Money · Growth
How to prepare for a funding conversation
The pack a bank, a cooperative, or an investor actually opens — and the three questions the funder will ask that most owners can't answer in the room.
Most first funding conversations end with "send me a plan." What lenders and investors mean by that is different from what most owners send.
They mean four things, in order.
1. Trailing financials. The last 12–24 months of the business — clean, reconciled, believable. Revenue by month. Cost by category. Net position at each month end. If the funder can't trust the past, they will not fund the future.
2. A forecast that's honest about seasonality and risk. Not a hockey-stick chart. A 12-month projection that models what actually happens in your business — the slow months, the input-cost swings, the collection lags. A funder will stress-test it. Stress-test it first.
3. What the money is for, specifically. "Growth" is not an answer. "Working capital to hold thirty days of inventory when the price is favourable, projected to increase gross margin by X percentage points" is an answer. Specificity signals discipline.
4. What you'll do if it doesn't work. Every credible funder wants to hear that you've thought about the downside. Not that you're afraid of it — that you have a plan when the forecast misses.
The three questions in the room. Almost every funder asks: (1) What's your unit economic? (2) What happens if input costs rise 20%? (3) Who's your second-biggest customer? Owners who can answer all three cleanly get taken seriously. Owners who can't, don't.
Inside the Study Desk, Funding Readiness assembles the pack and prepares you for the room. Do not use the Loan-Repayment Estimator on this site as a substitute for a real lender's quote — see that tool's own disclaimer for why.
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