The Smart Startup

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: Creative Startup Capital

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.

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.

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.com

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)