You believe you have a million-dollar business idea but lack the funding? You are not the only one. A quick look around and you would get to meet dozens of people in the same situation – plenty of ideas but no cash to initiate any of them. That is the first of many roadblocks that distinguish a successful entrepreneur from the wannabes though! Entrepreneurs are the type of people who “jump off a cliff and build a plane on the way down”, and that’s precisely what you need to do to transform that brilliant idea into a successful business. And I assure you – there are plenty of methods to do it!

Starting from low-rate loans, to family and friends, to crowdfunding sites, money is available as long as you know where to look for it, and how to prove you deserve it. Let’s look at 5 of the best methods of getting funding for your prospective business:

Bank loans – Traditional and non-traditional, bank loans are a very popular funding option among businesses. However, it is extremely difficult to gain a bank loan if you have, or are planning to have, a startup business. The way banks function requires the loan applicants to have a strong financial history with their business, solid business plans, sales projections, and anything else that proves your business’ worthiness, making it almost impossible for startups. A remarkable advantage of taking a Singapore business loan is the low interest rate though, with its prime lending rate of 5.35 being more than decent for businesses.

Family and Friends – If this option is available, it is definitely a very practical solution. Family and friends are your best bet if you need someone to trust you and your idea. Additionally, the interest rate will be very low, if any at all – family will not usually look to profit from you, though it might be a good idea to compensate them considering the compensation they would get if they time-deposit their money on a bank. Be careful though, as such funding has been known to bring issues later on with the business ownership. It is strongly suggested to still get an attorney and put everything on paper, from interest rates and repayments to the possibility of business ownership or shares. Cases of misunderstandings leading to people believing they own a share on the business they helped fund have been plenty!

Personal Assets and Savings – The easiest and most practical solution, if available of course. There is simply nothing better than using your own money, taking your own risks, and not worrying about any pressure of repaying the money, even if you do not reach your goals. Cashing in on property, bonds, stocks, or other investment could be a better idea than risking collateral, dealing with the pressure of paying back, and paying interest for lending money elsewhere. Starting small with whatever money you have available and investing your earnings as you go is a very convenient idea as well – that way, you do not have to worry about reporting or paying back, you have more time and flexibility to adapt to the industry better, and it allows you to cut your losses considerably.

Crowdfunding – the latest way of receiving funds for your business idea, Crowdfunding could also be the easiest if you have an awesome idea and story behind it. By simply registering on a site such as Kickstarter.com or IndieGoGo.com, you can publish your idea and set a funding target. If people like your idea, you might get millions of dollars in funding to make it a reality – just recently, a smart cooler project broke the record in Crowdfunding, collecting a staggering $13.28m for its idea.

Grants – Last but not least, grants are also very helpful if they are available in your area and industry -grants are continuously given with special attention for environmentally friendly and community developing business projects. Applying for a grant might be difficult, and you have to prove the credibility of your academic and professional background, business idea, business plan, and many more in order to convince the grant programs of your worthiness.

We all know that as brilliant as it may be, the business idea might often not be enough to get up on your feet. However, working hard to receive the funding to at least initiate the business should always be worth the extra effort. Remember, it is better to try and fail, than not try at all.

Marketing your new startup used to be a simple affair. Take for example an SaaS company like Salesforce for CRM. You might create a landing page using a tool like Launchrock, an enticing 2 line blurb, and the promise of exclusive early access to a world-changing service or product. Post your landing page URL coupled with a teaser video that offers glimpses of elements of its design and more hyperbole on one-time startup launchpads like reddit and digg. Unfortunately this over-simplified summary of startup launch marketing no longer works. (Note: Oddly, SMS marketing seems to be making a comeback of sorts as large companies seek to monetize

Startup marketing in 2014 is a complicated process. One can no longer expect to attract the attention of early adopters like Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki and have skyrocketing popularity, torrents of funding, millions of users, and a fat exit thanks to Google, Facebook or the half dozen tech giants that are constantly buying up the hottest tech property right now. Like it or not, startup marketing has matured, and it’s no longer enough to have the hype generated by a celebrity backer like Ashton Kutcher. The only time that worked being for Airbnb.

