Assignment 2: Successfully Funding Your Business Venture

For Assignment 1, you imagined that you were going to start a company that offered an innovative product or service. In Assignment 1 you also determined the business structure you would use for that venture. For this assignment, you can use that same idea and structure or imagine different ones. Use the Internet and the Strayer Online Library to locate any additional information needed to complete this assignment.

Write a six to eight (6-8) page paper in which you:

1. Determine the steps you would need to take to officially establish your company with the business structure that you feel is most appropriate. For each of those steps, be sure to include specifics that are relevant to your market and geographic area.
2. Examine at least three (3) funding sources that might be appropriate for your business. Describe what those sources of capital are, and explain the pros and cons of each. 
3. Select the funding source that you believe to be the best fit for your business and explain why.
4. Determine the form(s) of intellectual property that you will have to protect when starting your business. Develop a plan to protect these intellectual properties. 
5. Choose one (1) of the following approaches: Assume you decide to revamp your product or service so that it is completely virtual / online and concentrates on fulfilling a social need. Propose two (2) ways that you would need to alter your preferred funding sources and explain why. Determine whether you would or would not have additional forms of intellectual property to protect. Support your decision. Or If your initial business product or service was already completely online and geared toward social entrepreneurship, determine ways that you might need to revise your funding and protection of intellectual property had your company not been rooted in social entrepreneurship and had a physical location.
6. Imagine that you established your initial idea for a company and have been successfully operating for five years (5). Describe how your hypothetical need for capital changed over the years. Determine which sources of funding would be the most appropriate if you wanted to raise capital to expand your hypothetical business. Examine how, if at all, those funding sources might have differed from those needed in early stage funding.
7. Use at least three (3) quality academic resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.