Taking your questions in reverse order, I would first recommend not borrowing money to start or grow your business. Get investors instead. If your business sh

Taking your questions in reverse order, I would first recommend not borrowing money to start or grow your business. Get investors instead. If your business should happen not to work out the first time, you walk away free and clear and can easily start another business. If you've borrowed money and your business fails, you still have to pay back the loan. This is an amazing gift: if you fail the first time, your net worth may be zero, but at least it won't be negative. [http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html] If you do decide to borrow money, you do not need to have built up your credit score. All you need to do is talk to a lender who has the intelligence to look at your actual situation. (As Dave Ramsey likes to put it, a credit score is lending for dummies). To get a mortgage for a house, for example, to qualify for the best rate, all you need is to have paid your rent for two years early or on time, to not to have bad debts, and to find a bank that does manual underwriting. You do not need to have borrowed a dollar before in your life. A VISA debit card will give you exactly the same level of protection against theft and fraud as a credit card will. Look it up on their web site. There are a few minor inconveniences to not having a credit score. For example, yes, I did have an insurance company initially want to charge me a higher insurance rate because I hadn't "established my credit". But all I had to do was call them up and explain that I didn't have a credit score because I didn't borrow money, and if they didn't give me a good rate I'd go to an insurance company who would look at my actual situation. And they gave me a reasonable rate. A five minute conversation. (If you want to be an entrepreneur, this kind of negotiation is trivial). So if you don't need to "build your credit", why is everyone you know (and all the comments here on Hacker News) saying you should? Propaganda from the credit card industry is pervasive (their advertising budget, iirc, is second only to the auto industry). They have spent a great deal of money, time, and effort coming up with plausible sounding reasons why you should buy their product (credit), and ensuring that everyone has heard of them. Your "credit score" is in fact a measure of how much profit you are making for the credit industry. Maximizing your credit score isn't going to help you, making products or services that people want is what is going to make you successful. Don't spend your time optimizing the wrong thing.