Getty Images AOL Inc. offices in Palo Alto, Ca.

What lengths will an entrepreneur go to in order to get his start-up off the ground? As anyone who is embarking on a new business venture knows, money is tight, and if someone believes that they have a successful idea, they may resort to extreme measures in order to make that idea work. Eric Simons is an entrepreneur that has shown he is willing to do whatever it takes.

Simons, now 20, had been part of an incubator program that focused on education, called Imagine K12, which took place at AOL’s

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[AOL  Loading...      ()   ] campus in Palo Alto, Calif. According to CNet, he worked tirelessly on his start up, ClassConnect, which develops tools for teachers to build and discover lesson plans. He was part of an official incubator program for four months, but once that ended, he decided to stay to continue working on the project.

Because AOL never deactivated his security badge, he spent the next two months working 12 to 16 hours a day at the AOL offices, sleeping on couches, and using the gym facilities to workout and shower. Free food from the cafeteria meant he rarely left the building, all the while evading security.
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The MacLaren brothers are third-generation dairy farmers, but they will likely be the last in their family.

After working all their lives on the hillside farm in Vermont that their grandfather bought in 1939, rising to milk cows at 3 a.m., even in blizzards and sub-zero temperatures, they decided to call it quits, auctioning off their roughly 200 cows and equipment ranging from stalls and hoof trimmers to tractors and steel pails.

The sale marked the end of the last dairy farm in Plainfield — a small town that once had several dozen — and the 14th dairy farm to go out of business in Vermont this year. A few small dairies have opened, but overall, the number of farms continues to drop in a state long known for its milk and cheese. Farmers say they can't make ends meet when milk prices are low and feed and fuel costs keep going up.

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Thanks to high-profile successes like the Pebble: E-Paper Watch and Double Fine Adventure, crowdfunding has exploded in interest amongst businesses as an alternative to venture capital or angel investment.

The recent passage of the JOBS Act, which legalizes limited equity sales for publicly-backed projects, promises to further open the floodgates for enterprising startups. However, many inadvertently confuse these campaigns as fundraising efforts, because they call on the general public for support. Here are five reasons why crowdfunded endeavors are secretly more akin to consumer marketing efforts.

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When Karen Mills became head of the Small Business Administration in April 2009, the U.S. was in a recession and a credit crisis. It was hard, if not impossible, for many to borrow money.

Source: www.sba.gov Karen G. Mills, Head of Small Business Administration

It also was a difficult environment for a government agency charged with helping small businesses. But Mills came to the SBA after a career as a venture capitalist — she was in the business of buying small companies and building them up. Mills, 59, was one of the founders of Solera Capital, a private equity firm in New York. She was also president of MMP Group, which owned companies involved in consumer products, textiles and industrial components.

Her previous experience gave her "the ability to understand challenges that face small businesses and to see around the corner at what might helpful to them in the future," she says.

The SBA is probably best known for the loans it makes to small businesses, but Mills also focuses on counseling and mentoring services that are available to business owners, and where they can go to find that help.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which helped Republicans make big gains in the 2010 congressional elections, is planning its most aggressive push yet to send business-friendly lawmakers to Washington in the Nov. 6 election.

Joshua Roberts | Bloomberg | Getty Images Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Thomas Donohue, the president and CEO of the powerful business lobby, said Tuesday the Chamber planned to get involved in 11 or 12 Senate races and 35 to 37 races for the House of Representatives.

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Source: Fatheadz Rico Elmore and his Fatheadz sunglasses.

It might not have been a huge problem for most people, but Rico Elmore had left his sunglasses at home. So, the 6-foot, 3-inch, 300 pound Elmore walked into a Las Vegas shop to buy a replacement pair.

After squeezing nearly 50 different pairs onto his head, he didn't walk into the desert with a new pair of sunglasses. But he did walk out with an idea for a business.

“I couldn’t be the only one in the world with a fat head,” he says.

That revelation prompted him to launch Fatheadz, an eyewear firm which caters to people with wide heads.

After 15 years in the auto sales business, Elmore turned in his car keys and tapped his savings. There were naysayers all the way, he says, but he never doubted his idea would be big.

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Joe Cavaretta / AP Las Vegas

Starting a small business can be a challenge no matter where the owner decides to set up shop, but perhaps nowhere is it more challenging than in Nevada.

According to a new study, that three-quarters of businesses in Nevada reported they were unable to grow due to difficulties in obtaining financing. Not surprisingly, business owners in Nevada were also most likely to transfer personal assets to fund their business as a result of limited financing options.

The problem of obtaining capital, however, is hardly just a problem for businesses in Nevada. Nationwide, 64 percent of businesses with revenues under $5 million said that difficulty obtaining financing was limiting their growth potential. Just over 55 percent of businesses nationwide also said limited financing options were affecting plans to grow their work force.

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The process of asking for money is deceptively straightforward, but as in most things, the details matter.

I encourage business owners who are applying for a loan from their bank to include a simple attachment — a summary, written in very direct language — along with the bank's required form.

Remember, you are not selling your business as an investment vehicle for the bank. You are creating confidence that the bank's money will be repaid. And to gain that confidence, they need to understand several things at a basic level.

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