My business. Funding...

Matthew402007

Hi

I started a small business 4 weeks ago, so its very early days. I started it with my friend who has been in business for 25 years, she owns her own London play centre, and I have no business experience, so its helped.

Its a car leasing business.

Basically its very profitable the way I am doing it, but at this rate, it will take me around 18 months for it to be making a lot of money.

Do you think I should try and find an investor? I could give them a 100% profit in 12 months.

I have just read that its hard to get business loans, thats why I am wondering about this.

Matt

paddyrg

If you can do without an investor, do without. As your business is still growing, any mistakes or mis-steps you make (ie learning and becoming a businessperson) are cheaper on your current scale, and you can afford to grow organically as opposed to promising half your company away.

paulwf

As you say it is very early days so you can't promise anybody anything at the moment. Even if you do eventually go for investment try and hold off for a little while until you have some consistent figures, you will then know exactly what you need and you will attract more investors as the risk will be lower.

If you go for an investor they will want a share in the company, I think in 18 months you will then be kicking yourself. You will also lose some control over the company, sometimes they will bring their experience on board but you already have a friend doing that for you. The other option is a loan but this can be costly (especially the set up fees) and commercial loans can be painfully slow and involve a lot of hassle.

It's up to you OP but personally I'd just keep costs low, work like mad and reinvest the profits...a year or 18 months will fly by.