自筹资金

    曾做过美国国际开发署（the U.S. Agency for International Development）业务发展顾问的瑞特•鲍尔和合作伙伴彼得•嘉斯卡的创业路并非一帆风顺。他们曾向银行贷款，发展他们位于南卡罗来纳州美特尔海滩的益智玩具公司Wild Creation，但却遭到拒绝。据悉，这家公司成立于2007年晚些时候。为了筹措资金，他们各自卖掉了第二套房子，抵押现有房屋以获取房屋净值贷款，提取自己的退休储蓄金，最终共筹集到35万美元资金——很显然，他们当时承受了巨大风险。“当年，我们俩都还有幼小的孩子要照顾，”鲍尔说。

    对于玩具行业，他们曾是外行。在从零开始研究此行业的同时，他们也在寻找那些为人所忽视的玩具发明家。这些发明家往往需要他人的帮助，才能将想法变成具有市场价值的实物。最终他们通过努力生产并发布了自己的产品，包括为他们赢得殊荣的生态水族馆以及自给生态系统等玩具，里面还配有公司自主研发的“侏儒蛙”。这家盈利能力出众的公司在2009年实现了85万美元的销售额，而到2010年这一数字迅速攀升至530万美元。目前，这对搭档经营的公司资金充裕，而且还成功地将产品打入了玩具反斗店（Toys `R Us）和美国图书零售商巴诺（Barnes & Noble）的门店。

Don't wait around for the banks

    Rhett Power and partner Peter Gasca, former business development consultants with the U.S. Agency for International Development, couldn't get a bank loan to grow Wild Creations, their Myrtle Beach, S.C. toy company, founded in late 2007. So they each sold their second homes, borrowed against their home equity and cashed out their 401ks to raise $350,000 -- a substantial risk. "We had very small kids at the time," says Power.

    Learning the toy business from the ground up, they looked for undiscovered toy inventors who needed help in getting their ideas to market, eventually releasing products such as the award-winning EcoAquarium, self-contained ecosystems complete with their own dwarf frogs. Sales at the profitable company grew from $850,000 in 2009 to $5.3 million in 2010. The duo have managed to get their toys on the shelves of Toys `R Us and Barnes & Noble while running the business on cash flow.