Let me start this by saying I absolutely love my career. I've been in the radio industry for over 20 years and plan to stay around a lot longer.

I also have dreams though, and it involves doing something I've been doing since I was probably five years old. Something I have an extreme passion for, but have never had the time nor capital to fully devote to it.

101.9 The Bull logo
Get our free mobile app

I want to start my own business dealing with sports cards. Now I know, collecting and messing around with sports cards sounds a little childish on the surface. Most kids collect them, then they get to high school and move on to different things.

See, I never lost the collecting bug. I kept going and going, buying and trading cards to obtain more of my favorites players and team. As I got older, I started to see the business side of the hobby and realized there is a lot of money to be made in it...if you do it right.

I've kicked the idea around for a good decade now, and now that I'm a bit older, I realize there's no time like the present to get the ball rolling on it. So over the last few months, I've started doing a lot of different research on how I can start my own business in Texas.

The first thing I looked into was how to fund a startup business. Now I know there are business loans out there that you can obtain, but they aren't the easiest to get and you have to be sure you can make enough to pay back the monthly payments on the loan.

Well, I couldn't guarantee myself I'd be able to make the money needed right out the gate, as I'm sure most business owners feel. I needed to see if there was a different route to gain some startup money.

I began looking into getting a business grant, which I've found is not the easiest thing to find in Texas. Do they exist? Yes, they do.

As I ran Google search after Google search looking for these grants, I realized I kept coming up empty. They aren't exactly just posted out there to the public it seems. Now, one thing I did find was something from the Texas.gov website where you can go to the SBA (Small Business Administration) office in Lubbock and obtain some things.

There you can get your hands on things such as counseling, federal contracting certificates, and funding. Counseling could be a good thing, but it's the funding I'm after right now. The SBA can connect me to partner organizations and lenders, as well as help me find those small business grants that exist in Texas.

So finding the funding for starting your small business isn't exactly easy. It's not that I'm looking for strictly handouts to get it started, I plan to put my own money into the business as well. We all need help along the way though, whether it's life in general or starting your own business.

Maybe I'll just start a Kickstarter campaign while I continue to research how to obtain a small business grant. Anyone wanna donate? Ha!

LOOK: States With the Most New Small Businesses Per Capita

To find the top 20 states with the most new small businesses per capita, Simply Business analyzed the Census Bureau’s Business Formation Statistics from August 2020 to July 2021.

READ MORE: See 50 remote jobs that can pay well

More From 101.9 The Bull