Category
Growth & Use of Funds
Borrowing to survive and borrowing to grow are different decisions, and the second one deserves more scrutiny, not less. A crisis tells you what the money is for. Growth makes you decide, and the difference between a good growth borrow and a bad one usually comes down to arithmetic nobody ran: what one borrowed dollar is expected to return, and when.
This category takes the big growth decisions owners actually face and works through the numbers. Hiring: what a new employee really costs, and a cash flow framework for deciding whether you can carry them through the ramp. A second location: the true all-in cost, including the months of losses before it carries itself. Equipment: cash, financing or lease, and how the useful life of the asset should drive the term of the money. Inventory: when a bulk buy at a discount genuinely beats keeping the cash in the account.
None of this is a recommendation for your specific situation; it is the framework for making your own call with real numbers in front of you. Where financing does make sense for a growth move, we explain which structures typically fit each purpose and what they tend to cost, so that the growth ends up belonging to you rather than to the payment schedule.
All articles in Growth & Use of Funds
Growth & Use of Funds
Buying Equipment: Cash, Financing, or Lease? A Decision Guide
One machine, three ways to pay: what cash really costs your reserve, what financing adds in dollars, when leasing wins, and the three questions that decide.
Growth & Use of Funds
Using Financing to Buy Inventory at a Discount
A supplier dangles a volume discount and the cash is not there. The arithmetic that decides whether financing the buy pays, and the sell-through trap to avoid.
Growth & Use of Funds
Business Funding for Companies With Multiple Locations
Several locations fragment the deposit picture underwriters read. How funders handle multiple entities and accounts, who borrows, and how to present a group.
Growth & Use of Funds
Expanding to a Second Location: What It Really Costs
The complete cost ledger for a second location: buildout, deposits, equipment, staffing, the ramp-up cushion nobody budgets, and a readiness test to run first.
Growth & Use of Funds
Should You Hire or Wait? A Cash Flow Framework for Small Business Owners
A five-number framework for the hiring decision: the fully loaded cost, the return, the ramp months, the reserve to survive them, and the demand evidence.