The Small Business Adminstration

I alluded to the Small Business Administration (SBA) when I talked about the Small Business Development Centers yesterday. While the SBDC provide information on the local and state level, the SBA provides small businesses with information on a more national level.  It's more impersonal that the SBDC but still provides a wealth of current information. You can get an idea of what I mean if you look at the list of forms offered on the SBA site.  Or use their Business Loans, Grants and Financing Results checklist in order to search for funding. 

In my case I can mark the following boxes; I'm looking for financing to start my business, I will eventually want to ship overseas, I'm a woman, I'm in a rural area, I plan to manufacture a product (but through existing manufacturers), and I live in Oregon.  At the bottom of my checklist there were 23 loan programs, 3 seed and venture capital programs, and 7 potential grants.  Although at closer examination many simply do not apply to my potential business.  Of the 7 potential grants, six don't apply..  The three seed and venture capital options do look interesting.  Of the 23 loan programs it's a real mixed bag, there's two that address the exporting I want to eventually do, 12 for mostly small loans, and one that I expect won't apply once I examine the requirements more closely.  So there are only 14 loan programs that might apply to my situation now and in the future.

In the workshop I attended at SBDC they mentioned a few local grants that might be more obtainable for me, simply because there will be less competition (there's only 64,000 people in our county).  Also, grants would be more advantageous because they don't have to be paid back, which certainly helps the bottom line for a new business. 

In any case I really need to work on my business plan because any application for funding is going to require that I have one.  The SBA provides brief information (there are entire books on how to write a business plan) on the essential parts of a good business plan.  SBDC offers support and mentors to help you write yours and since I'm already struggling with mine I'm going to have to call and ask for help soon.