#AdviceColumn: Should Founders Be Fundraising During This Pandemic?

It's feasible, but it will be challenging, and it really depends on the kind of business you want to start. Long before this crisis, I always advised entrepreneurs to pursue organic funding: start out small with low overhead, grow your client base, focus on the work, and put everything back into the business so that you can grow it healthily and sustainably. It demands a lot of work, but it also frees you from having to rely on outside funding. If your circumstances allow it, this is, in my opinion, the best way to start a business (it's how I started mine).

That said, for many startups, other funding options will be necessary. For reasons having nothing to do with the pandemic, venture capital was already far more suspicious of startups that don't have a clear path to profitability in their prospectus, and the current crisis American capitalism is experiencing has only reinforced that newfound conservatism.