START UP MONEY TO OPEN FASHION BOUTIQUE

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Permalink Reply by Fashion Business Designer™ on June 29, 2011 at 1:13pm

Congratulations for having the courage to start your own label! We need more fashion indie designers to challenge the huge fashion conglomerates and fast fashion retailers to make the fashion industry a fairer marketplace! :)

Although getting funds is a difficult task for emerging designers! Have you tried the 3 Fs? Usually emerging designers start running their businesses going through these paths:

- Family,

- Friends, and/or

- Fools! The internet has thousands of supportive folks thinking with their hearts rather than their rationals! Kickstarter is for starters (no pun intended). I'd also suggest you to check out fashion oriented crowdfunding platforms like Catwalk Genius, STYLETREK, or Fashion Stake. In any case I'd suggest you to develop a solid funding strategy if you want to succeed and not let down your supporters because, in my personal opinion, I wouldn't recommend any fashion designer to crowdfund themselves if they don't have the business acumen and manufacture/technical experience to run their proposed projects. As a matter of fact I wouldn't even recommend any supporter to fund a fashion project coming from talented fashion designers that lacks basic business skills and/or manufacture and technical experience (unless supporter gives her/his money in a charitable way).

Anyway, there's another F which is Funding from government (i.e. grants or government-funded support schemes for small businesses), banks (i.e. loans, credit lines, credit card) and/or your suppliers (credit terms). The less experience or credit history the designer has, the more difficult it is for her/him get this type of funding.

And of course you have the business partners that can support you with funding and/or management like Business Managers or Investors (they'll usually provide with funds and management support), Venture Capitalists (although, to begin with, they'll only be interested if your investment requires US10 million or more). You also have other types of business partners: Manufacturers or Licensees. They support fashion designers that have loads of creative potential and key support from press, opinion formers, stockists, and consumers.

Rod
 

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Permalink Reply by Paulinajo on October 10, 2011 at 7:40pm

You can try crowd sourcing... http://IndieGogo.com

Or http://Garmz.com

Or Kabbage.com

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Permalink Reply by Neda Amiri on May 7, 2012 at 3:10pm

Hi, me too am currently looking into opening up my own boutique. There are different ways to raise funds. For instance you can firstly approach people you know for fund and in return give them percentage. The other way is getting a business loan from the bank in your local country, or town. Also you can find a silent partner, a person who is willing to put down the money (he/she must believe in your business project of course) and then you do all the work, you give the partner a fee. there is one other way which exists but a bit more complicated: you start up with your own money but only do so much as your funds allow you. So let us say you have 7000 US dollars only. you set up your company with a very strong business plan including financial forecasting, market research and so forth. You may have to pay some people to do some of the sections of your business plan. After that you can list your small company in the stock market and sell your shares for money. I might be a tad wrong but do research on the stock market thing you may find out a way to raise funds. 

Now I have a question?! do you know how I can stock my boutique? are there any specific trade shows I must go to meet wholesalers? What if I want to make purchase from a well known brand? 

Good luck.

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