
* Startup Tools
* About
* Contact

Startup Financing for the Rest of Us
__________________________________________________________________

Will You Get Your Startup Through the Financing Valley of Death?
__________________________________________________________________

There is nothing tougher than trying to raise capital in the Financing
Valley of Death. This label refers to the phase in which a startup
lacks any cash inflows. In most cases, the startup will consist of
little more than a person with an idea and a business plan. No one
wants to invest at this stage unless the entrepreneur is a proven
money-maker for investors. Have you made tens of millions for previous
investors who will vouch for you? No? Then forget about it. From an
investor's point of view being asked to bankroll an unproven entity is
akin to being asked to place their hard-earned money into a pile and
set it ablaze.

Allow me to add another important point about raising capital. It is
also by far the most unpleasant task an entrepreneur will ever have to
perform, so I will share the big secret with you on how to get it. All
investors, from angels to venture capitalists, want to back a sure
thing or the next best thing to it. This means that a startup needs to
show that it has bona fide sales first. Only then will investors start
to pay attention. Obviously, this is the big test for you as an
entrepreneur: can you create sales without a huge injection of capital
first? Every entrepreneur must pass this test before they deserve the
title.

Surviving the Financing Valley of Death
So how do you get traction before the investors come in? Well, savvy
entrepreneurs like the ones on the annual lists of fastest growing
companies know, and that's what the Smart Startup Guide teaches you.
Believe it or not, smart entrepreneurs have had to solve this problem
for hundreds of years now. Think of entrepreneurship as a computer game
with 25 levels. If your financing know-how is limited to "write a
business plan and pray," nothing is going to happen because you are
stuck at the bottom level. This is a fast way to lose all your
credibility.
You need to work your way up to level 15 or better. That's what the
Smart Startup Guide does for you. In fact, it will take you up to level
20 or better.

The Smart Startup Guide

If you have come to purchase a copy of the Smart Startup Guide which
teaches you the startup secrets of both serial and Inc 500 Fastest
Growing Companies List entrepreneurs, click here for the order page.

Today's Special!
With the money supply tight, you now need this financing manual more
than ever.
Buy the 220 page Smart Startup Guide in PDF today and save. Regular
price is $99.95. Today it's only $79.95.
The object of education is not knowledge, it's action.
- Thomas Kempie
The Smart Startup Guide teaches you how to get going immediately.
-Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!
Read the first chapter for free.

Something to Ponder

This site is run by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. The whole point of
going into business for yourself is to be your own boss. The problem is
that as soon as you accept a dollar of investor capital, you become
their employee. So why not explore ways in which you can retain as much
control as possible?

The Free Stuff
First, this site offers for free most of the information other sites
attempt to nickle and dime you to death over: venture capital
documentation, business plan and executive summary samples, directories
of venture capital firms, directories of angel investor groups, and
lots more. It's all here and for free.
The site also offers a wealth of free yet sound advice on determining
whether or not you fit venture capital and angel investor investment
criteria, how to find and approach investors, and finally how to
negotiate from a position of power rather than of desperation.
The Premium Stuff
Second, for those of you who have already grown weary of pounding the
pavement looking for investors, we offer our premium content, the Smart
Startup Guide, which teaches you how the tiny minority of truly savvy
entrepreneurs by-passes the wretched game of chasing capital and moves
straight to cashflow. The Guide is a ten-year long labor of love which
explains how the truly great entrepreneurs start without outside
capital.
As with all good things in life, the Guide costs money. As the saying
goes, you get what you pay for. However, compare its price with the
amount of time you have already lost or stand to lose writing pointless
business plans and chasing uninterested investors. Only about one in
every 500 entrepreneurs chasing capital attracts any. The other 499
entrepreneurs simply end up wasting six to eighteen months of their
lives in a futile quest.
How much is just one month of your time worth in comparison
to the Guide, let alone 6 to 18 months?
Memorize this distinction:

-Savvy entrepreneurs know how to create cash.

-Wannabes wait for someone to give them cash.

