This week, we have some good news. There’s an awesome new service through Fundbox and Harvest that lets freelancers get advanced payments if they’re waiting on invoices to be filled – and with less than 3% fees! Also, despite the constant bad news about women’s difficulties raising venture capital, crowdfunding actually seems to favor women over men, according to a recent study. Plus, as always, we have some great small business tips. Hope you enjoy!
Waiting to get paid? FundBox and Harvest can help
We all hate waiting for that company to fill our months-late invoice. New entrepreneurs are often particularly hurt by late payments, since many can’t rely on traditional small business loans. Thankfully, now there’s some very affordable relief.
Online time tracking and billing company Harvest is partnering with advanced payment startup Fundbox to help Harvest clients, many of whom are hourly workers, to access Fundbox’s advanced payments. Payments can range between $100 and $15,000 and depending on the risk of the user, one only needs to pay 0.7-3.0% in fees. The payment is paid back to Fundbox over 12 weekly installments, and fees are reduced if payments are made earlier.
For more information about the deal and how you can join Harvest, check out this Geektime article.
Women are rocking on crowdfunding platforms
Finally there’s some good news about women fundraising for startup ventures: according to a joint NYU and Penn study, women’s success on crowdfunding platforms such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter is likely thanks to women donors that support female-led projects. Women-led ventures are getting so much support that they’re twice as likely to meet their fundraising goals as men on these platforms.
Specifically, the study’s authors claim these platforms tend to attract support from “women who are activists who want to reach out and help other women.”
What’s the next step for female entrepreneurs, beyond utilizing crowdfunding platforms? Figuring out how to get these female activists into the board room.
Here are 10 steps to create new opportunities for your business
Feeling like you’re in a funding slump, tired, overworked, and frustrated by a lack of progress? Thankfully, these 10 sage tips from the Huffington Post could give you the right bit of new perspective to reenergize your funding efforts.
1. Start a new program: even if you can’t think of a new idea, figure out a way to repackage an existing service or product.
2. Launch an inbound marketing program. This is a very efficient model.
3. Have one-on-one meetings with your clients. Taking them out for coffee could help you learn an immense amount.
4. Guest blog on related sites. Oftentimesw you can create partnership exchanges where you’ll guest blog for a site and they’ll guest blog on your site. A win-win!
5. Read “Nine Steps to Building Trust Online & Offline for Your Small Business” to understand your buyer’s journey.
6. Give to those you network with. Paying it forward’s almost always good for business.
7. Get more active on social media, not just when you have an announcement.
8. Fill your sales pipeline.
9. Listen to others and sell to match their needs.
10. Try spending 80% of your time on sales, marketing, and networking for two weeks. You’ll be amazed by how much progress you will achieve in such a short period of time.
How do you create new opportunities for your business? Share your advice with us in the comments below.
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