A wise man in the investing world once told me “there’s more
money out there than good ideas.” He was referring to the biggest headache of investors;
they have so much money that their money could make money if placed in the
proper business ideas. Banks only give investors 5% on the money they have
sitting in their accounts. The opportunity to potentially double their money
with entrepreneurs is as good as it gets, but the risk is high.
As an entrepreneur I sure you’re wondering, “Where are these
investors?” There are a lot of different websites for angel investors and other
crowd funding. Each site has its own niche, only certain types of projects
successfully receive funding on each site but most types of projects can be
submitted. For example, technology has the most success on
KickStarter.com,
with music coming in a close second.
GoFundMe.com is ranked number 1 by
crowdfunding.com because of its large amount of independent traffic. This site
has a lot of different types of projects from medical bill help to book
publishing. There are also websites that focus on certain demographics like
FirstNations.org and oweesta.org who requires you
to be of Indian decent or
First Nation for political correctness.
The majority of the small investment sites cater to
microenterprises. Microenterprises are businesses with five or less employees
including the founder.
Microenterpriseworks.org is an example of a
microenterprise focused funding resource. This site works directly with the
government to fund small businesses with up to $250,000.
The Community Development Financial Institute has many
partner companies that use their same federal connections to attain funds for
businesses in underserved markets. CDFI even has a program that awards banks
for investing in businesses to encourage the banks to fund businesses. On their
site CDFI.org there is no way to directly apply for funding but you can become
a member of the CDFI coalition, which has its own perks.
There are lots of sources for funding you business ideas;
crowd sourcing, grants, and individual investors. The sky is still the limit
and financial freedom is possible.
