Ragged Riches

I remember typing out a bunch of stuff to him—why it’d make sense for his business to have a magazine he had full control over, how it would be great for me too, how it would be another form of income…It fell on deaf ears. He was all gung ho until I had asked him to help me get more writers on board.

Then it was crickets.

This was the last time I asked someone to invest some cash in me and a website I created. And it was far, far from the first time. I want to say that I had more success in getting people to invest their time, since others have been able to get me to work for free for them.

However, that would be a lie, too.

I have a proven track record of success. However, I myself have not been able to find a single person who has been willing to either front money or front their skills in the way I have asked them to in order to make my business ideas succeed. I’m far from alone.

A lot of different people have struggled to find investment in a business they’re running. So what can you do if you’re dealing with a lack of investment from so many people? Here are the top tips I have and what I’ve seen work for others, as someone who has been there.

Tip #1: Try to raise investment money through a part-time job, freelancing, or W2 job.

I’ve had very bad experiences with freelancing clients that didn’t want to pay plus issues affording basic expenses. That freelancing money often ends up right into the grocery bin or into the hands of the tax man. If you can freelance your way to extra funds without being shafted, do it.

W2 jobs are a lot more fundraising-friendly because they give you stability and also have taxes taken out already. This is why I’ve been searching for a W2 job. (By the way, if you want to, you can hire me!)

I recently had a run-in with a psychic who has decided to go into retirement. She gifted me her card decks. In exchange, I promised to start my own psychic reading as a side gig. I set it up as a commission on my BuyMeACoffee, and will be using the money from those readings to fund Ragged Riches.

PRO TIP: Do not allow your chase of 1099 “scratch” get in the way of you actually putting your business together. I’ve wastesd so many years of my life because I was too busy doing work for everyone except for myself. Every time I fell into this trap, I’d ruin my chances at kicking up a business and would get burnt out in the process. Remember, your business comes first, PERIOD.

Tip #2: Start the bare bones of your company with whatever you have available.

Don’t be me. I’ve waited for people to invest in my ideas for the better part of 15 years. I’ve waited for someone, anyone to hire me to get to a management role where I could see certain visions come to life.

I’m fed up with waiting for people to see my value. It felt like my life was on pause because I was basically asking for permission to pursue my dreams. And you know what? I’m embarrassed that I waited that long.

There was a certain point where I realized that if I kept waiting for an investor to show up and help me, I’d probably die of old age before any blog of mine got off the ground. That rude awakening got me working.

I stopped waiting for permission. I threw up this theme on WordPress, started up my own page, started doing the technical SEO on Search Console, started posting links everywhere…And here we are. This is the bare-bones product that I created and I like to think it’s doing well.

All the articles I’ve published so far are written by me and me alone. No AI. Because I can’t afford high-end AI to modify quite yet and I want to have a little more sovereignty over my site. At the very least, I’ve been able to monetize Ragged Riches now to the tune of $12 total.

It’s not much, but it’s a start.

Tip #3: Hire Rosie the Robot to do as much as she can to help out.

You remember this broad from The Jetsons? If you’re as old as I am, you remember this Saturday morning cartoon that was around since the 1960s or so. The Jetsons took place in 2001 if I remember correctly, and they were fairly prescient.

We now have Roombas to do the vacuuming, AI to do secretarial work and customer service work, ChatGPT for writing SEO posts…Rosie the Robot is alive and well. It’s just that she takes many different forms these days.

AI makes it possible for people to get SEO-ready articles with the push of a button. All you have to do is edit them. They may not be as good as human articles, but they will get the job done. I will also likely use AI to do social media posts to promote this platform.

Is this ethical? Eh, grey area. I don’t have money to pay a human but the show must go on. In the future, I will likely train and hire friends who have shown me support in the past. But that’s always assuming that I will make enough to cover my bills.

The way I see it, if no one supported your work as-is, you owe it to yourself to lift yourself up first and foremost. When your main bases are covered, you can work with others later to create the business you would have wanted before.

Depending on the business that you have, you might be able to wing a large portion of it through AI work. Technology is so much more advanced than it was even so far as five years ago.

Tip #4: Consider using service deposits to get the money you need to start.

I wish I was the one who remembered this, but I’m not. I actually had to be reminded that service deposits are there to help even out the cash flow. I actually found this thread on Reddit’s r/Entrepreneur that got people to think about how they would make $2000 in three weeks with only $5 to start.

