Do you wonder how startups start building their customer bases? Even companies that are well-known today struggled to gain traction, and some employed clever ideas to build momentum.

You may be able to use some of these ideas for your own (for-now) small business.

I get a lot of questions about government grant proposals, and I’ve reviewed a fair number of them. I’ve seen some instances where people want to make a grand political statement as part of their government grant request or making the basis of their funding request kind of a pushback against some public policy that they don’t agree with.

Did you know that many local governments have grants that are not publicized? Some communities have funding set aside, but they don’t publicize it. Often, the only way to find out about available funding is to call or visit your government offices, find the resident grant expert, and inquire about available programs. The best example of this is someone from my own office who wanted a grant to help her with a down payment on a new house.

You need money to fulfill your business, education, or real estate goals. The best option for each of these is a government grant. But sometimes you may either be waiting for grant money or find that you need to supplement the free government grant. What do you do? One of the next best choices is a low-interest or no-interest loan. Here’s why these are great deals for you.

If you’re a woman in America who is in business (or plans to be), then you should know about the Office of Women’s Business Ownership that is operated by the Small Business Administration. Their mission, in their own words, is “to establish and oversee a network of Women’s Business Centers throughout the United States and its territories.”

The key to receiving grant funding is the grant proposal. The grant proposal is the way that you tell the grant funder who you are, show that you’re worthy of grant funding, and describe how you plan to carry out the activities required to get the grant funding. Grant proposal is a catch-all term, but there actually are several types of proposals.

Do you want to take your business to where the high demand and eager customers are? Or maybe you’d just like to change the view from your office window? There may be funding from the Australia government to help you do this. It can be in the form of business grants, tax incentives, hiring credits, training grants, and much more.

More than 200 at-risk young Vermonters will find summer employment thanks to a federal grant program, with the focus on those who are no longer in school.

The Vermont Department of Labor has awarded grants totaling $100,000 to eight organizations from Burlington to Bennington. They will use the money to offer education and on-the-job training to Vermonters ages 16 to 24, with training in a broad array of fields ranging from early childhood development to forestry. One official said, “We’re trying to create independent citizens who have the skills needed to get a job and have a career and be a success at it.”

One thing that many entrepreneurs have in common is a dread and distaste for the thought of writing a business plan. I want to change your mind about that and tell you why a good business plan can be one of the best friends your current or future business could possibly have. One of the most important things that you can know about a business plan is that you most likely will not get any funding for your business without one,

Each of us is just one person, and sometimes we can feel powerless against giant institutions, especially bodies of government. After all, they’re notorious for being bureaucratic and staffed by uncaring workers who take pleasure in thwarting citizens, right? The politicians are no better, promising everything to get elected, then forgetting about us little people once they’re in.

The Canada Summer Jobs program helps Canada’s younger people develop employable skills and gain necessary work experience, and the deadline to apply is approaching.

Valuable information from guest contributor Bankrate: 9 ways to spot personal loan scams According to Bankrate: Consumers lost a total …

Many American entrepreneurs are interested in receiving help with funding to supplement the costs of launching a new business. Starting a new venture can be exciting, but one aspect of it is that when you’re just on the verge of opening or have just started, it can seem like everyone has their hand out to be paid, whether it’s for an operating license, utility hookup, purchasing equipment, buying signage, whew, the list goes on….

Everyone wants to get the really big grants. However, if you focus exclusively on these, you may miss out on funding your project. A different approach is to seek several smaller grants, which are more commonly found and may have less competition. An effective way to do this is to divide your project into parts that function independently.

While there are no guarantees any startup business will be successful, a good first step to determine if an idea makes sense before proceeding with an investment of time and resources is to do a venture feasibility study.

A venture feasibility study analyzes an idea from several perspectives: market opportunity, competition, resources available, resource gaps, financial viability, operational issues, intellectual property rights, development timeline, and technology needs. Are there enough customers willing to buy your products, often enough, at a profitable price that your business can pay all expenses and provide a decent living wage to owners? If not, the business idea is not feasible.

Tennessee may not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of technology and innovation, but Charlie Brock of Launch Tennessee aims to change that. In this article, he outlines big plans for the state and discusses how government grants are instrumental to the process.

Grants from the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs give early stage startups — especially those based on academic research — another vehicle through which to seek funding. In today’s competitive financing environment, these grants can help entrepreneurs who wouldn’t otherwise receive the money they need to start their businesses.

If you have innovative ideas or plans for technological advances in your Canadian small business, you may qualify for government money and technical assistance. The National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) provides technology advice, assistance, and services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to help with building innovation

If you need micro finance for your South African business, then you’ll want to check into the Khula SME Fund. (SME is short for “Small and Medium Enterprises”.)

Khula is a wholesale finance institution which operates across the public and private sectors, through a network of channels to supply much-needed funding to small business. It has been involved in the rapidly growing and economically vital, small and medium enterprise (SME) sector. Khula’s mission is to provide finance, mentorship services and small business premises to SMEs through a network of partnerships and to encourage the sustainable development of SMEs whilst ensuring that it remains financially viable.