By William Lieberman, member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization New York and founder and CEO of The CEO’s Right Hand, Inc. In the first part of this blog, William shares how to assess your needs for capital and explains potential sources for raising it. In part two, he explores the characteristics of debt and equity investments, ways to figure out which might work best for you and your business, and the importance of investor “fit.”

The need for capital never ends. As an entrepreneur, you might have started building your business via bootstrapping, but now find that you’ve reached a point that in order to continue to expand and scale up, seeking outside capital seems to make sense. Securing capital for the next phase of your company is important and can be a big decision. As such, it will require you to have a thorough understanding of various aspects of your business.

Consider these key points to assess your capital needs.