When faced with financial challenges, most business owners try to raise capital by going to the bank or trying to find investors. Although banks and investors may be a suitable source of capital for some businesses, the majority of business owners come out empty handed.Bankers are notoriously conservative when making loan decisions.

Unless your business can show that it has significant assets and can demonstrate three years of profitability, it usually won’t qualify for a business loan or a line of credit. Finding investors (whether angel funders or venture capitalists) is even more challenging. And those that are successful in finding investors always have to give up a significant stake of their ownership before seeing a penny.