How to expand the business?

How do I expand my business without lauching an IPO?

• I do not want to give away control of my business to shareholders. I might as well work a job listening to my employers' demands; shareholders sometime raise a lot of demands on a company. They make unrealistic forecasts about future earnings and thereby force a firm to stretch itself overboard trying to achieve that target. In case the firm fails to do that, negative news spread like wildfire and cause share prices to crash. Surely, there has to be a way to expand my business other than filing for an IPO. Has anyone done that? Please guide me how...

• Answer:

  Your focus is on expansion. The main alternatives to an IPO for raising capital are: - Selling pieces of your company to private investors. - Raising debt financing, which you will pay off with your company's positive cash flows. Either of the alternatives will require your company to be financially sound, preferably in a growing industry or at least with a realistic (but still positive) forecast for growth. It sounds like you'd prefer to raise debt though since you seem reluctant to give any percentage of your company away. Reinvesting your profits is, as already mentioned, another way to expand, but you should be doing that anyway. Income is nice but it doesn't make you rich - wait for the capital gains.