Category Archives: Startups

What Are Crowdfunding Websites and How to Find Yours?

crowdfunding

Crowdfunding seems to have become more and more popular medium to source funding, as the number of such websites and funding niches grow. It all got started in it’s current form when kickstarter launched in 2009 to help artists, inventors and alike to make their ideas and products happen through small amounts of money gathered from individuals interested in the project. Since then Kickstarter has grown to be a very popular place to source funding: until today they have successfully gathered funding for over 50,000 projects worth total nearly $850M dollars[1]. Quite impressive, huh?

How do crowdfunding websites really work?

The basic concept is quite simple: a crowd of people all chip in their chosen amount to collectively gather the targeted sum of money defined by the project creator. Some sites require the project to reach target in order to the project to be funded. If not, the money is not taken from the pledgers’ accounts. The time to raise that money is usually limited.

There are various models what the investors get in return for their investment. In some cases it can be the actual product that the project is set to produce. It can also be equity of the company.

›› continue reading

Benefits of Being an Online Entrepreneur

Online entrepreneur benefits

I love internet, I absolutely do. It is not just a channel of exchanging information and data, but it also enables business in various scales, and lowers the entry barrier for startups. Setting up a business online is not only easy, but it can be very inexpensive to maintain compared to its offline counter-part. If you think of it, with a little over $100 you can have your own website running for a year.

Market

The most important thing for an online business is the ability to reach people in every corner of the world. Well, at least as long as they have access to internet. If you think of a startup business before the internet era, it was very limited to the location. And without substantial investment, taking over new markets was very costly. Through the internet we are able to target markets outside our physical reach almost as easily as markets within our physical reach.

Workforce

Another great aspect of running an online business is the easy access to remote workforce. Many startups begin with very humble financing and every penny and cent saved is a big win. In the traditional manner, a startup would need a physical office, where the hired staff would be working.

›› continue reading

When Should an Entrepreneur Give Up?

quit-business

Being an entrepreneur is not always easy, well actually, most of the time it’s not easy. There are number of reasons why we become entrepreneurs. For some it’s a desire to create something, for some it’s a problem with authorities, for some it’s the feeling of freedom etc.

Well, after you have made the decision to become an entrepreneur, you soon realize that it’s not all fun and games. You start worrying about money in ways you never even dreamed of while getting your monthly salary from your former employer. In case you’re hiring staff suddenly you start losing your good night sleeps towards the end of the month figuring out where to get the money to pay salaries. Your values change from “changing the world for better” towards to “I will sell what ever they buy”, and so on.

I-quit-middle-finger So, is there a time when you should just give up and stop trying? Well, the simple answer would be “no”, but perhaps it’s a little more complicated than that. Maybe you realized that being an entrepreneur was not for you, and that you would be better off by working for someone else. In that case, maybe the right answer is to do so, and perhaps while being an entrepreneur your contact network grew and you met the right people and you would be getting a lot better position in some company than where you were before.

›› continue reading