Someone who did it posted this reply:

It’s easy to forget that deposits are there to help ensure you get some money in your pocket if they bail and that they are also there to help you afford the tools you need in order to make your business happen.

Deposits can work very well if you’re on a shoestring budget that requires a small boost. The hard part here, of course, would be finding people who are willing to give you a deposit in this economy. (I guess I’ll write about that in another article.)

Tip #5: Trim the fat where and when you can.

If there’s one thing if I have learned to do from dealing with very stingy bosses, it’s to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. Almost every company has things that you can trim the fat from. If you have an ideal image of what your business would be like, it may be worth considering that you might need to work your way up to it.

For example, if you can’t afford a power washer that has a high PSI, start off with a used model with a lower output. If you can’t afford Adobe, go for Canva or something similar. More often than not, you can find tools and advertising methods that will allow you to start something on a shoestring budget.

Tip #6: Consider taking out a loan or an advance.

Let’s say that you really do need money for your business but regular investment routes (such as family, friends, crowdfunding, or investment platforms) aren’t working it. If you need that money, loans might make sense.

Key word: might.

Loans are very risky, perhaps even riskier than a typical investment or partnership. When you borrow money, you have to eventually pay it back. If you offer collateral, you can lose that collateral as part of your deal if things fall through.

This is precisely why I would not buy a restaurant while putting my house as collateral on the loan in the way that seems oh, so common on shows like Kitchen Nightmares. Business loans should never put your place of living in jeopardy.

Sometimes, loans make sense. But you actually have to make sure that you can make that money back. That’s why I wouldn’t take a loan out unless I was 100 percent sure that I was going to make money back.

In other words, I’d only take a loan if I needed to take my business to the next level and had genuine confirmation that I needed that loan from a business mentor. Otherwise, it’s not something I’d try.

Tip #7: Use the rejection from others to fuel your fire.

Not for nothing, but there’s a certain je ne sais quois that comes with actually being motivated to prove others wrong. It’s a low-key burning fire that keeps your eye on the prize when other types of motivation don’t pass muster.

Being able to prove your doubters wrong is great. Being able to turn them away when they’re finally ready to work with you? Even greater. (But then again, I can be petty. It’s up to you to decide whether that’s the route you wanna take.)

Tip #8: Recognize the upside of not having investors.

Getting investors would be amazing, but there’s a downside. Most investors want to have a say in the way the business is run. If you are a person who needs to control everything with an iron fist, you’re going to have a much easier time running your business because you won’t be butting heads with everyone.

I actually had something similar happen. A business owner once told me that if I helped him fix his blog, he would give the site over to me. It had a lot of content. So, I started writing up Standard Operating Procedures for it, started crafting content…

And then I saw why the site was a mess.

He kept getting into sketchy partnerships with a wide range of people who owned sketchier websites with no authority. He’d link back to their sites to show good faith to them, which helped those sites but tanked his site.

To make matters worse, the quality of the writing on his site was a nightmare. And every time he’d get a request for a magazine article covering someone, it’d turn into a ticket system which I begged him to stop using because it was clogging up my inbox.

Every single procedure I wrote out was promptly ignored by him. At the end of each day, every suggestion and command I had to unfuck his website ended up in the toilet. I threw up my hands and quit after two weeks of constant bickering.

As a professional blogger, I recognize when I “don’t play well with others” because I have strict standards and expect people to manage themselves if they work with me. I also don’t have a high tolerance for inefficiency. If an investor decides to muck about or expects me to write every little detail of my work plan, I will get hissy.

Sovereignty is very important in the world of business. If you don’t control your own business, are you even a business owner? At the end of the day, their decision not to work with you is on them. It’s their loss, even if they don’t see it that way.

Tip #10: Consider starting a “starter” business to fund the real dream biz you want.

I want to point out that it is possible to start a business with no money. In fact, there are quite a few businesses you can make which cost almost nothing to kickstart. If you can’t get investors, you aren’t locked out of owning your own business.

You do not have to ask anyone (aside from the US government) for permission to start a business. If you just want a business of any type, you can create one with minimal cash. You just have to be a bit smart with your planning, that’s all.

If it’s not the business you really want to have, just work it until you raise enough funds and sell the business once you’re ready to start the business you actually want.