If you know me, you know that I have a rather active sense of humor. With that said I thought I might do a series of blogs addressing some of the questions we get about helping entrepreneurs get started. A lot of entrepreneurs come to us after they have been given bad information that supports on-going myths about entrepreneurship and starting businesses.
Advice is Like ____
Everyone has advice for you once they hear you’re starting a business. It’s a lot like having your first child. Once you tell people, they start giving tons of advice, even those that have never raised a child of their own.
Don’t get me wrong, most people are well-meaning, but they just can’t help themselves no matter how ill-informed they are. I digress, how to take advice is a topic for an entire other blog.
So let’s start with busting this popular funding myth!
Myth: I can get grants to help me start my small business.
There are no grants that write you a check for all the things you need to spend money on when starting a business. Period!
Government entities aren’t in the business of giving taxpayer money to people to start for profit private businesses.
There are occasional grants that we, the Small Business Develop Centers, or other state or Federal Departments will oversee that pay for a very specific service to help you get started. For example, help with legal fees, accounting, marketing, education, etc. They don’t write the check to you. They pay the vendor directly.
Large federal agencies sponsor “grants” that help with commercialization of new technologies coming out or research organizations that can be used to help the researcher start a business. They are called Small Business Innovation Research Grants. They’re very specific, require a new technology, are extremely competitive, and can only be spent on very specific things.
There are a few government and foundation grants that are given to entrepreneurs of certain demographics – ethnicity, veteran status, location, etc. There are very few of these and in our 9 years of operation we haven’t seen any of our clients get one.
Truth: 99.99% of new business starts will not get grants to help them start their business.
Myth Result: 99.99% Busted
I truly apologize for sounding negative. That’s not my nature.
Sound Business Advice
Our advice is to spend your time finding customers and proving the need for your business instead of hoping to get a grant. You can do this, but don’t waste time on chasing grants for your small business.
We’re here to help and most of our services are free or very affordable. We can connect you to a wide range of services and mentors that make starting a business easier including sources of capital and how to get them.
Simply book a FREE Start Here Consultation to get started!
One Response
Thank you