How to kick start a web service with no working capital on hand?

I have a project on the table with a business model that involves creating a web service to streamline all the best pieces of internet marketing into one platform. Full details need to be kept confidential due to an open forum. Key competitors in this field are well known, however research has shown their pricing is extremely high for the services offered. The market segment and niche volume that will be targeted is very high and has been overlooked up to this point, so competition is low.

My situation is funding, specifically working capital. The project can be launched in approximately 60 days. However, due to the complexity of this service, experts in some technology fields must be involved and experts are not cheap, but worth they're weight in gold. ROI is exceptional once the start-up lag has been overcame.

I have heard horror stories with VC's and I do not have the cash on hand to bootstrap this project. I hope I have made this into a question that falls in the lines of the "must be an answerable question" requirement. I really need insight on how to approach the right entity to fund this type of project.

Thank you!

I have an idea. I think I might know how to implement it, but I don't have the skills required to do so. I made up a number about how long it would take to implement by "experts" who are "worth their weight in gold".

How do I convince someone else to pay for it?

You don't. Ideas are not worth anything. You indicate that the barrier to entry is the need to develop technology which may or may not exist, is likely expensive to develop in the first place, but can be done in 2 months.

Were it really that easy, it would be done, and within 2 months of you launching, it will be done by someone else who has the personal know-how to implement it themselves.

What you are essentially proposing is that because you have an idea for a business, you would like someone to invest the money to actually develop it, but you want to hold on to the business. Ideas, however, are cheap, so even were someone to be interested in "partnering with you", the amount of equity in the idea you would have to give up would leave you with no reason to be involved.

There are three main things that create and enhance your ability to get investment. The more of each you have, the better your chances of someone handing you money.

1. A minimal, cogent, working product/service (and plan to go along with it). Ideas themselves are a dime a dozen. A real investor has multiple opportunities being weighed against each other. Yours must be better than the rest.
2. An existing cashflow. This implies people are provably willing to pay for your idea and/or you know how to sell it.
3. Pedigree. You, and your team, have experience being successful entrepreneurs and/or are experts in the field/market..

Since you have none of these, you have to get creative. No investor or bank will loan you money on a maybe, esp. not in this economic climate.

• Knock up friends/family. Comes with a possible steep price if you screw up.
• Find an alternate source of cashflow. Can you and/or your team do any other work (consulting, freelance, etc.) that will generate cash to get your going on your main effort?
• Find a client willing to pay for the service and get preferential contracting in return.
• Try something like Kickstarter, although everyone and their uncle is now begging for money on that site.
• Look for governmental grants and other public funding sources.
• Local "microloan" outfits.

Those are the main ones. The most common way is to find a way to self-fund, meaning either from your (or your network's) savings or from your own sweat equity.

There is no magical fountain of money...