Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with capital

How do you fund a startup with (virtually) no collateral?

ohyouknow — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:51:48 -0800

I need an SBA loan yesterday. My business is in startup mode, I'm already fielding new orders, but I need startup capital to get this thing off the ground. To keep this simple I won't go into great depth about my business model. The short version is that this is what I've been doing for the past 5 years very successfully, I was the one driving the business where I was at previously, and all of my former clients have been calling me for assistance. But in order to make this work I need about 35k in capital and I have no collateral. I do have excellent credit, about 30k in untapped credit, and of course my 401k... but I really don't want to touch any of these things. Each time I model out my plan I anticipate (worst case scenario) that I will be out of debt by month 4. But how do I get to month 4 without cash?

I live in San Francisco and have contacted the SBA here, but it's a long process. There is one organization that had me fill out a one page form online for an "instant SBA" and I was summarily rejected (because I don't have collateral, which I thought wasn't supposed to be an issue for an SBA, but I digress).

I know SBA applications are way up and banks are more hesitant than ever about granting them... so any guidance you could give about how to proceed would be much appreciated.

And feel free to MeMail me if you'd like to know more about the specifics. Thanks in advance!

How to ask if a company needs money

josher71 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:04:24 -0800

I recently started a job that I don't know much about. It's a commission only job for a company that does private placements for small public companies. All I have to do is qualify the leads, which comes down to two parts: do they have enough trading volume and does the company need money. My question is, how do I ask if they need money? My worry is that I'm violating some REG FD rule if I ask if they need to raise money. Am I? I can look at the annual reports and see often that they say that the company may require additional capital so can I just say, "Do you still need to raise money?". If this isn't possible, I'm looking for ways to get at that subject without breaking any rules.

Help me micro-fund my business, but not like, by YOU giving me money..

Jonsnews — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:51:34 -0800

I am looking to self fund starting a business, but I need to seek a small amount of additional capital. Ideally, I would like to do this through friends and family, through a more formalized agreement. So how can I "sell them" a piece of my business without selling them stock? Basically, I would like to sell some sort of piece of paper for X amount of dollars with the agreement to repay it with X amount of return within X amount of time, or allow them to redeem it at the business for a greater amount. I would like to do this in small amounts to raise the rest of my capital.

Yeah, I know I could go get a small business loan, but the thought of doing it in a cool, non-traditional manner appeals to me.

No, I am not hoping to skip the business plan portion of things. I actually have already completed it along with my market research.

Yes yes, you are not my lawyer, and I will be seeing one shortly. I am just looking for ideas before hand.

What are some other "fun" ways to raise money to start a business?

30-year investment portfolio which has to start before the end of the year and wants to be left alone afterwards?

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:59:37 -0800

If you had a very strong incentive to invest money before the end of the year with a 30-year outlook, and a further strong incentive to not adjust your investment strategy over that timeframe unless absolutely necessary, what kind of portfolio would you assemble? I live in Germany, which has an effective 0% capital gains tax on long-term capital gains from financial instruments. The government has finally decided to end this peculiar state of affairs and will start to tax long-term capital gains at 25% or more starting in 2009. Investments made before 1/1/2009 and held for more than a year will continue to be (un)taxed under the old system. But, naturally, if you redistribute the portfolio at any point, what was redistributed will come under the new law, so there is a strong incentive to leave it alone if at all possible. I don't see this as a suicide pact, and would make changes that were necessary without sweating the tax too much, but I am trying to design a portfolio to put a little money in now that has decent odds of not requiring rejiggering and having acceptable performance over the long timeframe which is available.

Personality and background: I consider good money management to be an obligation but not a pleasure of life or inherently interesting, so I believe in keeping things as simple as possible, within reason. Past experience has taught me that if the workings of a financial vehicle aren't clear to me after one good and comprehensive explanation, I'd do best to avoid it. I have invested for the (shorter) long-term before and I've had good outcomes, and I've been lucky enough to have received my lessons about active short-term trading and speculation at reasonably low prices. My general financial health is healthy and the investment seed is extra money. I'm able to purchase many (but not all) US and other international securities/ETFs/funds/bonds without too much of a markup, so let's just assume for simplicity's sake that I can purchase any of them. This will be retirement money, but not the only source of retirement money.

