To those of you who started a startup, how did you get by financially? Did you dip into savings, do some part time consulting, raise pre-seed funds?

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I have been thinking about it and my likely route is gonna be part time consulting. If you raise money too soon you will be giving away equity and control unnecessarily, and dipping into savings is not sustainable.

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All of the above.

Ditto. Plus friends and family.

Savings and ongoing cash flow was about 80% of the initial funding for both of mine, with friends and family funding providing the rest.

Once up and running with revenue, bank loans (primarily SBA loans) provided the first round or two of growth funding, then it was cash flow based.

All of the above, and had a full time job as a lawyer in big law at the same time!

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