If you have flexible ethics Are you the CEO? The Chief Elephant Officer? That’s no small task. You are the captain of a ship, and its survival is your responsibility. If you run out of money, you lose, and then you will be poor and move back into your parents house. SAD! Do you want to save your startup money? Of course you do. These 10 tips will help you preserve your livelihood. 1. Demand your money back after hotel stays Traveling for business? I bet you have to stay somewhere. Hotels are expensive! And they always suck. You’ll invariably pay at least 100 bucks for a room where the water drips out of the shower head and puddles into the center of the floor. There won’t be a fridge, and the bottled water will have been opened and secretly refilled with tap. You can find something to complain about. Demand your money back the next morning, 2. Mislead employees on their salary Need employees? Don’t have enough money to pay them? Tough situation! Thankfully there are ways around this situation. Promise your employees an unaffordable amount of money, and then pay them an affordable amount. Disaster averted! 3. Break laws and skirt labor regulations Aren’t laws so annoying? Are regulations costing you too much? Bleh! Don’t pay for those permits, refuse to provide healthcare options to your employees, and lie to investigators when the law comes knocking. 4. Refuse to pay your taxes Don’t like paying money? Don’t like the government? Kill two birds with one stone! 5. Start a GoFundMe for medical bills that don’t exist to fund your startup off of manipulated human compassion. Take advantage of the kindness we mandate to each other due to America’s broken medical system and use it to keep your startup floundering for those last gasps of air! 6. Print fake coupons for 90% off and throw a fit when stores refuse to honor them An oldie but a goodie. If the store didn’t want you to use that coupon, why did they let you print it in the first place? Argue ferociously until it’s easier for them to give you that discount than it is to tell you no. 7. Print money The government does it. Why can’t you? Paper only costs a few cents a sheet, but with some handiwork, you can easily convert one sheet into several hundred dollars. Who can argue with margins like that? 8. Start a cult and convince your followers to give you money on a recurring basis to keep your startup going Startups are the ultimate test of one’s character. If you aren’t willing to start a cult, can you really say you’re worthy of being a startup founder? Clearly not. Convince your followers that they will be saved only if they assist you in reaching your IPO. what could go wrong? 9. Use credit cards and don’t pay them back Credit cards are like free money! Grow your credit, buy stuff, and don’t pay it back. This will save you heaps. 10. Raise another round of funding Are things floundering? Are you facing systemic issues that will only fester and grow over time? Do you want to sustain your exuberance on someone else’s dime? Raise another round of capital and temporarily veil your startup’s problems while simultaneously intensifying them!
