Selling 100-Year-Old Oriental Rugs to Raise Capital

In an interview given to the Boston Globe for the article "From day trades to magic acts, bold moves bring in capital" (published August 28, 2005), Alice Cunningham talked about how she sold a triplex she owned in Berkeley, Calif., to start Olympic Hot Tub Co. in Seattle in 1977. "We had no choice; no one would lend us money," she says. But that wasn't the end of Cunningham's financial contributions to starting and growing the company, now one of the nation's largest sellers of hot tubs. Several years later she sold her collection of 100-year-old Oriental rugs to raise capital. As the Boston Globe article suggested, virtually all businesses tap the owner's money to get started or to keep the doors open in tight times. Once those sources are tapped out, the entrepreneur looks around for other resources.

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