I've read the Scott Adams article, lots of Warren Buffett, and several good books on index fund investing, and now this is my AskMe gut-check/brainstorm request before proceeding: what would your 30-year fire-and-forget portfolio look like? I would love to hear your ideas and advice if you wouldn't mind sharing. Thank you!

How can I create a macro to capitalize sentences in Word?

perpetualstroll — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 08:51:55 -0800

How do I make a macro for Microsoft Word to capitalize lines in an interview? I'm working with interview transcripts in which I am manually selecting text and selecting "all caps" to capitalize sentences from the interviewer. Needless to say, this is time-consuming and I'm pretty sure there's a faster way to do it, but I don't know where to start.

Oh great hive mind, how do I get from the sample input to the desired output below?

I: Hello, my name is John.

P: Hello, my name is Mary.

(they both laugh)

I: Hello, my name is John again.

P: That's very interesting. Please, tell me more.

I: Hi, my name--

P: Mary.

I: Don't interrupt.

---

Desired output:
I: HELLO, MY NAME IS JOHN.

P: Hello, my name is Mary.

(they both laugh)

I: HELLO, MY NAME IS JOHN AGAIN.

P: That's very interesting. Please, tell me more.

I: HI, MY NAME--

P: Mary.

I: DON'T INTERRUPT.

I want to be out of dollars, but not poor

Rafaelloello — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:07:56 -0800

I would like to know the best way to turn actual US dollars into foreign currencies... I'm very liquid, but want to protect the majority of my liquid assetts from deflation of the dollar. How do I get my dollars into Australian dollars, Swedish Kronos, Swiss francs, and Japanese yen and still have the best control over my assets?

Which Marx translations are 'canonical?'

christopherbdnk — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:58:55 -0800

I am taking a look at two Marx texts, Capital (V: I) and his Eighteenth Brumaire of Napoleon, which are the best translations? I know there are a few problematic translations with the latter.

How to report tax info I don't have?

daisyace — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:48:20 -0800

What date acquired and cost basis should I put for two items reported on a 1099-B, when there are several unknowns? I have this on a 1099-B:
10/26/07.......Avaya cash merger at $17.50 per.......quant:16.......box 2: $280.00
4/5/07..........LSI corp cash in lieu............................................box 2: $7.94

These companies came from Lucent, which my grandmother gave me years ago, before she died, and I don't know what to put for date acquired and for cost basis.

For date acquired:
- 1947 is when my grandmother's husband bought att, which both of the above eventually came from.
- 1958 is when my grandmother's husband died. I don't know whether he gave Grandma att before he died, or whether she inherited it.
- Roughly late 90's is when Grandma gave me Lucent, which had come from att.
- 12/1/06 is the date that Avaya spun off Lucent.
- 10/26/07 and 4/5/07 are the dates of the reported events on the 1099-B.

For cost basis, I know that the basis of a gift is the giver's basis. But I
don't know:
- what Grandma or her husband's basis was, and which of those is relevant.
- what percent of the investment that had that basis they gave to me.
- what percent of what they gave me became the two companies in question.

If it matters, my mom thinks that when I was given Lucent, it was worth
about $25 per share, and $9500 all together. Now, all the parts taken together are worth much, much less.

I know that, to be safest, I could treat the entire $287.94 as capital gains even though they may actually be losses. This would cost me $75 in Federal tax, I'm not sure how much in state tax, plus the value of whatever loss I could have written off against other gains. I could try to find a tax advisor to help, but I suspect that would cost more than I'd save (plus, at this time of year, it would be a challenge to find one). I've tried the IRS help line and the investment firm where these are now held, but I reached dead ends because of the information I'm missing.

