4 ms·

Ask HN: How do scrappy start-up founders get money fast?

6 points by citizenkeys 16y ago

For those of you like me that boot-strap your start-up, how do you come up with cash in a hurry? Is it craigslist? The local pawn shop? What?

patio11 16y ago
Salary/savings. Juice loans and pawn shops are terrible ideas. Don't do that! Your risk of failure is off the freaking charts already - those capital sources deepen the downside and add extrinsic risks to your business.
benologist 16y ago
If you really need money in a hurry just get a part-time job and work the minimum you need to / can at it. Even slum it on the rent-a-cheap-x boards like elance, rentacoder, getafreelancer etc ... you can make money there, but the work's crap and so is the pay. I supplement my lack of income from passive income from the 20 or so Flash games I've produced, donations from my users, and occasionally making more games that I sell the licensing to / that further increase my passive income.
keiferski 16y ago
A few things I'm doing/done: 1. Selling random stuff on Craigslist and Ebay. Say, that bike trainer is really cool, but I haven't used it in awhile, and I should go ride outside anyway. Ditto for every other non-essential item I own. 2. Setting up a few minor content-type sites. I wrote a bunch of articles awhile ago and never did anything with them. I'm spending this weekend setting up a simple wordpress site to host them. Not going to make me rich, obviously, but anything helps. 3. Start a minor side business. If you can figure out a way to spend an equal amount of time (say, 20 hours/week) and make more money than a comparable random job, do it. You'll learn more and it'll look awesome on a resume. (I'm doing this too). 4. I've looked into using AirBnb to host. Not sure if I will end up using it, but if you've got the space (and the comfort level) you can definitely pay the rent with it.
jp 16y ago
I saved a few bucks a month by upgrading my cellphone plan. Old subscription might result in old price, etc. I use this money to power an Google AppEngine instance.
code 16y ago
Cashflow business to fund long term startup.
JoshKalkbrenner 16y ago
In a hurry??? Casino, Scratch-off tickets, pyramid schemes ;)
sid6376 16y ago
Not sure if this helps you, but there is this amazing story of how AirBnB raised money. "They told us about a great stunt they pulled at the Democratic Convention in Denver (in which Obama was nominated). They bought a bulk supply of generic cheerios and made up these cereal boxes to generate seed capital for their startup" From http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/03/airbnb.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/03/airbnb.html On a side note though consultancy seems a good way to raise that initial money, i have seen some friends who just get stuck in the consultancy mode and cant make time to work on products. If you do go that route set a hard date and stick to it.
martinshen 16y ago
If you have development skills and a bit of sales skills. The best way to do it is to do a web design gig for about $4-10K. DO NOT do anything more complex than a form on the site as it will just snowball into a ridiculous sized project. Go to a web tech convention (in Boston, WebInno) and wear a name tag or shirt that explains that you build kick ass websites. You WILL get attention. Our startup did the same thing until recently: do web design consultancy. In the past 3 months (and next 1) we've saved up (two of us) over $60,000 which is more than enough for at least a 6month full time run on our web startup. This on top of building our web startup's prototype and going to Ugrad (and doing decently I might add). If you have any further questions on how to get your web design co going in a hurry... pm me.

6 points by citizenkeys 16y ago

For those of you like me that boot-strap your start-up, how do you come up with cash in a hurry? Is it craigslist? The local pawn shop? What?

patio11 16y ago

Salary/savings. Juice loans and pawn shops are terrible ideas. Don't do that! Your risk of failure is off the freaking charts already - those capital sources deepen the downside and add extrinsic risks to your business.

benologist 16y ago

If you really need money in a hurry just get a part-time job and work the minimum you need to / can at it. Even slum it on the rent-a-cheap-x boards like elance, rentacoder, getafreelancer etc ... you can make money there, but the work's crap and so is the pay. I supplement my lack of income from passive income from the 20 or so Flash games I've produced, donations from my users, and occasionally making more games that I sell the licensing to / that further increase my passive income.

keiferski 16y ago

A few things I'm doing/done: 1. Selling random stuff on Craigslist and Ebay. Say, that bike trainer is really cool, but I haven't used it in awhile, and I should go ride outside anyway. Ditto for every other non-essential item I own. 2. Setting up a few minor content-type sites. I wrote a bunch of articles awhile ago and never did anything with them. I'm spending this weekend setting up a simple wordpress site to host them. Not going to make me rich, obviously, but anything helps. 3. Start a minor side business. If you can figure out a way to spend an equal amount of time (say, 20 hours/week) and make more money than a comparable random job, do it. You'll learn more and it'll look awesome on a resume. (I'm doing this too). 4. I've looked into using AirBnb to host. Not sure if I will end up using it, but if you've got the space (and the comfort level) you can definitely pay the rent with it.

jp 16y ago

I saved a few bucks a month by upgrading my cellphone plan. Old subscription might result in old price, etc. I use this money to power an Google AppEngine instance.

code 16y ago

Cashflow business to fund long term startup.

JoshKalkbrenner 16y ago

In a hurry??? Casino, Scratch-off tickets, pyramid schemes ;)

sid6376 16y ago

Not sure if this helps you, but there is this amazing story of how AirBnB raised money. "They told us about a great stunt they pulled at the Democratic Convention in Denver (in which Obama was nominated). They bought a bulk supply of generic cheerios and made up these cereal boxes to generate seed capital for their startup" From http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/03/airbnb.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/03/airbnb.html On a side note though consultancy seems a good way to raise that initial money, i have seen some friends who just get stuck in the consultancy mode and cant make time to work on products. If you do go that route set a hard date and stick to it.

martinshen 16y ago

If you have development skills and a bit of sales skills. The best way to do it is to do a web design gig for about $4-10K. DO NOT do anything more complex than a form on the site as it will just snowball into a ridiculous sized project. Go to a web tech convention (in Boston, WebInno) and wear a name tag or shirt that explains that you build kick ass websites. You WILL get attention. Our startup did the same thing until recently: do web design consultancy. In the past 3 months (and next 1) we've saved up (two of us) over $60,000 which is more than enough for at least a 6month full time run on our web startup. This on top of building our web startup's prototype and going to Ugrad (and doing decently I might add). If you have any further questions on how to get your web design co going in a hurry... pm me.