There are two very distinct ways for a startup to travel through the early years of business: organically or with outside funding. Most businesses grow organically, where growth is funded by sales and if you have a lean quarter, well, paychecks are slimmer and capital expenditures are postponed until sales pick up.
By contrast, a startup with outside capital, whether through venture investment, lots of credit cards and dreams, or family with deep pockets, can grow much faster because expenditures don’t have to be directly tied to sales. Each approach has risks, but generally speaking, these are the two paths from great idea in the garage to top floor of that fancy skyscraper downtown.
Except the addition of the American Express Blue Business Plus card actually offers a third alternative with its zero interest payments for the first 15 months you have the card, generous 2x points system (up to $50K per year, at which point it drops down to $1 = 1 point), and the ability for card holders to spend more than their limit if a crisis or similar situation arises. How does that help you grow faster than a straight “organic” model?
Let me illustrate with my own business as an example. We have a ton of computers in the office for testing and review purposes. So many that it’s easy to forget the basics of any new device brought into the trusted world of the office network: antivirus software. These apps are pretty expensive if you buy them one by one, but invest upfront and you can get a five-seat, twenty-seat or even hundred seat license for a surprisingly small increment.
With yet another computer arriving – and us installing Windows 10 Early Access onto a virtual machine too – I decided that instead of ignoring the problem and hoping it’d just be okay or buying additional licenses one by one, it made more sense to buy a small business license.
Rather than immediately worry about whether we had access to the cash required for this transaction (a few hundred dollars, in this case) it was a no-brainer to pay for it with the AmEx Blue Business Plus card. Fiscally speaking, this meant we could easily spread payments for the more expensive software license out across a few months without paying any additional money, could have it push up above our credit limit without worrying about the transaction failing (note: if you do exceed your limit, you’ll have to pay the excess the very next billing cycle) and pull in a nice little bonus with points too.
Turns out that we could use a faster new file server in the office too, now that I think about it. Another transaction that could be a smart upgrade for our business and not one where waiting until we hit a specific revenue target is going to make sense: infrastructure is the lifeblood of a smoothly running company, so those sort of investments should never wait too long.
And that’s it. AmEx not only offers up a darn useful business credit card, but the company’s got your back too, helping you grow your business at whatever speed you want, whether you want to stroll along and grow organically, rocket into the stratosphere with big bucks and big transactions or jog along that middle ground of really utilizing everything that makes the Blue Business Plus such a cool addition to your business financial picture.
Disclosure: This post was sponsored by American Express. All opinions are my own, however.