Small Business Loans

Bossmanbbq said:

In my extensive research I have found that many of the so called grants available to business are near impossible to get and for those who do the process can take weeks, months or years.

Long and short unless I'm missing something, it seems the best way to go about it is to either use your personal credit cards carefully or use equity in your home to finance your business.

Any other ideas or have I hit the nail on the head :-o just been frustrating but I will find a creative way to do this! I'm looking to get my trailer, bigger smoker preferably on the trailer and a vehicle to tow it with used preferrably for now.

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Thats the way I did it to get going and now I am working at getting grants to pay them off. It's a journey and I will give the ins and outs once the process is done.

Bossman,

Just out of curiosity. Is there anyway you can work smaller events for a period of time and build up some capital to help with healthy down payments or out right payoffs? Having more than a note or two scares me a little.

However, if you have the demand to cover the loans, I too would be tempted to borrow to get bigger rigs and a smoker

Bossmanbbq said:

In my extensive research I have found that many of the so called grants available to business are near impossible to get and for those who do the process can take weeks, months or years.

Long and short unless I'm missing something, it seems the best way to go about it is to either use your personal credit cards carefully or use equity in your home to finance your business.

Any other ideas or have I hit the nail on the head :-o just been frustrating but I will find a creative way to do this! I'm looking to get my trailer, bigger smoker preferably on the trailer and a vehicle to tow it with used preferrably for now.

Click to expand...

Couple thoughts...
Are women business owners able to tap into funds more easily? You might set the business up in your wife's name...you will probably eventually want to go with an LLC.

Debt will kill you...pay cash for a used Chevy cargo van heavy enough to handle a trailer...resale/trade-in on larger vehicles are at an all-time low. You can always get a cheap Maaco paint job to dress it up (professional image). Look on Ebay for cheap custom magnetic signs. You could use several magnets on each side so you are advertising your business as you roll down the road. When you park it in your driveway you could take off the magnets if you need to worry about the neighbors.

Be wary of the going BIG before it makes financial sense to do so...you'll smile more with less debt load.

the phrase buy it and they will come doesn't apply here. do you have a business plan? if you do see if it's scalable? if you don't hit the library and put even a small one together. now is not the time. to borrow money.

I have been in commericial lending for 14 year, starting out in SBA lending. For a start up, the SBA is the best and in most cases the only loan out there.

But as my Chief Credit officer told me, It is a LOAN not a Grant. Meaning we underwrite to have the client pay us back. Remember, banking is a dumb business we get non of the up side if the business takes off just the spread on the loan and we take 100% of the downside if it fails. And a food business fails a lot.

If you have equity in the house that is the cheapest loan for business there is, use it.

An SBA loan will require you to pledge you house anyway. However, if the equity is not sufficient for the dollar amount you are looking for then go the SBA route.

Go prepared, get a business plan together, with projections on a month to month basis, for at least the first year. Good detail is important, but I full blown powerpoint slide show is overboard.

In many cities there are free or low cost help to get small business open, look for SCORE (Service Corp of Retired Execs) to help with business plans and help you do a reality check on the viability of the plan.

Most of all, good luck. I give anyone credit that ventures off to start their own business.