Once you decide to make the break and start up your own business, you are likely to need finance. This can be for buying stock or equipment, for insurance and for fitting out your premises. Or if you set up at home, for building outside access to the designated room. This will save your customers having to access your business through your home, something that is not very professional.
So where can you get this finance? Much depends on how much you need. Here are several options.
- Get a loan from the bank. Make sure you negotiate terms you can afford.
- Apply for an angel investor. These are people who risk their own money for a good cause. They may also want to have some say in how you run the business.
- Get a loan from family. This should be set up legally and you should pay interest on the loan, even if it is very low interest.
- If you don’t need much, you may be happy to put it on your credit card. Not a good idea due to the high interest rates.
- Save it up yourself, over time. This is only good if you can actually do it quickly enough.
- Look for government funding. There are many different kinds of government grants available for women, you just have to be eligible in whichever way is necessary to be given the grant. The grants range from as low as $500 to many thousands.
More about government grants
Naturally enough you won’t fit with the criteria for all the grants available, but you may with some. It’s worth looking into. There’s a lot of information on the Internet. What are some of the criteria? They may be for –
- A minority sector e.g. Indigenous Australian or Torres Strait Islander
- Specific industries such as the arts or agriculture
- Specific amounts
- Specific states, since some grants are offered by state rather than Federal government.
The best part is that some of these grants don’t have to be repaid. If you find a grant that seems like a good fit you cannot just write a letter asking for it. There will be information regarding how to apply and often this seems complicated. You may have to produce a professional business plan if the grant is for a lot of money. If you’ve never done this before, get a professional to do it for you.
If the time comes that your business is successfully established and set to expand, you may want to take on an apprentice. You can get special funding for this too, to help with the costs. There are many ways in which you can get help to make your business more successful.