Startup Money Made Easy: The Inc. Guide to Every Financial Question about Starting, Running, and Growing Your Business

With advice from Daymond John, Bobbi Brown, Mark Cuban, Sallie Krawcheck, Max Levchin, Alexa von Tobel, and other successful early stage startup investors, Inc. magazine shows you how to attract and wisely apply your firm’s first precious sources of cash.

Bootstrapping, crowdfunding, VCs, payroll, profits—money makes your business boom. But mess up your finances, and the venture can go bust.

It’s time to get smart. Let the experts at Inc. guide you through every critical step and potential pitfall. Their on-the-ground reporting shows how to locate funding, manage your money, and smart hack your way to a comfortable retirement.

Startup Money Made Easy gathers the best advice from the magazine’s pages, spotlighting celebrated entrepreneurs and inspiring stories. You’ll hear from:

• FUBU founder Daymond John, who mortgaged his family home for start-up capital—and built a $6 billion empire
• Makeup artist Bobbi Brown, who turned a modest lipstick line into a profitable 30-store enterprise
• Alexa von Tobel, who dropped out of Harvard Business School to launch the equity-magnate LearnVest.com
• Mark Cuban, Sallie Krawcheck, Max Levchin, and other founders who overcame financial obstacles on their way to the top

Interwoven with the stories are on-target tips that explain how to:

• Raise your first $10,000 in capital
• Power through the lean years
• Get friends and family to back you up
• Round up outside investors
• Go public or sell, while still staying in charge
• Reward people with great salaries and benefits
• Eliminate tax season surprises
• Grow without growing pains
• And more

Cash flow problems are the number-one business killer. Whether you’re dreaming up a startup idea or knee deep in the craziness, learn to shore up your finances and safeguard the business.

About the Author

Maria Aspan is an award-winning business journalist and an editor-at-large at Inc. magazine, where she oversees money coverage and writes about startups, technology, finance, and gender. She has also covered business and finance for The New York Times, Reuters, and American Banker. At the latter she served as national editor and covered the financial crisis and its aftermath. Maria also writes the weekly Lady Business newsletter, about women in the business world, and she lives in New York City.