Straight talk
If we can't help you, we'll say so on the first call.
Most funding partners in our network start looking at a file around here. Under these, an application usually isn't worth your time yet — and we'd rather tell you that than run you through a process that ends in a no.
Why we publish this
Because the alternative is worse for you and, honestly, worse for us. A file that cannot clear a partner's minimums still costs you a credit conversation, a document hunt, and a week of expecting something. It ends in the same no, later, after you have told your bookkeeper it might work out.
Most of this industry does not publish minimums. That is a choice, and the reason for it is that a submitted application has value to whoever collected it whether or not it was ever going to be funded. We do not sell applicant information, so an application we cannot place is worth nothing to us either — which makes saying so early the easy decision rather than a noble one.
These are our published minimums, not a partner's rules
We publish them because they reflect what partners generally look for, and because a merchant deserves to know the shape of the door before walking at it. Each funding partner sets its own criteria, and none of them handed us this list.
Which means the edges are real. A file at five months with exceptional deposits is not automatically dead, and a file at eight months with erratic ones is not automatically alive. If you are close to a line rather than far from it, the call is worth making — that is the situation where a person can tell you something a page cannot.
The things that matter more than people expect
Whether your revenue actually runs through the business account is the one that turns down more otherwise-good files than any other. Deposits into a personal account cannot be verified as business revenue, and no amount of explaining fixes it retroactively — but starting today fixes it in about three months.
Open positions matter too. Existing advances are not disqualifying and we ask about them on the form for a reason: a partner will find them anyway, and a file that disclosed them reads very differently from one that did not.
Not there yet? These are worth your time instead.
Genuinely — these are better options for a business under the minimums, not a polite way of ending the conversation.
SBA microloans and CDFIs
Community development lenders and SBA intermediaries work with younger and smaller businesses, at far lower cost than anything we can place. They move slower and ask for more paperwork, and if you have the weeks, that trade is worth making. Start at sba.gov.
SCORE and your local SBDC
Free mentoring, and help getting your books into the state that makes the next conversation possible. Small Business Development Centers are funded to do exactly this and cost you nothing. If the blocker is that your records are a mess rather than that your business is, this is the highest-value thing on this page.
Your own bank, first
If you have banked somewhere for years, ask them before you ask anyone else. An existing relationship is worth more than most owners assume, and it will always be cheaper than what we can place. We would rather you got a no from them first than never asked.
Come back when the picture changes
Six months of revenue through a business account changes what is possible, and it arrives faster than it sounds. Nothing here is a permanent verdict on your business — it is a description of where the door is today. When you are closer to it, the application takes about two minutes and we will tell you honestly what we see.
Think you're close to the line?
Two minutes, no cost, and we will tell you honestly what we see rather than run you through a process.