Funding Sources
How I Funded the First Three Months of My Start Up Business
By Ellen Thompson
May 19, 2006, 14:02

When I started my current business, 4 Walls, which runs a network of websites that help people find apartments, my family wasn’t exactly flush with cash. The idea of starting a new business at the time didn’t seem very realistic and I was thinking quite seriously about getting a job.

My husband, Larry, gets the credit for making my company a reality. He encouraged me to “go for it” with one caveat. I could only lose $5000 on the business. It was all we could afford to put on our credit cards!

Nervous, but determined, I started the business on a very short shoestring. Cash was spent only when absolutely necessary. My financial circumstances also forced me to do a lot of the work myself. Before I could get this business up and running, I had to teach myself how to create and market a website. Fortunately, I had a few friends to beg for help when I got stuck.

Within a month of starting the business, I had a decent website to show prospective customers, business cards and some of the most awful marketing material you ever saw.

Bad flyers notwithstanding, I started selling. In my case, I have two sets of customers: people who visit the website and search for apartments and property managers who pay us to list their apartment communities. I got very lucky and closed three listings on my first day of appointments. Little did I know it would take me until the end of the month to score another sale.

During the next two months, the business solidified. I closed an additional 40 apartment listings and posted these listings to the site. We put a Pay Per Click advertising campaign into place and within a couple of months, thousands of people were using 4 Walls to find apartments. Finally, the apartment managers, our customers who actually “pay the freight,” started signing leases with prospective renters who had found out about them on our site. I had proven my business model in three months, with financial room to spare.

My experience is not atypical. Most businesses are funded and launched solely by their founders’ savings or credit cards. Some entrepreneurs tap friends and family members who have cash to invest. Other start-ups are candidates for angel or venture capitalist investments, but they are the rare exceptions.

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