Should I apply for more than one startup loan at once?

There are a lot of moving parts to this question. First, you need to determine in which states you have "nexus" and then determine do those states require you to charge sales tax, as each state has different rules. As an example, MA requires salesforce.com to charge sales tax to MA customers but does not require newyorktimes.com to charge sales tax. The difference is that users can manipulate data on salesforce.com vs. neworktimes.com is read only. This example can only be applied to MA, Arizona, Illinois, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and Washington State (as of now). There are also "click-through" and "affiliate" nexus rules that need to be considered. Be careful, as state and local taxation has become a very hot due diligence issue in M&A transactions. So, if you plan to sell your business in the next few years, you want to get this right. Also, the Officers and Directors are personally responsible for uncollected Sales tax. You are best to get an expert to review your sales tax compliance, as it is a very specialized area and changing constantly. I am not an expert, but know of some firms that offer this service at a very reasonable rate. Feel free to call me. Thank you, Joe Faris Accountalent Management Corp. 45 Prospect Street Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel (978) 621-0759 Fax (978) 278-1517 Website: www.accountalent.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/farisjoe/ Twitter: @accountalent

I started my last company and grew it with $20,000 to $12 million in 10 years. And while I was in the early phases, I did put in on my resume.. So, I believe you should. If it is a registered business entity and you are working it, it is still what you are doing, regardless of revenue of the company. If you are performing the tasks in your position, it shows you have been attempting to launch as well as (hopefully) prevents any gaps in employment. It also shows a level of commitment to your venture. We specialize in assisting startups with business plans and structure, so fee free to contact me for additional questions.

The other answers are good, and here is one practical approach to handling this. First, the accounting capitalization (10m x $0.001 = $10k) is really irrelevant. In fact, we went for 10m x $0.0001 = $1k. Whatever you pick, your company after formation will show $X of assets (the cash in the back) and $X of shareholder equity. So far so good. You then need to start spending money through the company. Rather than issue more shares, you can lend the money to the company; write out a loan agreement (probably something like a balloon payment 10 years out with 0% interest) and deposit the check. If you're doing everything at the same time, and want to have $1k of shareholder equity with a total of $25k to spend, then deposit the $25k check and call it $1k to purchase the founder's shares and $24k loan. In this case, your company now has $25,000 assets/cash, $24k liability (to you) and $1k shareholders equity: assets = liabilities + shareholder equity. Hope that helps clarify things a bit...

So you do lab work for dentists? If you post your website or some other info it might be easier to help you with the issue. If you want to improve cash flow you can either reduce expenses or grow revenue. My experience is that it is usually way easier to grow revenue since expenses are so thin for companies like yours unless you have wasteful habits. Figure out who your ideal customer is and develop a marketing plan. Make sure the marketing plan uses multiple marketing medians to get brand recognition with the target market. Follow up with phone calls and offer test orders or test lab work. Make sure you can demonstrate a clear advantage to working with you compared to others. Any clients you work with should respect your professionalism to sign an agreement with their orders to pay within a specified time frame. The agreement might also clearly spell out how the collections process works. Get signatures on orders, if they can order online include info like this in your TOS.

As an angel, what I look for is founder/market fit. Does this entrepreneur have a fire in their belly to solve a problem and a really unique and inspired look at the market they are attacking? The motivation to angel-invest for me as an active entrepreneur is to build a strong network of founders who can help each other and share commonly applicable experiences.