Funding for Start-Ups Tapped Out? 5 Things to Know

It’s a cruel paradox.  Social networks and crowd-funding sites now empower entrepreneurs.  Smart ideas, innovative concepts and creative inventions are more plentiful than ever.  Yet in a time of unbounded promise, capital to fund them remains elusive for most entrepreneurs.   Which means one thing: many great ideas go unfunded.

According to a recent survey by the National Small Business Association, 43 percent of small business respondents said that in the last four years they needed capital, but could not find it. One in three small businesses reported that their loans or lines...