How to get new financing fundamentals into your business

When traditional business financing models don't fit with your business you need to consider new ideas of getting financing to build your business. Now is the time to consider how you can make a stronger connection with your customers. Think about what emotional connection you would like to create. So out with old ideas. The truth is, even if traditional banks can't be bothered to help, alternative funding options for startups do exist. From crowdfunding or friends and family funding, to bootstrapping and venture capital, these options have reshaped the challenge for entrepreneurs. Today, you need to focus on not getting so caught up in accessing capital that your business suffers.

Here are three incremental steps to help maintain your own entrepreneurial momentum while you explore all your options to obtain financing

1. Forget the lengthy business plan. Don't wait for the planets to align. Get started now. The days of writing an intricate business plan and getting a bank loan are over. Today, it's about focusing on developing a minimum viable product and continuing to iterate in parallel with building your company and securing the necessary financing.

Take the 100-day approach: If an idea can't be developed into a minimum viable product that attracts customer interest within 100 days, it it should get dropped completely. Put simply, given the speed of marketplace change, getting to market as soon as possible is imperative. Entrepreneurs who spend years developing an idea often find the market has left them behind. Instead, the easiest, fastest and most economical way to validate an idea is to put it into the market sooner rather than later. Speed has its rewards - Getting some market traction can work wonders for attracting additional financing.

2. Spend more sweat than money. In the early stages, spend carefully and use equity wisely when you're acquiring talent, vendors and service providers. Build and pay for only what's needed to develop and deliver the minimum viable product. Poor cash flow management is the reason more than 80 percent of young businesses fail. When cash is in short supply, consciously putting a heavier value on sweat equity helps keep spending in check and the business moving forward.

3. Build relationships. When seeking financing, keep in mind that old adage about people wanting what they can't have. At the start, be especially mindful of cultivating relationships. Don't be desperate for financing, or at least, don't convey that. Nothing chases bankers and investors away faster than a proposal that sounds like begging. Instead, focus on creating in investors and lenders a sense of FOMO, or "fear of missing out." Generating market excitement and feedback through effective delivery of a minimum viable product can do more to create investor interest than any plan or proposal. If you can connect on an emotional level and build relationships over time, potential investors will ask to be part of your business' future, instead of the other way around.

You may need to do things differently. If you want your efforts to be meaningful and memorable, you must connect emotionally with people. Without that element being present in how you interact with customers, no amount of hard work will help boost your business. Become a business that provides the kind of service that doesn't just fill a need or an order, but inspires trust and motivates your customers to return and tell others about you and become an advocate for your brand. The future belongs to those who make emotional connections with their customers.

In conclusion, the best way to go from idea to startup to successful business is to keep moving forward. Financing (or the lack of it) stops a lot of entrepreneurs before they get started. While it's not easy to build a business with minimal capital, taking incremental steps to get a solution to market paves the way for investment down the road. So, you'll have won on both fronts. The Business Minder operates in ASEAN countries as a business consultant with clients in Bali Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.