Entrepreneurs deserve to celebrate. National Small Business Week kicked off Monday, May 12 at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. Maria Contreras-Sweet,Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration summarized National Small Business Week as a time , “to make sure our entrepreneurs know about the services the SBA offers. And it’s a week to encourage consumers to give a local business a try – or to order online from a small, Internet-based business.”
While words of encouragement may not seem to be especially beneficial to the start-up entrepreneur, the Small Business Administration is offering something more than a week of celebrations: a $2.5 million competition.
According to Kimberly Peyser, SBA official, the competition involves, “accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models to compete for monetary prizes of $50,000 each to fund operating budgets.” The application deadline for the competition is August 2, 2014.
The goal that the SBA has is simple: by providing an influx of funding to small, innovative businesses, job creation may occur and businesses can pursue ventures and expansion that they may not be able to currently pursue given operating expenses.
The bad news? Business owners from either coast of the United States may find themselves out of luck. “The panel will give particular attention to, and the SBA encourages, applicants that fill geographic gaps in the accelerator and entrepreneurial ecosystem space. It is well known that the most successful accelerators to date were founded on the coasts. Through this competition, we are looking to support the development of accelerators and thus startups in parts of the country where there are fewer conventional sources of access to capital,” wrote Peyser in an SBA press release.
The competition is also hoping to award businesses that are run by women and other underrepresented groups, as well as businesses that help to support the manufacturing industry in the United States.
Applications are available here: https://gaf2014.wufoo.com/forms/sba-growth-accelerator-fund-application/
This is yet another great step on the part of the SBA to help facilitate growth among small businesses. Some businesses however, may not be able or willing to wait until late in the fall to potential receive funds to expand.
Capital Solutions offers both invoice factoring and purchase-order financing. With invoice factoring, eighty to ninety percent (80-90%) of an invoice or purchase order may be provided by Capital Solutions to business owners as a cash advance prior to payment by the customer. This 80–90% of the invoice is granted to the business owner so that he or she can use those funds at his or her discretion.
The remaining ten to twenty percent (10-20%) is held in reserve with the factor. When the payment is received, the factor releases the reserve less the charges incurred back to the company. Purchase-order financing is a great choice for businesses that have orders ready to fulfill, but lack the cash flow to pay the supplier up front.
For more information on any of the financing options offered by Capital Solutions, Inc., call 1-800-901-3299 or click on the Contact Us tab and fill out the necessary information. Celebrate National Small Business Week and expand your business today.
