The world of funding doesn't have any hard and fast rules, and you will need to understand what each funder is particularly looking for. But right at the beginning, if you've got a business idea, most likely it's something that you're going to have to fund yourself and that's, essentially, where you're bootstrapping.

The difference between a start-up and an SMME is the nature of the business and, often, the business model. An SME or SMME is a small, micro and medium-sized enterprise. The definitions vary but in South Africa that usually speaks to an entity that is generating between nought and R10 million at the first hurdle. And then, according to different departments and codes, you become a large company once you hit R50 million turnover per year.

Bootstrapping is really important because if you then decide to go to an external funder, it provides you with evidence that shows how much you are committed to and believe in a potential idea.

I think that the world of grants and government funding is changing a lot, so it's good to keep your eye on what's happening. What we're seeing is that there are a lot of international grants and a lot of international funding opportunities.

Crowdfunding is a relatively new funding source and I think it can be very successful, especially if you've got a product or service that appeals to an individual consumer. Crowdfunding could be debt or equity-based, so that's something that's important to note. Or it could even be grant-based.

Seeds and series funding, let's look at where these terms come from. This is US terminology that has been adopted by many entrepreneurial ecosystems and funders in Africa. What it actually means, series A, series B, C - those actually refer to the type of funders on your cap table.

Banks will typically provide an entrepreneur or small business owner with debt options and this speaks to your risk appetite. So, as an entrepreneur, if you want to take up debt options, you need to have the risk appetite and also think about, practically, could you service that debt if the business couldn't?

Angel investment is typically raising funding, normally equity funding but it could be debt funding which will hopefully convert into equity funding for a share of your business from either a wealthy individual or a group of individuals.

I think the line between venture capital and private equity is blurring. But private equity is an asset class that is often a lot broader, whereas venture capital funds tend to be slightly narrower in the types of businesses that they do invest in.

I think there are some fundamental questions that you as an entrepreneur need to ask yourself when you raising funding. The first is, what do you want to do with the funding? Why are you raising the money?