I was wondering could you share your experience with getting a small business loan to get started. What would you do differently if you had to do it all over again? How long did the whole process from filing till open your store take?

I took a chance and called my bank last night and I always thought you had to have your own money to invest and they would loan you the balance. To my surprise she said not in all cases and amounts requested. According to this banker she said my credit score & history would be used to determine the loan. Is this really the case?

I live in a non home bake state and want to be legal as well as my own boss.

I do not own my a business and have been tossing the idea around as well...I don't know how to do it...but my husband and I looked into different businesses several years ago and in one of the business magazines we saw different grants that were out there...I don't know where to begin but I do remember that the government has grants available for bakeries and if I decide to open my business that is where I would begin first....if I come across the magazine I will give more info later but I do remember that there was quite a bit of money available to bakeries that was not used the year we were looking...It is worth a shot! There are also sites for state auctions for ovens and other odds and ends that state buildings are replacing....(my cousin was telling me about this last week) I am sure someone that currently owns may be able to reply to help all of us out here.....GOOD LUCK!

ok having gone through this business loans are a pain in the butt. Your best bet is to go talk to someone in your local SBA (Small Business Adminstration) office and see about any grants that might be available. http://www.sba.gov/ Some towns/counties will offer grants if you promise to employ x amount of people, usully from some sort of economic development org. You will need to write up a formal business plan to present it to the bank. I would storngly suggest Business Plan Pro (a software template system for writing business plans that costs about $99). You need to keep in mind, banks for the most part will no longer base loan on good faith estimates. Meaning you can tell the bank all day long that you will have 2 to 3 $500-600 wedding cakes booked every weekend but unless you can prove that with contracts and tax statements they are only going to loan you what you are worth. So if you say you want to go buy a $7000 display cooler, they are only going to loan you $7000. This is the probelm we ran into, we bought form folks who did not claim everything but rather took as many deductions as they could, great for them, bad for us becasue we couldn't prove to the bank what it is actually worth. If you own a home you might find it to be easier and less restricive to take an equity loan out to fund your biz, but then you are running into a whole new slew of issues and red tape.
I hope this helps please let me know if you have any questions.