Money for Your Business

Find Startup Funding and Get Financial Control Even in a Pandemic

- Gerri Detweiler

It was bushels of apples after an afternoon in an orchard that prompted Diana Blaylock to launch her business, Mama’s Best Bak-ery, in 2017. She started by selling apple pies on Facebook and business took off from there. The pandemic didn’t slow things down; instead, she found herself busy baking bread and other comfort foods from her home kitchen in Twin Falls, Idaho. During Covid, “people have been eating their feelings,” she says.

In order to truly grow and scale her bakery, though, Blaylock needs funding.

She tried a crowdfunding campaign, but with no real guidance or experience, it failed. The Idaho Women’s Business Center connected her with Crowdfund Better (via their collaboration called Crowdfund Idaho) which is guiding her through the steps to create a new campaign, and she’s optimistic that this time will be successful.

While we’ve had a lot of doom and gloom about the world this year, not all small businesses are struggling. And many people are taking the plunge to start a business. The number of business applications in the U.S. reached nearly 1.6 million in 2020. We haven’t seen numbers like that in memorable history.

But while businesses are starting up in record numbers, that doesn’t necessarily mean those business owners will be able to find the financing they need to get off on the right foot. Like Blaylock, when it comes to raising money and getting financing, you “don’t know what you don’t know.” And that can mean wasting valuable time looking for the wrong type of funding.