Here’s my take on investor funding: We are not actively seeking it presently, but if we are approached by investors, we are definitely open to investments.   Could we have moved faster with an investment? Absolutely.  Did having no funding slow us down? Yes.  Did having no investors stop us? Not at all.  It has taken us longer, and we are not able to hire any employees full time, but at least we were able to boostrap and scrap to get a product built.

Having limited funding basically means we have had to self-fund, often turning down friends and family’s financial offers that don’t realize that investing in startups is high risk, as 8-9 startups out of 10 will fail.  That was the right decision for us, but your situation could be different. Just make sure your friends/family understand the risks of startup investing and that they might not ever see that money again.  We’ve also have been frugal and careful while trying not to sacrifice quality in the ways we’ve done things.  How much do you think our LivestockCity logo cost us? You’d be surprised if I told you.

We did fund raising in other ways.  For example, we hosted online llama auctions to raise funds to pay for the website development.  We do have all the required skills for design and development in-house…..we just don’t have the time required presently.  If I had to (and I have had to), I could design web sites for extra funds or sell things on Ebay that I do not need. There is always someone you can hire no matter what your budget is because there are very talented people without a lot of experience that are eager to work on projects for far less than what more experienced people charge. Fundraising should not stop anyone from starting their business, and not having investors is not the end of the world.

Best of luck to you.