Federal Reserve bailout

purenitrous — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:29:46 -0800

Without sounding conspiratorial... I'm wondering how much arm twisting it took by political/economic elites to get the Fed to adopt its current Liquidity Plan. Will Carlyle Capital directly benefit from it? A couple of days ago I read this story about their recent notice of default on a margin call. So the story basically describes a situation where the equity firm was unable to meet several payment demands by its lenders. Of course the collateral in question is "residential mortgage backed securities" which I assume have been falling in value because of market forces in the mortgage backed securities market.

So a day later, I read about the Feds plan to solve the liquidity crisis. basically exchanging these same mortgage backed securities that are plummeting to zero for US Treasury bonds.

Then, considering the Carlyle Group and who its principals are (is Carlyle Capital a subsidiary of Carlyle Group? If so, it includes George Herbert Walker Bush and James Baker). Is this an action to protect them from possibly billions in losses?

Is the Fed's move really a plan to bail out well connected political elites?

Here's one of the reasons why I ask: If the value of my mortgage in the secondary market is falling... I would love to have the opportunity to buy it back at a lower price! (or refinance with someone else at its current market value)

Why should the Federal Reserve bail out investors in one particular market? There's definitely not much sympathy for the little guys who are losing their houses to foreclosure.

Does the public have access to information about who will be exchanging mortgage backed securities for Treasury Bonds?

ok, this does sound stupidly conspiratorial. sorry about that.
=)~

Book learnin'

Slam I Am — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:42:39 -0800

What are the social benefits of public libraries (and literacy)? New South Wales did a study entitled Libraries and Social Capital; the Urban Libraries Council published Making Cities Stronger (both PDF links), and I'd like to read more, especially from sources that aren't actively trying to justify their funding (not that there's anything wrong with that) to market-thinking 'crats.

Why are physical public libraries important? What's their relationship to "the social fabric," esp. in terms of marginalized groups, crime, etc.?

Also, why is old-skool literacy important to a society, or at least how does it have a different impact than electronic literacy?

Rants from resident librarians welcome as well.

How do I start a tech heavy business?

tylerfulltilt — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 19:33:18 -0800

I have an idea for a tech heavy business that I know is guaranteed to completely put blockbuster/netflix/any other dvd rental place you can think of. But I have no clue how to start a business. so where do I begin? My idea is really tech heavy. I have no experience with venture capital firms or anything like that.

basically, all I have is a great idea and no clue what to do with it.

what should I do?

SF to Sac & Back - best way to travel?

treepour — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:10:05 -0800

I need to make a day trip to Sacramento from San Francisco. I don't own a car. What's the best way to get there & back? It seems I could rent a car for about $40, or I could take the amtrak capital corridor train for about the same amount. I've never driven to Sacramento before, nor have I ever taken the capital corridor train (anywhere).

Travel time isn't as important as comfort/reduced stress. Driving in heavy traffic gives me the heebie-jeebies, but so does overcrowded public transportation. I'd be traveling during commute hours (though my journey will be a reverse commute, I believe).

Also, once in Sacramento, I'll need to visit the Secretary of State's office in order to file some papers, which I've been told will take about 3-4 hours. This should give me enough time to catch an afternoon/evening train back to SF. It looks like the office is within walking distance of the train depot, but I've never been to Sacramento, so I don't know quite what to expect in terms of pedestrian friendliness.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Securing capital for a software project?

Mikey-San — Wed, 03 May 2006 18:24:12 -0800

A colleague and I want to raise money for a project our company currently can't take on. How to get this ball rolling? (This is long. The question is in bold at the bottom for those who wish to skip ahead.)

I work for a NYC-based software company that is familiar with video game development. A colleague and I have been developing an idea for a game we really, really want to make. We're confident that it has serious Selling_Potential, and we also believe we can pull together the rest of the talent we need to ship 1.0.

The only problem is that, well, it's larger than anything the company has ever done, and in fact, in order to begin and finish this, we would likely need to secure additional capital. We'll come back to this.

