Owning your own business offers flexibility, creative freedom, and unlimited income potential. Lacking financial resources doesn’t mean you are out of luck! According to this article in Forbes, it is possible to still start a business with limited funds. no money. Some tips from the article include: keep your day job while working on your business during your free time, choose a business idea that doesn’t require upfront capital (such as freelance writing, virtual assisting, or social media management), scale up gradually, and utilize free resources and networking opportunities. Check out the link to the article to read more!
This article from Forbes discusses the increasing popularity of crowdfunding as a funding option for early-stage startups, especially for female founders from marginalized communities. In general, crowdfunding provides an innovative solution for raising funds to launch or grow a businesses.
The article highlights specific difficulties faced by these marginalized founders in obtaining traditional funding and provides tips for running successful crowdfunding campaigns, including setting realistic goals, explaining the product or service clearly, promoting the campaign through multiple channels, building social proof, and offering attractive rewards to participants.
Samantha M. Besnoff is a CPA, podcast host AND early graduate of our very own Women’s Entrepreneurship certificate program. Samantha reached out to our Program Director, Kirsten Barker, to have a conversation about financial considerations that go into launching a business.
We are so pleased that Samantha has stayed in touch with the Institute long after completing the program and is dedicated to improving financial literacy with her Your Financial Maven podcast. If you are interested in listening to her chat with Kirsten, you can tune in on @iheartpodcast, @applepodcasts, or wherever you listen: https://apple.co/3BAVTms
The article from Business News Daily discusses six common reasons why small businesses fail and provides advice on how to minimize or avoid their negative impact. These reasons include poor cash flow, inadequate leadership, disengaged employees, lack of business planning, strong competition, and failure to adapt to changes in the market.
The article suggests that to address these challenges, small business owners should prioritize financial planning, establish clear organizational structures, foster employee engagement, create comprehensive business plans, conduct competitive analyses, and be adaptable to industry trends. Additionally, the article highlights the importance of cultivating a supportive and collaborative work environment and investing in leadership development programs to ensure that businesses are well-positioned for success.
As we head into Thanksgiving this week in the US, many families will be gathering around tables where multiple generations are present. In this interview and podcast from NPR’s Life Kit, Pamela Jolly, founder and CEO of the strategic investment firm Torch Enterprises shares thoughts on what generational wealth includes and how to create structures in which it can be shared. Specifically, Jolly states that wealth isn’t just about cash. It can be whatever you want it to be – from your relationships to your education and knowledge to the things you own – “wealth” can be anything you can pass down to make your mark on the world.
Patrina Dixon, author of It’$ My Money and graduate of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Certificate program at Cornell was recently featured in this article in Business Insider.
In this piece, she shares her thoughts on how to generate side income. Specifically, she states the importance of determining your existing skills, experimenting with different opportunities for growth and outlining income streams that best work for you and your needs. Keep up the amazing work, Patrina!
Melissa Bradley is the cofounder of Ureeka, a community where entrepreneurs can gain access to the expertise needed to grow their business. Ureeka’s mission is to democratize economic opportunity by enabling community and reducing the cost and risk associated with transitioning from a small to medium business. Bradley is also the founder and Managing Partner of 1863 Ventures and cofounder and Managing Partner of Sidecar Social Finance. In this video, Forbes‘ Maneet Ahuja sits down with Melissa Bradley and discusses access to capital, managing a business during a recession and the overhype of venture capital.
We made a post about this back in January 2022, but here is an update – we find a lot of regional and local grant opportunities being offered to small business owners as funding from the American Rescue Plan Act continues to trickle down to state and local levels.
We keep this spreadsheet updated daily with new opportunities that we find.
Kat Weaver completed the Women’s Entrepreneurship certificate program in early 2020 and just wrote in to tell us how much she learned and how it helped propel her to start her second company, Power To Pitch.Kat wanted to share some of her wisdom with the students in our program and we are so thankful that she graciously agreed to let us post her advice on our website. Kat states:
Are you making these pitch presentation mistakes?
If you’ve positioned yourself for an opportunity in front of an investor, retailer, or to pitch at a business competition you might only have one chance to make a lasting impression.
I’ve seen the same mistakes made over and over, essentially costing great business ideas and their owners, funding, partnerships, and opportunities.
My name is Kat and I’m the founder of Power to Pitch. I started my first business, Locker Lifestyle in college after being a victim of theft. I had no money to launch so I entered every pitch competition I could find, eventually winning all 22 of them.
After receiving hundreds of questions from individuals asking how I won six figures worth of equity-free funding, I founded Power To Pitch to help entrepreneurs build the confidence to pitch themselves to success.
Here are my top tips to get yourself ahead of the competition:
LEAD WITH YOUR STORY, WHY, OR INSPIRATION: I see most entrepreneurs lead with the explanation of their product or service which does not hook or emotionally connect with the audience. I coach every business owner I work with to start with their story. Whether it’s a grant judge, investor or retailer you’re looking to impress, think of the number of pitches they hear all day. What will stick out? Think – they’re investing in YOU as an individual before your business.
TALK COMPETITION. Most business owners are afraid to bring up their top competitors. Instead, think of this as an opportunity to put yourself ahead. I don’t recommend outright bashing who they are and what they do. Instead, talk about their core offerings, THEN lead into how you’re better. Be as specific as possible to showcase that you’re aware of the market you serve.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THE MONEY? One of the biggest mistakes I see is the lack of specificity when talking about the allocation of funding. If you’re pitching for a grant or to an investor, they will want to know EXACTLY what you need the money for and how it will be used. For example, if you’re applying for a $10k grant and you say “we need it for marketing, web development, and packaging”, you’ve already lost your audience. You need to be as specific as possible when describing your business needs. The more detail you can give, the more confidence they will have in you. Instead, say something along the lines of “we need $2,500 for ad spend in Facebook marketing to reach x demographic in x time with a goal ROAS of x. We need $5,400 to hire a developer to optimize the homepage and checkout of our website to optimize our sales funnel for x amount of customers driven to our site each month.” and so on.
There is no EXACT formula to writing a pitch, but by avoiding these mistakes, you are already ahead of the competition!
Many thanks to Kat for sharing her wisdom with us and allowing us to post it on our site. If you want to learn more about Kat and her pitch competition tips, head to www.powertopitch.com.
On Tuesday, October 20, 2020 at 1pm ET, The Chattery will be hosting a free online workshop entitled “Leveraging Crowdfunding to Launch & Grow Your Business“. The workshop will feature Olivia Owens, Head of Partnerships at IFundWomen and General Manager of IFundWomen of Color, who will share how to create a honed pitch, network map, and marketing strategy for your crowdfunding campaign. To learn more and register, click here.
Olivia Owens worked with eCornell to deliver a webinar in August on “Raising Capital During A Crisis” through the use of crowdfunding. A link to that recording can be found here.
The Chattery is a nonprofit organization that provides adult education through fun, affordable and accessible classes and workshops and is offering this workshop for free in conjunction with Startup Week Chattanooga. Shawanda Mason is a co-founder of The Chattery and is a graduate of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Certificate program at Cornell! Many thanks to Shawanda for making us aware of this event and enabling us to share it with the broader community!
