If you are readying the launch of a startup, you might have a lot of confidence in that company’s ability to amass major financial returns in the long run. However, you need to get that business off the ground before those returns can start rolling in – and this calls for early expenditure on your part.
You might to able to dip into personal savings, as implied by Entrepreneur – but what if you are still left with a funding shortfall? Here are ways that you can jump hurdles to obtaining a startup loan for a company:
Use a business credit card to build your credit.
If this is your first startup, then trying to get a business loan to fund its development could be especially testing. This is because any bank to which you turn will not be able to look at your business history as a means of assessing how likely capable you would be of repaying the loan.
Still, to start with, you could opt to take out a business credit card. This works similarly to a personal credit card in that it gives you revolving credit with which you can play. Your access to capital would be unhindered as long as you don’t use the card to make a purchase worth more than the maximum credit limit provided by the lender.
In regularly using this card while making timely repayments and keeping the balance to a minimum, you can improve your business credit. In doing so, you can better position yourself to obtain other financing products the terms of which would be more favourable to your business.
Thoroughly analyse the market.
Once you have developed significant credit, you will have a formidable weapon which you can wield in the battle to obtain a startup loan. Still, it remains far from the only weapon that you will need in your arsenal, so to say. You will also need a thorough understanding of your startup’s market and industry, as The Balance explains. An intricate analysis of both should be in your business plan.
That’s the same business plan that you should show the bank from which you seek a loan. In this plan, you should also clarify the amount of market share that you anticipate your business being capable of capturing and the results of this success, should it be achieved, in currency.
You ought to also, using similar companies as a yardstick, calculate the projected income, expense and cash flow for your business. A sufficiently favourable cashflow could help give the bank faith that your business will indeed enable you to make repayments on the loan that you seek.
Clarify exactly how the loan will be spent.
If you have drawn up estimates of how much money your company will need, you might want to redo those estimates, as they may not be precise enough to sway a bank into handing over that loan. You should be as exact as possible with those estimates.
You might be heartened to learn that many novice businesspeople significantly overestimate how much funding their business really requires. However, you still have to show the bank why you need a specific amount of money for each particular purchase you anticipate making for your firm.
Expenses for which you should account include those of taking out insurance. You might find that, for your particular type of business, some forms of insurance are not merely a good idea, but actually legally mandatory. Insurance can be expensive, too; however, for your benefit, a broker like Be Wiser Business Insurance can compare various policies to find one that is relatively good value.