UPSIDES (or "we can't lose"):

We're smart. We've seen projects to 1.0 and beyond before, we've seen others fail, and we've seen our own failures. We understand how to ship.

We've already got in-roads to the (closed) platform we want to develop on (contacts, relationships, development and testing kit access), so we don't have to spend three-to-six months kissing someone's behind just to get past info@companyname.com.

We've already got a great art director in the company who would love to work on the project, and could be freed up for it. Same goes for sound design. Level design is the part of the team we'd need to expand on, but we've already got 1/3-1/2 of what we project for that.

The engine, we believe, we already have in existing IP. See "DOWNSIDES" below.

The idea is solid, and the bosses like it. In fact, everyone to whom we've pitched so far has liked it. Are they just telling us what they think we want to hear? Totally possible. In fact, likely. But at the very least, we and our Very Skeptical Bosses think it's a triple-A title.

DOWNSIDES (or "we're totally fucked"):

This project is a triple-A-size title, which means all of the people I mentioned above? Yeah, they/we have to be pulled into our own little world for 18-24 months, and that costs money. Our normal duties have to be replaced with other people, and additional people we pull in from outside jack up the costs as well.

We've got an engine, but it will require a some changes, like any adapted engine. That also means we still have to provide the world with objects, scenery, textures, etc. AI work, scripting, playtesting cycles, extra kits . . . the list piles on quickly. "We have an engine, we just need to make stuff" is the mistake most indie game devs make, and we're fairly confident we can avoid that. But now we've just added more cashmoney requirements. MATH PROBLEMS HERE.

In short, we need to figure out how to secure the funding the company would need to begin production on such a title. We're not talking Halo 2 here, more like something in the development scope of 10-15 people for approximately 2 years. Think Hitman, as far as size goes.

We pitched the idea this afternoon, and The Bosses liked it. And then proceeded to show us that we don't have the resources to do it. The colleague and I decided that this is a great idea, and we should put our money where our mouths are and show some initiative to get this in the pipe.

The Colleague and I want to do this for the company, but we've never done anything like securing this kind of funding before.

Where should we start?

Is the state capitol spelled "capitol" or "capital"?

destro — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 06:38:51 -0800

Is the state capitol spelled "capitol" or "capital"? I live in DC where I've always thought of it spelled as "capitol" as that meant "seat of power", and that "capital" was generally meant as money. Like in Das Kapital. After seeing a few local places spell it as "capital", I looked it up in a few dictionaries that point out that "capitol" is only for DC and that "capital" can mean money, state seat of power, or the top of a column. Is that right? Seems confusing.

tax question on spin offs and acquisitions

alkupe — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:31:50 -0800

capital gains question about stocks that are spun off or purchased lets say i own company ABC, and am long. then ABC gets bought by DEF. So all my stock in ABC is replaced by some amount of DEF. Am I long on DEF?
Lets say DEF spins off company GHI. Am I long in GHI?

AMT tax credit strategies

wflanagan — Sun, 27 Feb 2005 19:09:20 -0800

A few year ago I had to pay AMT on some ISO stock. Since I've sold it for far less than the amount of AMT tax that I paid in, I've got a large AMT tax credit hanging out there. Are there any strategies that anyone can suggest to get some of this money back? For those that want a more detailed explanation, here goes. With ISOs, I triggered AMT... or Alternative Minimum Tax. With this different tax system, I had to prepay capital gains tax on the stock that I received with stock options. I paid tax on these shares at $48/share.... I sold them for $4 a share on a basis of $3. So, there's about $12/share in tax credit hanging out there.

The problem is this. Because it was on Capital Gains, I can only take the credit against stock gains. At the rate I'm going, its going to take me 20 years to get the credit back.

So, any strategies you can suggest... any ideas that your tax advisor might have suggested, would be greatly appreciated.

Making Money Fast

drezdn — Fri, 19 Dec 2003 22:44:32 -0800

Besides stripping, or selling everything one owns, what's a good way to make a lot of money quickly- without any capital? P.S. $3000 would be a lot of money to me.