In a nutshell, the Guide teaches you how to create the cash that will
both start your business and get you taken seriously by investors later
on. Even better, some entrepreneurs realize after using the Guide that
they won't need investors at all. Good or good?
Pay Special Attention Here
If there is one lesson that I want you to leave this site with, it's
this: a nicely polished professional business plan by itself, plus
$3.35, is worth a grande latte at Starbucks. Investors don't care about
your business plan, they want to see traction first. No one really
reads business plans anymore because by now everyone's caught onto the
fact that they are about as objective and factual as a personal ad on a
dating site.
__________________________________________________________________

Testimonials
__________________________________________________________________

A VC Testimonial
Peter,
I bought the Smart Startup Guide a few months ago. I have been a VC
with a top firm, and a successful software entrepreneur. Your book is a
service to entrepreneurs. I found myself in repeated agreement with
you. I too came to view the capital-chasing process as a stupendous
waste of time for 99.9999% of startups.
The business press has glamorized venture capital and created a whole
package of myths around what is a very tough reality. Most
entrepreneurs have no understanding that to secure financing they are
making VCs the owners and themselves the paid help, whatever percentage
of the company the VCs get.
And few capital seekers have a true understanding of "standard" VC deal
terms. Unfortunately the VC firms have huge PR firms and it is only the
happy-spin story that ever gets told. Few horror stories make it to the
press.
Keep up the good work!
Anon Venture Capitalist

More Testimonials
The Smart Startup Guide teaches you how to get your venture off the
ground with little or no outside money. It does so by revealing the
financing strategies used by entrepreneurial greats when investors
weren't available. Ironically, while the Guide tries to dissuade you
from using outside money, the application of its strategies will
actually make your venture all the more attractive to venture
capitalists and angel investors.
- Wil Schroter, Founder GoBigNetwork
The Smart Startup Guide is the best tool I've found yet for financing a
new business!
- Catherine Austin Fitts, President of Solari, Inc., MBA (Wharton)
The Smart Startup Guide has been an invaluable resource to me during
the launch of Playscreen. It perfectly illustrates hard learned lessons
that entrepreneurs would be well advised to pay attention to. In the
midst of all the misinformation and hucksterism around starting a
company the SSG is a valuable resource you should have if you are
running or working at a startup company.
- William Volk, CEO & founder playscreen
Peter Ireland's Smart Startup Guide is a must read for any aspiring
entrepreneur or business executive seeking to cost effectively start or
expand their business when outside capital is hard to come by. The
financing techniques used in his guide were invaluable when I was at an
Inc. 500 software firm and remain as effective today in my latest
self-funded company.
- Alan Blume, StartUpSelling, Inc. CEO, Inc. 500 alumnus (2 years)

What's New?

Billionaire Strategies

While most of us will never be billionaires, that doesn't mean that we
can't use some of their strategies and tactics to grow our own
businesses. Read more about this amazing course on how to buy
businesses. Billionaire Strategies is strictly for proven entrepreneurs
and deal-makers.

How Deal-makers Close Investors With Revenue Royalty Certificates

Here's the solution to a common problem in raising money. You have
found angel or business investor who likes your deal, but you can't
seem to close them. Revenue-based financing using a Revenue Royalty
Certificate provides a deal structure that enables you to close them.
RRCs eliminate the obstacles that scare off investors. Find out today
how to close your investors. Click the above link.

More Great Info

Videos

Oftentimes first-time capital seekers are impatient and come across
this way to investors. Afterwards they don't understand why they were
rejected. Make sure that you don't come across like this newbie capital
seeker. There's an old saying, he who asks for gold gets advice, while
he who asks for advice gets the gold.

Newsletter

If you're not in any particular hurry to start a business but are still
interested in how savvy entrepreneurs do it, sign up for
the newsletter.

* Business Plans
* Business Models
* Entrepreneurial Finance
* Venture Capital Math
* Startup Valuations
* Negotiations
* Legal Documents
* Startup Legal Overview
* Securities Law
* VC Term Sheets
* Money Middlemen
* Capital Raising Reading
* Venture Capital Blogs
* Startup Capital Sources
* How to Buy a Business

Protected by Copyscape Plagiarism Detector-

Raising Capital

Whether you're raising capital to start up a new company or buy an
existing one, you have come to the right place.

Privacy Policy | Terms of Use

Copyright © 2011 Peter Ireland All Rights Reserved.

End of Abstract

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