u/Jackfromupmetrics

applying for an SBA loan next month and i've had this business plan template open for three weeks. i have two pages done. JUST Two.

friend told me to just hire someone to write it. so i'm seriously considering it.

but is that actually okay? because it feels like paying someone to write your college essay. the bank is going to sit across from me, hand me this plan, and assume i wrote every word of it. and look, i know my business. i just can't get it out of my head and onto paper in a way that doesn't sound like garbage.

so is this a normal thing people do or is it genuinely sketchy? because nobody talks about this. everyone acts like you're supposed to just figure it out. has anyone here actually hired someone to write their business plan? did it work out or did it blow up in your face?

just want a straight answer before i spend money on something that might get my application thrown out.

They reject and move on. Banks see hundreds of applications, a weak plan doesn't get you flagged in any system.

The one exception is if you go back to the same bank, quickly, with roughly the same numbers. That's not a blacklist but the loan officer remembers, and it doesn't help you.

Where it actually matters is community banks and credit unions. Those relationships are smaller and longer. A sloppy plan there can make the next conversation harder, not because of any formal record but because it's the same people.

Big banks it's mostly just a no. Your credit history and collateral are doing most of the work anyway. The plan is context, not the deciding factor most founders think it is.

So the short answer is no, but going back to the same place without fixing the actual problems in the plan is where people hurt themselves.

I recently went through the process of securing an SBA loan, and because of ADHD, I ended up doing an exhausting amount of research into requirements and which applications get approved.

Even after the reading lots of articles and bank's websites, i am not sure and i want to know why you guys actually took the loan?

Was it working capital? Equipment purchase? Land purchase? Business expansion? Starting a business? What was it? TIA.

no. and as a business plan software company i'll be the first to tell you that.

if you're going for a merchant cash advance, equipment financing, or invoice factoring, most of those don't ask for one. online alternative lenders largely skip it too, they just connect to your bank account and look at your cash flow directly.

but here's the thing nobody tells you. the loans that skip the business plan are also the ones that charge you the most. alternative lenders and MCAs can run rates that make SBA loans look like a gift. you're trading paperwork for cost.

the loans with the best terms, lowest rates, and longest repayment windows, basically anything SBA backed or from a traditional bank, those almost always want a business plan. not because they love reading them, but because it tells them you've actually stress tested your own numbers.

so the real answer is: depends what you're borrowing and from who. if you need $20k fast and you have revenue, you can probably skip it. if you're raising $200k to open something from scratch, you're going to need one anyway, and you'll want one for yourself before you do.

Short answer yes. But its harder than you would even imagine. just got approved for $280k to open my first restaurant. didn't have any business revenue history, nothing to show for since it was startup. I have been a chef for 11 years though.

I got turned down by two banks before the mentor from SBDC told me to stop going to big banks and find an SBA preferred lender. He helped me with my business plan too and allowed me to use their subscription of Upmetrics. that was the actual turning point. community bank, they knew the program inside out and didn't treat a restaurant startup like an impossible idea.

what PLP cared about most was my years in the industry, personal credit and personal guarantee. that was basically my track record in their eyes since i had no business history. the other thing was putting 20% down, for a startup they want that otherwise there would be nothing for them to take the risk.

Even if i thought that my projections were perfect, they pushed back on my year one numbers and i had to revise them. if your numbers look like a fantasy they WILL notice.

It took about 10 weeks from first meeting to approval and it felt like forever but i guess it was worth it.

Went through the SBA loan process last year. short answer is the underwriter reads the financials, like actually reads them, they came back asking me to explain a dip in my projected cash flow in month 4. that was a real conversation.

everything else though, the market analysis, competitor research, all that stuff i spent weeks on, nobody asked a single question about any of it. maybe they read it or not i don't know but i think they only care about financials and mostly cashflow.

the loan officer meeting is basically them figuring out if you seem like a real person who knows their business. they asked me how long i'd been in the industry, what my plan was if things slowed down, just stuff like that.

so i guess the answer is, your financials get read closely, the rest of it is mostly just showing you did your homework or you're serious about the business. maybe it's only true for brick and mortar businesses.

