Hello, I am looking for investors to help start a brand new business

**shanon best** · 07-19-2010 12:41 PM

Hello, I am 44 years old and have been in the building materials retail sales for over 22 years. Always working for someone else and making them tons of money. My wife keeps telling me to follow my dream of owning my own business so I am starting the ball rolling here. I have worked for the business I am employed by now for over 9 years. I am now the Asst. Manager and practically run the store myself. I don't like patting myself on the back but I am VERY good at what I do. I know every aspect of the building materials/hardware industry, purchasing, receiving, etc.. way to much to list, and I am absolutely sure that any business that I start, giving the right location would grow and prosper. I have spent countless hours self teaching as well as college courses to become even better at my job. I even created the website for the business that I work for now, by myself, no help, never done it before, finished it in 3 days. It is a bit rough, but I did it

. Take a look if you wish- Bandonsupply.com. Anyways, my business idea is either open my own building materials retail store or a combination new/used building materials/hardware store. I have experience with both types and they both are lucrative. The new/used store is my favorite idea as it also helps the environment by taking in used materials as well as selling new products as well. It also would qualify for recycling type business incentives as well. Any investors out there interested please contact me or anyone with ideas on where to start looking for funding? Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

**akula** · 07-19-2010 01:10 PM

hii..welcome
i think it's great that you want to follow your dreams
entrepreneurship might be the way to go
it's a complex, technical area of study...like most other things worth doing.
when it comes to startups, all issues are interlinked

for example, your question about financing is interlinked with opportunity selection..
in other words, the kinds of finance your venture can access is dependant on the nature of the business
so, for example, venture capital is not appropriate for a lemonade stand, in the same way that credit cards are not appropriate for an oil exploration company
to that end, external equity finance (i.e. an investor) is not appropriate for a "building materials retail store or a combination new/used building materials/hardware store"
the reason is that common stock for this kind of venture is illiquid (i.e. there isn't a lot m&a activity in the building materials space), which is a prerequisite for equity finance.

overall, as you can see, access to capital is dependent on opportunity selection
i.e. if you're commercialising a good opportunity, you'll enjoy broader access to capital than if you were pursuing a bad opportunity
the difference between a good opportunity and a bad opportunity is problem formulation
a good opportunity solves a large, homogeneous, quantifiable problem using a differentiated, defensible, scalable solution
a bad opportunity is one which does not
founders should not pursue bad opportunities, unless it's a lifestyle business...in which case any opportunity might be fine, because you're doing it for non financial reasons

at any rate, entrepreneurship is complex and technical. starting ventures is high stakes gambling. husbands routinely end up putting their marriages on the line. so, if you wanna do it right, it helps to study how to do entrepreneurship properly. for starters, i recommend you read bygrave to start getting your head around issues like opportunity selection and startup finance. there are dozens of ways to finance a lifestyle business, all of which are more appropriate than external equity. you should know all of these alternatives, because they are talked about in textbooks.

tell me how you go. good luck.

**Encrypted** · 07-19-2010 04:45 PM

Nice read. I don't have a whole lot of input on the matter, as I think akula covered the majority of it, but I just want to wish you the best of luck. Looking forward to hearing how things progress.