Sassy's Up Late Again

I sent a snarky email to Bank #1 asking if they were going to get around to contacting me, as it'd been a month and I still hadn't heard from anyone. At that time, the guy who called me said they were being bought out by another bank and they'd lost some people, and things were moving rather slowly because of it. Understandable. But a month?? Anyway, he called again after I emailed, and I met with him today. He was contrite about the time it took, but liked my business plan. Everybody likes my business plan. It's fucking awesome, people. They just don't like my personal financial statement, because I'm worth about $2000. I be po', yo. We had a decent discussion about the plan and what I'm looking for, and I told him I'd been working for a bank, so I was vaguely familiar with the politics of it all. That seemed to spur a little frankness. He basically said he had no idea what the new underwriters' standards are, although it's his impression that they're more conservative than his former underwriters were. In other words, had the merger not happened, he's sure I would have gotten the loan, but now he's not so sure. He confirmed that the SBA requirements would pretty much take care of the collateral problem that the last bank gave me grief over, that it's absolutely NOT necessary to have 100% collateral. He also suggested that I may need to ask for more than the 100,000 I was asking for, to cover expenses rather than rely on short-term or revolving credit for the slower months. And THEN, what was most encouraging was he said that if his bank can't do it, he knows a couple people in the business here in town that are absolutely doing "community lending", and he'll hook me up if they can't do it.

So I'm encouraged. Still a little wounded, but encouraged.