I’m 40, had numerous businesses (some successful) and am now launching a startup in my domain space (heavy industry). I’m broke (bad decisions, depression, alcohol abuse) but much better now. How should I raise money so that I don’t look desperate?

You shouldn’t raise money just to not look desperate. Only raise money if you really need it, but most people don’t need it that bad at the early stages. Most of your expenses will be very minimal; only a few hundred dollars to get the business started and pay for some cheap hosting to get your website up.

best of luck to you… you can do it.

+1 on reasons to not raise money yet, get validation and traction first.

I’m 40, broke-unemployed with no savings, and have scraped enough good will and occasional donations from friends to get domain/landing page/attend incubator weekends/business cards -although I won those 🙂

You can do this! Good luck 🙂

I’m in the same boat – my start-up is so bootstrapped that I’m broke, hungry and will be homeless soon if revenue doesn’t start flowing. My thoughts are also on funding, which I was trying hard to avoid. But the reality is that (a) I have a brilliant offering (of course!) and (b) there’s no way it’s going to get very far if there’s no real money behind it. The problem is that I need money NOW.

So the question I have is WHETHER to divert attention from the business in order to prepare an investor ready business plan, which could take a few months – not to mention the following 3-6 months of negotiations, due diligence and legalities, (by which time I’ll be living on the street) OR focus on growing the business and increasing revenue.

And in actual fact, I think it will be much easier to persuade customers to sign up to my package than it will be to convince potential investors that my company is going to give them 10x return on their investment in 3-5 years. So I guess it’s back to the grindstone…

[ I seem to have answered my own question…thanks for that 🙂 ]

Same boat, but in a good financial position. Just do it. The rest will take care of itself.

Get a job, save up some money, get your dignity back, and then make it the second chapter of a comeback story rather than the first.

Anonymous says:

April 25, 2014 at 1:27 pm

+1 ×100000000

Reply
- Anonymous says:
  
  April 27, 2014 at 4:21 pm
  
  Have to agree. Weakness is palpable in most interactions. The fact that you’re smart enough to know you may come off that way is a good thing. Get some cash in the bank and get your confidence up a bit so they feel like they’re joining a winning team (‘they’ being employees, cofounders, investors, and customers.).
  
  Reply

Thanks to everyone that commented! I really appreciate it!

Definitly bootstrap, lean start. Find some small high quality projects and excell. Become known for high quality and execution the rest will flow.

@kaffegeek

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