Virtually every start-up opens their door undercapitalized. The founder uses savings, high-interest credit cards, taps relatives and friends for money, and to a lesser extent will talk to banks, angel investors and even think about working with venture capitalists (VCs).

Pursuing the latter three paths are very difficult, especially the venture capital route, inasmuch as they fund less than 1% of start-ups. (A little-known fact about the VCs is this: two-thirds of the investments that VCs make will end up in bankruptcy, according to Associte Professor Andrew Metrick, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.)

So what’s the best strategy for a start-up to secure some additional capital? Go into the barter marketplace…begin looking for direct trades that will move your business forward. Then go for the “low-hanging fruit,” i.e. additional sales that can be acquired through the trade (barter) exchanges in your market. Added barter revenue (trade dollars) that will provide you with much needed capital.

To find barter companies in your area see the right-hand column, scroll down to ‘Top Resources.”

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.