Ian Atkins
Ian Atkins is an analyst and staff writer for Fit Small Business. He covers small business finance with a focus on traditional and alternative small business lending. Ian has over 9 years working in personal and small business finance.
Some of what we talked about:
- Why start up loans are difficult to get from banks
- SBA loans are a great option and are guaranteed by the government
- Using some of your own funds
- There are ways to rollover your 401K to fund a startup (non-Roth) this is called ROBS
- Costs $5,000 to set up a ROBS account using a minimum of $50,000 of your retirement funds and requres a $100/month maintenance fee
- ROBS is more affordable than penalties and fees on an early withdrawl
- Funding with credit cards
- Interest rates can be up to 30% with alternative financing
- CDFI – small community lenders that receive funds from the government and lend in distressed areas (see his web site for a map)
- Small business owners that don’t need a lot of capital
- Personal loans through friends and family
- You must pay interest on family loans or you can get hit with a gift tax
- Crowdfunding – Kickstarter can be a great marketing tool but you must be ready to scale so that your idea is not stolen
- Equity crowd funding
- Ask people who they know
- 7A term loan
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Derek Miller has built an digital entertainment company from 2 to 25 employees, raised over $4 million on Kickstarter, launched three seasons of a show with an NBCU affiliate, and increased profitability across every single aspect of his business. He has also managed international convention touring, merchandise, animation, contract negotiations, mediation, financial modeling, digital marketing, and web analytics.
