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We've been working around the clock on our side hustle with the dream that one day it'll be our full-time gig.

But now that we're getting some traction, the real question is, when do we go all in?

The best Investor — our current paycheck

There will never be a more equitable investor than our current paycheck.

Full funding, no pitch process, and market compensation from Day One.

Compare that to when we try to actually raise money in a grueling pitch process, spend months with no income, and have to work for half of what we made last year.

While our current investor (our paycheck) has a lot of hours and distractions, it has some really important benefits: it's predictable, it's consistent, and if shit hits the fan, we just focus on that.

One of the most common questions we get asked is, "Should I raise capital for my business?" _What they’re really asking is, “Can you tell me how to raise money and where to find it?”_

And our stock answer is simply "No".

That tends to mess with people — because they typically aren’t expecting pushback. But the reality is that there are actually very few reasons that a startup absolutely has to raise capital. Every startup could use it. But does every startup absolutely have to raise?

Nope.

Having answered this question about a billion times, it seemed like the right time to list what the decision tree for startup Founders should be when determining they must raise capital so we can distinguish the difference between "I need it" and "I have...

Pre–seed. Seed. Series A. Series B. Growth capital. Term sheets. Valuations. Cap Tables. Convertible notes. Market opportunity. Venture Capital. Angel investment. Equity Crowdfunding. Family offices.

While the learning curve is steep, getting funding is about more than just an understanding of terms, it’s about the art of relationships. For female founders, the funding landscape has been less than friendly. According to Crunchbase, the number of female-founded, venture backed companies has plateaued at 17% since 2012. Is venture the only way to go? Certainly not. There are a diversity of funding sources founders can tap into. Crowdfunding, for example, is the only type of funding where women outperform men.The SheWorx100 Summit NYC brough...

They came, they crowdfunded, they conquered, and now it’s time to get to know them better. While the winners of the inaugural Crowd2Shelf contest come from different parts of the country and from different industries, they have one thing in common: they’ve created amazing products that are helping people do more.

We sat down with the winners and got some background into how they’ve grown into the incredible startup product companies they are today.

EVA
Wilmington, DE

Designed by LEDified, EVA™ is the world’s friendliest recessed light. They’ve combined the most efficient LED technology with an everyday practical element of a home: the remote control.

They’ve already pre-sold over 50,000 EVA™ units. Before EVA, LEDified’s founding team devel...

You know how the rest of that sage advice goes. Dreamers can only take an entrepreneurial venture so far, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t vital. However, dreamers need to be balanced with doers.

It’s the doers who get the funding – and without funding, you don’t have a business. In this video by StartupGrind, founders and investors talk about what actually gets a check written.

George Zachary of Charles River Ventures says he’s just recently figured it out after 17 years of being a venture capitalist: “Almost all the investments I wrote a check into, I had to have the feeling, ‘Would I be a co-founder of this company?’” In other words, are you barking up the right tree with investors?

This doesn’t mean a venture Zachary passed on wasn’t g...

Partha Unnava is the CEO of Better Walk, a company focused on developing a new type of crutch that improves the experience of a crutch user. Partha broke his ankle and had to hobble around on crutches for six weeks, he decided to develop a better set of crutches that wouldn’t kill his armpits. I spoke to Partha about his experiences launching the venture and his journey as an entrepreneur.

Determination

Q: What are some challenges you faced when developing your venture?

I’ve faced issues from cofounders leaving the company to fluctuations in funding and flat out denials from investors. I think I’ve been through almost every single up or down you can go through when you start a company, but I learned that the only limiting factor is the inf...

…when I started StartupList, I didn’t know where it would lead or even that I was actually creating a startup. It was just a project I was working on to learn more about startups and how to build a website. It evolved into something I never could’ve imagined at the time.

There is no better way to hear the story of how Nick Frost came to champion startups than to hear it straight from his mouth. Startups Live was incredibly fortunate to have such an opportunity.

Often this collection of Founders turns over nitty gritty details of building startups, examining a particular question or aspect of the work. This talk does some of the same, but it also brings the role of fortune into the field of play – not luck, or the unexpected influence of out...

The past few years have seen an explosion of podcasts — it seems like everyone wants to get in on the audio. And startup founders (many of whom have probably been listening to podcasts since they started in the early aughts) are no exception! But how do you know what to listen to in this vast sea of startup podcasts?

Don’t worry — we have you covered. Here are the top 20 best startup podcasts as we head into 2020. Grab your noise cancelling earphones — and get listening.

1. Startup Therapy

Hosted by Startups.com founders and serial entrepreneurs Wil Schroter and Ryan Rutan, Startup Therapy is an inside perspective on issues startup founders really care about. From what to expect in your first year after launching to how to deal with the e...

I started angel investing almost by accident, which sounds strange to say. Who “accidentally” invests tens of thousands of dollars into highly speculative ventures? Well, I did.

A friend introduced me to Clayton Christopher who was raising money for his new liquor company Deep Eddy. Their first product, a sweet tea vodka, was amazing and he was an experienced entrepreneur, so I went in.

Investing was an exciting, interesting process. Then the company took off, and I got to tell everyone I know that I invested in that new vodka that everyone in Austin was drinking. Winning is the ultimate intoxicant, and from there, I was hooked.

I started investing in companies left and right. I became a huge cheerleader for angel investing. I wrote about h...

Boris Wertz is the founder of VersionOne Ventures, an early-stage fund that has made over 35 investments in consumer Internet, SaaS, and mobile companies across North America. Clarity sat down with Boris to discuss how to find funding sources, how (and how much) to ask, and crafting the perfect pitch.

In order to raise money, most startups go through the same process: create a pitch deck, and then pitch it to investors.There are many types of investors, such as institutional investors who invest other people’s money, angel investors who invest their own money, and venture capitalists who privately or publicly provide total capital for a new venture.

Where can you find funding?
First, you should think about what the right funding is. Everyon...