A lot of people talk to me about raising capital for their business or getting a loan or grant to get off the ground.  This is absolutely necessary to start many businesses, but I encourage you to think about an alternative: Bootstrapping.

• Raising capital is hard.  It's distracting and time consuming.  What if you put that effort into getting customer number one?
• Can you get your business off the ground while working another job?  Moonlighting is great way to launch your business then smoothly (or roughly) transition out of your job, and into your business when you can afford to.
• Are you confident enough in your business to fund yourself?  It's risky, but the truth is many entrepreneurs build their business the old fashioned way... on credit cards.^[1] It certainly helps when you are going to ask for money to have invested in yourself and some skin in the game. But, don't tell your investors you are raising capital to pay down your credit cards.  I made this mistake once, guess who didn't get funded.