"Lean" Funding For Your New Venture Or Product

Creation of anything new requires resources. "Resources" begin time, energy, and money/capital.

Resources also tend to be limited for most small and new businesses. So what is the intelligent way to fund that new venture or product?

Get paid before you produce it (or render the services).

This concept is "pre-selling": the activity of making sales, resulting in incoming revenues, prior to making expenditures (of money, or energy, or time).

And this doesn't mean making a single sale in all instances. You may decide to pre-sell a hundred items before doing anything but selling.

This can work in a number of scenarios:

• Service-based? Have clients pay upfront for the services you are to provide.
• Product-based? Sell the concept and only create the product after receiving actual dollars (not simply verbal commitments to buy).
• Member-based? Early memberships can be provided at a discount or with extended benefits for the financial commitment of early members.

Actually accomplishing this takes great salesmanship, vision, and integrity. In my opinion, if you don't produce, you can't keep the money. Maybe you work out a special deal where the buyers gamble on the creation in certain circumstances, but that doesn't seem to make sense to me in most instances. Please, pre-sell with integrity and pure intent to deliver.

I would also suggest proper pre-development. This can vary in required intensity, but in general, I would recommend you have a bullet-list action plan for how you are to produce and deliver after you have purchases.

You don't need all the answers, but if you have zero idea on how to produce, that's an issue.

Regardless, if successful, you assume no risk and great benefit for yourself and those you provide your valuable product/business to.

And that is how to fund a business in a "lean" manner.