Creative Ways to Fund Your Small Business Start-Up

Crowdfunding, venture capital, borrowing from the bank. There are many tried and tested routes to finance your business. But what if you don’t want to give up equity or get into debt?

Entrepreneurs are often inventive by nature and there are many stories of business owners deploying unusual, quirky methods to finance their startup. We spoke to three small businesses about the lengths they went to to get their enterprises off the ground.

Share a bedroom with your business partner

Frankie Kearney and Corbyn Munnik, both 24, are old school friends who enjoy bouncing business ideas off each other.

In the early hours of a school reunion, Munnik pitched Kearney the concept of  Sliide an app for discovering trends, offers and events. The pair chatted excitedly until everyone else had left and were soon funding the venture with Kearney’s salary from his City job.

“It was simply the only way of getting our idea off the ground with little knowledge of startups or access to finance,” says Kearney.

They worked 18-hour days, Kearney spending 11 of those at his job in the City while Munnik worked on the app full-time. Soon they secured support, including office space and a small monthly allowance, from a government-backed programme and Kearney quit his job.

To live within their tight budget, they moved into a twin room in a shared house, right by Alexandra Palace railway station. They insist it’s not an issue as they spend so long in the office, but it does amuse their peers. Munnik says: “We constantly have people referring to us as a married couple and recently Frankie’s girlfriend even commented that she has accepted that I am part of their relationship.”

Kearney admits they’ve fallen into a comfortable routine. They listen to a podcast each evening and Kearney wakes Munnik up in the morning so that they’re out of the house by 8am to catch the train to the office.

Being together so much means the business partners’ habits can sometimes grate on one another. “When Corbyn tells me not to slurp coffee, then does it himself right right after that really annoys me,” says Kearney. But they believe their living arrangements are worth it if it means they can spend time on their business.

With the beta version of their app now available, they are looking ahead to a time when they can have separate bedrooms. But, for now, it works.

“We need to be close to our office, customers and the tech community,” says Kearney. “Sharing a room is the only viable option that allows us both live in London and be fully committed. Both myself and Corbyn are 100% certain that it is worth it.”

Sell stuff on eBay

When Sarah Brockwell was made redundant from her senior marketing job while on maternity leave, she decided to raise her startup budget in an unusual way. “I decided I didn’t want to use my redundancy package to finance launching a business so I sold my old maternity clothes on eBay,” she says.

Brockwell made £250 from the sale, and launched sarahBee Marketing in June 2010, offering PR and marketing services for businesses.

She says: “I used one of those budget online companies to get business cards and did a lot of PR. That included entering and winning regional business awards in December, so that really gave us a good platform to promote and we got lots of new business.”

Brockwell also made use of government-funded training schemes, such as the now defunct online portal Business Link, and found they offered good networking opportunities. “Skill swapping was a really valuable part of the equation,” she adds. “I even did some work for an arborist and had my oak trees sorted out.”

To date, sarahBee marketing has picked up six business awards, with Brockwell named Essex Businesswoman of the Year in 2013. She is currently launching a franchise operation.

Become a weekend market trader

When Claire Harrison first decided to write children’s books, she had a day job which paid for her everyday living costs. But she still had to find funding for illustrations, page design, artwork, book printing and the accessories she wanted to create. Her business Peggylicious is a brand of children’s books and matching accessories based on the antics of two dogs.

With a full-time job and three children, Harrison needed to find a way to generate extra funds at the weekend. She says: “I decided to become a weekend market trader, hiring a stall in our local indoor market selling anything I could, from bric-a-brac I’d bought from local charity shops and eBay to buying items from wholesale websites to mark up and sell on in the market.”

She also sold her first book on the stall, started to promote the Peggylicious brand and received customer feedback. “I then progressed to bigger festivals/Christmas markets and began setting up community events in my local village,” she adds.

“I managed to raise enough money from selling at these events to publish my second book and pay to print my own personalised Peggylicious fabric to create the Peggy bags, cushions and craft rolls that now make up my flourishing business.”