Content area
Full Text
COMPANYI DESTRUCTOID
Destructoid is a popular and growing San Francisco-based gaming blog owned by content publisher ModernMethod. The company was founded in 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, who is also the current CEO. Destructoid features a variety of content for gamers, including news, reviews, blogs, and videos, as well as a buy/sell area for its users.
www.destructoid.com
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Despite the site's success, Destructoid needed to find a way to get revenue and get it fast, since it normally takes advertisers - its primary source of income - weeks to pay bills. Gonzalez had no luck when he turned to the banks. "When I walk into a bank and say, ? need a small-business loan,' they say to me, 'Well you don't have a house, you don't have a car; you have this video game thing on the internet that we don't understand. You're not worth anything - I'd rather give a loan to a guy with a food truck than your company.'"
VENDOR OF CHOICE: FASTPAY PARTNERS, LLC
Officially launched in October 2011, FastPay calls itself "the first-of-its-kind lending solution specifically for digital media businesses." FastPay advances payments to businesses "at a small discount." FastPay, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., not only closes a company's outstanding invoices quickly but also aims to make it a quick and easy process.
www.gofastpay.com
THE PROBLEM IN-DEPTH
Destructoid began as a labor of love. "I think I will continue to have cash flow problems for the next ... who knows?" says Gonzalez with a laugh. "We built the company very organically. It started as a hobby, primarily volunteer run ... we had four people, now we have 10 people."
With a growing company, more capital is always needed, says Gonzalez. "There's never enough resources, and the checks never come fast enough for our ambitions," he explains. This is an especially tough challenge because Destructoid competes with industry giants - and money is no issue for them. "These are very, very well -funded media companies that have been doing it forever. So we always want better equipment and more people, and we want to travel, and we have a team of 100...