Business Grants Success Stories
Business Grants - Success Stories
Business Grant Success Stories Home
• Advertising – Take out ads in investing magazines or use classified ads in the business opportunities section of the local newspaper.
Develop a pitch and be prepared to use it as the opportunity arises. Remember, if the person you're talking to isn't looking for an investing opportunity himself, he may know of someone who is.
This may be the most powerful method of reaching angels
According to experts, you can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars using a technique that costs maybe $150.
The secret? Classified ads.
If you're looking for less than $100,000 from any one investor, it's cheap, fast and effective. Check out the Business Opportunity section of a Sunday paper. Learn the techniques of good classified ads, consider hiring a copywriter to pack a compelling sales message into a few words, and make sure a lawyer reviews your ads.
Helicopter tourism business lifts off
$10,000 loan a financial and psychological boost
It's been tough to get in touch with Julia Henderson. While she's eager to tell us about her business, things have been up in the air all week. Literally. As the President of The Helicopter Company Inc, the only Toronto helicopter company catering to the tourism market, she continues to pilot tours and charters across the country, and she's flown a number of them this week.
Business has been booming since the company started back in 1998. A few hours after their first helicopter touched down at their base that year, they lifted off to take their first two customers on a tour over Toronto.
Starting a helicopter business is not like opening a retail store – as large an undertaking as that may be. "It is really no different than WestJet, Air Canada, or MedEvac, as far as Transport Canada is concerned" says Henderson. "It's a commercial operating certification." The certification alone cost $20,000, and unlike other businesspeople, Henderson and her partner, Kevin Smith, had to have everything, including the helicopter, bought and paid for before they could obtain that certification. After starting work on the company in October of 1997, it would be another eight months before the helicopter arrived. "There's only one way to do it," she says. "You need to have everything first before you can be licensed, which is fairly risky."
Henderson is proud of the fact that she and Smith got their business off the ground – okay, okay, no more puns – on their own, financing the company from Day One and never needing to call on outside investors. But the one loan they did receive in their early days came as a substantial vote of confidence, helping to drive the entrepreneurs forward.
Previous (21) | Next Page (23)
|