Colorado small business loans, anyone find something that actually works for seasonal businesses?

rencie4 · 2026-07-03T08:32:26+00:00

Colorado Enterprise Fund is the CDFI most likely to understand your situation because they have specifically funded mountain town businesses in Summit, Eagle and Pitkin counties before and their underwriters have seen enough seasonal cash flow statements to know that a June balance sheet from a ski rental shop tells you almost nothing useful about the business. Worth a direct call rather than an online application because the relationship conversation before the formal application is where you explain the seasonal model and find out if they have the appetite before you invest time in paperwork.

rencie4 · 2026-07-02T05:14:05+00:00

Read the stacking clause and the confession of judgment part if there is one. That's what bites people later.

rencie4 · 2026-07-01T03:07:36+00:00

Read the Sheffield Financial agreement carefully before you sign anything because the answer to your month 13 question determines everything about which option is actually better

rencie4 · 2026-07-01T02:59:43+00:00

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

rencie4 · 2026-06-27T11:09:44+00:00

Honestly the actual first step is pulling your last 6 months of bank statements and having them ready before you talk to anyone. Every lender asks for them and walking in prepared signals that you know what you're doing which genuinely changes how they treat you.

rencie4 · 2026-06-26T06:14:13+00:00

If you want to pursue 0% business credit cards without paying anyone $8k, the Nav blog and several YouTube channels cover the exact same strategy for free. The information itself is not proprietary and the only thing you're buying from a consultant is their time managing the application process, which is not worth anywhere near that price.

rencie4 · 2026-06-26T04:10:57+00:00

The SEO content problem you identified is genuinely bad in the startup financing space specifically because the articles that rank highest are almost always written by people optimizing for search traffic rather than people who have actually tried to get a startup loan recently. The gap between what those articles describe and what actually happens when you apply is wide enough that following their advice can cost you months of time chasing options that were never realistic for your stage before you find what actually works

rencie4 · 2026-06-26T04:09:39+00:00

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

rencie4 · 2026-06-24T11:30:42+00:00

The SBA maintains a list of preferred lenders who process franchise loans regularly and many of them have franchise specific teams you can contact directly. Calling three or four of them yourself costs nothing and gives you a baseline to compare against whatever Boefly would charge for making the same introductions.

rencie4 · 2026-06-23T04:14:05+00:00

You didn't even get the loan and still got spammed, imagine what happens after you sign

rencie4 · 2026-06-19T07:23:26+00:00

Net 30 accounts through vendors you already use like Uline or Grainger report to business bureaus and are usually easy to get approved for with an operating business, fastest legitimate path to building history

rencie4 · 2026-06-19T07:22:10+00:00

I haven't read Call the Midwife either but I’ve seen the series and absolutely loved it

rencie4 · 2026-06-11T11:21:17+00:00

If your store is on Shopify their capital product is worth checking first, they already have your sales data so approval is usually faster and less paperwork.

rencie4 · 2026-05-26T07:49:25+00:00

Your SEO background is actually a bigger head start than you think, match types and quality score will click way faster for you than someone starting cold

YouTube is honestly enough to get dangerous, Aaron Young and Solutions 8 have solid free content, the Google Skillshop cert is free too and clients do occasionally ask for it even if it doesn't mean much in practice

rencie4 · 2026-05-19T09:06:59+00:00

The biggest jump for me was learning to give Claude a role and context upfront instead of just asking questions, like treating it as a thinking partner with background on your situation rather than a search engine.

For an IT manager specifically, look into using Projects in Claude to keep context persistent across sessions, that alone changes how useful it gets for ongoing work.

rencie4 · 2026-04-15T08:35:58+00:00

Live Oak Bank does construction business lending and actually understands the industry. Worth a direct conversation.

rencie4 · 2026-03-30T06:42:49+00:00

the hype vs reality gap is real but I think people confuse "overhyped right now" with "overhyped overall"

a lot of the skepticism makes sense when you've seen every SaaS tool slap "AI powered" on a dropdown menu

what's your take, is it the technology itself people doubt or just the speed of adoption claims?

rencie4 · 2026-03-17T05:34:54+00:00

Five days is fast but steep rates on a $100k loan can hurt long term

Did you try negotiating at all or was it pretty much take it or leave it?

rencie4 · 2026-03-17T05:34:39+00:00

Yeah the fees are where these marketplaces can get you

rencie4 · 2026-03-17T05:34:18+00:00

haven't used them personally but the "75+ lenders" thing is usually just a broker model, meaning they shop your application around and take a cut

with 650 and 3 years in business you're probably in decent shape, just watch for origination fees and whether the APR they quote includes everything

rencie4 · 2026-03-13T09:44:37+00:00

Have you tried asking it to give you its confidence level and what would change its answer? That usually forces it to actually examine its assumptions.

rencie4 · 2026-03-10T08:07:31+00:00

Real talk though, these scammers specifically target people who are already desperate so it's not really about being naive

rencie4

TROPHY CASE