Only your family, friends, governments and fools ignore basic funding guidelines. These costs have evolved over time because they reflect cost of helping foolish find foolish.

To raise money, you need a short, enticing executive summary and a credible business plan. A professionally written business plan usually costs between US$7,000 and US$15,000. Unless you are a business writer, cutting costs by doing it yourself is usually a mistake. Professionals will do a better job of organizing and present your vision. You should define your target market before you prepare any business plan. Investors, lenders and governments are motivated by different goals and thus your business plan must show them that funding your company will allow them to reach their goal. If you are seeking funding for more than one of these three groups, your business plan should be written differently for each potential funding group.

Lenders expect you to have collateral (assets) that ensures repayment of business loan principal and some source of assured income to repay debt. In theory, if you default on your business loan, lenders recover their principal by selling pledged collateral. The lenders' goal is to have little to no downside risk in loan. If you can't show a credible means of repaying business loan, you won't get loan. Lenders don't make money on defaulted loans. At best, they recover their risk capital from sale of collateral.

Most governments' mantra is to create local jobs to ensure political stability. While requirements as to terms and industries vary, governments are seeking multinational firms with markets outside government's borders for goods produced by their local workers. If your business plan reflects this strategy, most governments will offer you half needed funding in grants or about 75% of needed funding as low interest loans. Your company can also expect a multi-year tax holiday, etc.

If you are a private U.S. Startup Company, seeking funding from an American Venture Capital Firm, your odds of success are about one-in-ten thousand. You can expect from them up to US$1 million in risk capital. Often, they will increase funding, once they have made their initial investment in your company. Your business plan should show near-term positive cashflow with high profit margins and an experienced and credible management team. The VC Firm will want at least 50% equity in your company. If you are a private non-U.S. Startup Company, seeking funding from an American Venture Capital Firm, your odds of success are about one-in-twenty-five thousand.

Your odds somewhat improve seeking private company funding from American Angel (Accredited) Investors. However, finding them is difficult without using financial brokers. You can easily spend tens of thousands of dollars seeking investors for your private company before you realize that odds are strongly against your success. For many private startup companies hunt for money is fruitless. The costs are excessive.

A bridging loan is in simple terms a short-term mortgage that is secured against property that you are selling, with money that is lent being used to complete purchase of new property. Because of nature of their use, bridging loans can be arranged in a very short period of time, usually around seven to ten days, which is important when you need to complete on purchase or risk loosing property.

Bridging loans are short term loans arranged when you need to purchase a house but are unable to arrange mortgage for some reason, such as there is a delay in selling your existing property. Timing is of essence when selling one property and buying another. Sometimes if you are looking for a new home and right property becomes available, it is not always possible to wait until your current home is sold.

The beauty of bridging loans is that a bridging loan can be used to cover financial gap when buying one property before existing one is sold. For example, if you are in a chain, where you are buying a property at same time as selling a property, it's possible that you'll be put in situation where you need to complete your purchase, but funds from your buyer are not available. You are now under pressure to complete on a particular date but do not have funds available. This is where bridging loans come in. They are looked on as short term lending to cover a specific short term need.

Bridging loans can be arranged for any sum between £25000 to a few million pounds and can be borrowed for periods from a week to up to six months. Because of nature of bridging loans they can usually be arranged at short notice and within a few days. Bridging loans are widely available and can usually be arranged by your existing mortgage provider.