They only care about financials since it decides whether the business can pay back the loan or not.

Someone reached out to me last week. he runs a small cleaning business, been trying to get SBA financing for 6 weeks and he just found out he can get a $45k personal loan quickly with his credit score. his actual need is $35k. So before buying Upmetrics, he asked us if he should just do it.

What i told him was to get a personal loan even though it wouldn't require business plan and we will definitely lose that customer.

I said "at your stage your business credit doesn't exist yet anyway, and most SBA loans at this size still require a personal guarantee. Also the 6 weeks you're losing to paperwork is more costly than any rate difference on $35k."

he got the loan. business is moving.

As a marketer, I thought of convincing him to get a business loan so that he would buy the software. But what's the point. He could have gotten that advice somewhere else and would have lost trust in us. We didn't lose that customer because in the future, if he plans to get a business loan, I am 100% sure he will buy Upmetrics.

took an SBA loan 3 months ago, $180k to open my diner. business is doing okay honestly, not amazing but nothing is on fire either so that's not the main issue.

but i cannot stop thinking about the loan like it just stuck in my mind and my mind goes there frequently. i'll be doing something completely normal and then all of a sudden i remember i owe the bank $180,000 and my stomach does something weird.

my wife doesn't really know how bad it is mentally. i don't bring it up because what's the point.

has anyone else felt this way after taking a big loan? does it ever just become normal background noise or is this just my life now??

took an SBA loan 3 months ago, $180k to open my diner. business is doing okay honestly, not amazing but nothing is on fire either so that's not the main issue.

but i cannot stop thinking about the loan like it just stuck in my mind and my mind goes there frequently. i'll be doing something completely normal and then all of a sudden i remember i owe the bank $180,000 and my stomach does something weird.

my wife doesn't really know how bad it is mentally. i don't bring it up because what's the point.

has anyone else felt this way after taking a big loan? does it ever just become normal background noise or is this just my life now??

ok so i know this sounds dramatic but bear with me.

i had this idea last year. spent months on it. built the whole thing, got a decent looking website, even ran some ads. launched it and basically heard nothing. like 3 signups and two of them were my cousins lol

and the worst part? when i went back and talked to people AFTER the launch, almost everyone said "oh yeah i wouldn't actually pay for that." but before? same people were like "omg you should totally build this."

so the thing i learned and i genuinely think this is the most underrated advice in the startup world is to ask people for money BEFORE you build anything. not like a lot. could be 10 dollars. could just be a stripe link with a preorder. doesn't matter the amount honestly.

because here's what happens. when its free or hypothetical, everyone says yes. your idea sounds great, they'd love to use it, totally. but the second you say "hey i'm taking pre-orders, $29 to get early access", that's when you find out if it's real or not. most people just go quiet. and that silence is the most valuable data you'll ever get.

i know it feels weird to charge for something that doesn't exist yet. i thought it was almost scammy the first time i heard it. but its not. you're just testing if the problem is painful enough that someone will actually do something about it. if they wont pay $20 they definitely wont rearrange their workflow around your product.

anyway. learned this the hard way so hopefully someone here doesnt have to. would've saved me a lot of time and honestly a lot of money too

curious if anyone else has tried this approach or had a similar experience

I see founders struggle with this a lot. You are putting together a plan for a startup (let's use food and beverage as an example) and you know there are real, glaring risks staring you in the face. Supply chain issues. Razor-thin margins.

The natural instinct is to sweep these under the rug. You worry that putting them on paper is just going to scare investors off.

Include them.

Investors and lenders already know the risks in your industry. If you don't mention them, it looks like you haven't done your homework or you are trying to hide something.

The trick is how you frame it. What you want to do is mention the risk and then immediately explain how you are managing it.

If you highlight potential supply chain disruptions, immediately follow it up with your strategy for securing backup vendors.

That actually builds confidence. It shows you've thought it through like a realistic operator, rather than just hoping problems won't happen.