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Re:Ask HN: Have you taken on debt to fund your startup? by shoo on Saturday February 20, 2021 @06:07PM (#26208916)
In Australia our major commercial banks offer unsecured loans to businesses based upon the business' cash flow. Example eligibility requirements: turnover of at least $75K per year ; have been operating as current registered business for 1 year+ ; you can provide 12 months of business financial data from your accounting software. You'd need to convince the bank that your business is a relatively reliable and sustainable cash generating machine. Example terms: 9% p.a. interest rate, borrow up to $250k, no fees.

Another trick you can do, orthogonal to finance, is the annual-prepay trick. Offer the "sign up for 12 months at a X% discount" plan to customers. If you can get some fraction of customers to pay you for a 1 year subscription in advance at e.g. a 30% discount that might really help the business' cash flow.

Edit: if your SaaS business is the one linked in your profile then since you are not currently offering your customers an annual prepaid plan then you MUST watch Jason Cohen's talk about optimising SaaS cashflow from his 2013 microconf talk "Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business" https://youtu.be/otbnC2zE2rw?t=801

Re:Ask HN: Have you taken on debt to fund your startup? by mritchie712 on Sunday February 21, 2021 @07:48AM (#26213089)
Yes, it is the one in my profile and we currently only offer an annual plan upon request. Definitely worth making it an explicit offer.

The terms from your commercial bank are great. I'm sure they wouldn't lend to a US company, but do you mind sharing the name of the bank?

Re:Ask HN: Have you taken on debt to fund your startup? by shoo on Sunday February 21, 2021 @04:16PM (#26217283)
These terms were from NAB, for reference see https://www.nab.com.au/business/loans-and-finance/business-l...