Let’s talk about what works in the second decade of the 21st century. Today, in order for a startup to gain traction, it is imperative that it start life with a terrific user acquisition mechanism, ala Pinterest or Snapchat, or be cash flow positive from day one, like Airbnb. Building up a user base from a small group of users who aren’t monetized over time is no longer considered impressive. It is indeed a tough call to break out in the noisy, crowded space of tech startups.  One must be wary of heedlessly copying the methods of Silicon Valley and Bay Area startups, which are optimized for a vastly different market. Instead of WASPy ivy-league educated, tech-savvy middle management at MNCs, we have tremendously different consumers such as the English-speaking or local-language-speaking users, smartphone or PC users, corporate salarymen to housewives to tech-savvy teenagers, people who have bought online (e-commerce) to those whose first purchase was on an app store (m-commerce). They are all different, and the right market must be understood in order for your startup to maximise the chances of success. If you rely on a marketing plan that expects user adoption across all age groups, genders, and socio-income status groups, you are essentially setting your company up for failure.

Once you have adequately identified what the target group of consumers is, take the time to evaluate available marketing avenues. Will a viral user sharing loop work? Can early, exclusive access to your service spread via word-of-mouth? Is advertising via the Google Display Network as expensive as it seems on paper? Can an email blast to 30,000 prospects convert? It is extremely difficult to say, which, or even if any, of the above will work. The variables are many, and if your service or product is truly innovative, that makes it even harder.

As the wise have said before, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Try a method that works for you and let us know in the comments if the result was favourable.

Welcome to the web technology entrepreneurial startup blog for the National University of Singapore. From time-to-time, there will be information posted on this blog regarding the entrepreneurial ecosystem within the university, any new activities on campus, idea generation workshops, business support workshops, and the like.

The genesis for this blog is that there ought to be an easy place for students to get sufficient information to get started on their entrepreneurial journey. Often, one requires  a gentle nudge to begin one’s journey towards entrepreneurship. No amount of rational inquiry and self-reflection will lead an otherwise normal person to choose a path of great hardship and slim probability of success unless the hardship they face is already great, or the reward of success is so enormous that the expected payoff is reasonably high. Thusly, in a real way we all require that spark of motivation.

If you are looking for a meetup of sorts to get acquainted with people who are into tech entrepreneurship as you are, try checking out some of the event calendars of local events such as Blk71’s startup events in singapore, TheList’s (mostly) free events, and hacker events at Hackerspace. If you are technically oriented, check out the events at Hackerspace or Blk71. There are a great many meetups discussing database design, the benefits of pair programming, cutting edge programming languages like Clojure, etc. If that isn’t your cup of tea, you can check out events such as the Kopi Chat @ Blk71 on Jobstreet.com’s success, or the sharing sessions of Apero Entrepreneurs, or the latest Bitcoin meetup. Bring your passion and leave your inhibitions at the door, you’re in for evenings with fascinating entrepreneurs, engineers and designers, sometimes all in one.

There is a large body of work discussing the philosophies and debating the issues surrounding contemporary entrepreneurship. It is certainly required reading for any aspiring entrepreneur to get a running start. Books such as the Startup Owner’s Manual, 4 Steps to the Epiphany, The Lean Startup and more are indispensable for any budding entrepreneur in the 21st century. Anecdotes abound about how the old ways of doing business are outdated, outperformed and outsold by companies built on principles such as the lean startup methodology. Although we cannot in general predict whether any given startup venture will be successful, we know that the odds of success are much better with a good command of the current thinking behind startup development.

If you would like to know more the future of startup development, visit this blog for updates fortnightly. We will continue to provide new and updated information about the latest and greatest in the world of tech startups, occasionally discussing and dissecting the latest high profile acquisition, or giving a heads up to new and promising startups that could one day find themselves working their way into your work or study. Imagine how mind-blowing it would be to witness first hand the growth of a small and simple service or product that you use, to become a global behemoth. If that happens, remember that you read about it here first!