Gary Vaynerchuk, an entrepreneur and motivational speaker, says in a rare expletive-free soundbite, “Your dreams don’t have to be ‘big;’ they have to be yours.”

Being an entrepreneur is about following your business dreams. But before you set out on your next venture, you need to take a good, hard look at your financial picture and assess whether you’re ready to go. Are you buried under a mountain of high-interest credit card debt? If so, you may want to jettison some of this baggage before you go into startup mode.

Debt Can Hurt Your Funding Opportunities

One of the main ways for entrepreneurs to fund a business is through bootstrapping. We’re not talking about Jeff Bezos today; we’re talking about Jeff Bezos in the 1990s, working out of his garage. Bootstrapping can be insanely difficult to do if you are already carrying debt from your personal finances or previous projects. Also, you’ll have more money to invest if you’re debt-free.

If you plan to secure funding through outside investors, they may want to see your financials. You stand to lose the opportunity to take on investor support if you are bogged down by existing debt.

Credit Cards: The Pitfalls

Credit cards can be good for entrepreneurs, but they can also cause trouble.

First, the good: Credit card rewards are one of the major perks of any small business owner. If you put all of your monthly transactions onto a credit card–and pay off the balance each month–you can rack up all kinds of travel points and other rewards. Not only that, but a credit card can help with auto-billing so that you don’t have to worry about overdrafts.

Now, the bad: Interest rates are the big killer. If you’re not paying off your balance every month, you start to accrue interest at a very high rate. Over time, this can build and build until you find that you’re only able to make payments on the interest. But a debt consolidation company like Polo Funding can help you get away from insurmountable monthly payments.

This leads to the question: Should you get rid of all credit cards? The answer for many entrepreneurs is: probably not. As mentioned above, credit cards can be highly useful in certain business scenarios. Again, avoid carrying over a balance. Use credit cards transactionally only.

How to Crush Your Existing Debt

There are all kinds of ways to eliminate debt. Many of them take a great deal of time and effort. Take the beans-and-rice method, for example. This method has you start eating beans and rice for dinner every night. The idea isn’t to bore you to death, but to have you stop spending money on going out to eat and all of the other kinds of things that add up to keep you in debt such as salon visits, streaming subscription services, happy hours, gym memberships, and the like. Instead, you would borrow books and movies from the local public library, take a break from drinking, exercise at home, and so on.

A more appealing method is a debt consolidation loan. Here, a funding company like Polo Funding helps you break free from those monthly payments that do little to make any headway. The consolidation loan they provide pays off your cards and leaves you with a single monthly payment at a low-interest rate. You can really save money and time getting out of debt this way, and maybe you don’t have to eat beans and rice for every meal. (By the way, please note that this is not an article on nutritional advice.)

Polo Funding: Are They Worth It?

The real question is: Do you want to get out of debt faster and for less money so that you can launch a new business? If you ask yourself this question and come back with an answer of yes, Polo Funding is absolutely worth it. They’ll work with the debt situation you’ve found yourself in, and they’ll give you a chance to get back onto your entrepreneurial path.

And then, once you’ve minimized–or even eliminated–your existing debt, you’ll have the freedom to pursue your next business venture with all of your time, energy, and resources. You won’t be worried about the old debt hanging over your head. While you don’t need to be 100% debt-free to be an entrepreneur, it can be extraordinarily helpful to uncomplicate your finances before you launch a new business.