Funding my business; all I need is a small amount to get started
By far the most popular challenge here at the Idea to Exit answer desk is funding a business, especially in the initial stages.
The first step in funding a business is to understand the basics of funding.
Those who are pursuing a small-scale, lifestyle business or bootstrapping their startup may only need a few thousand dollars to get their business started.
One path to small amounts of startup capital is a microloan.
Microloans are best known for helping people in developing economies build small businesses via loans of very small amounts, from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars, through programs from Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) such as Kiva http://www.kiva.org/ .
However, there are also microloan programs in developed countries, including the U.S., whose purpose is to fund small business startups by making loans in amounts of a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.