Two mistakes end funding conversations early, and both happen before anyone looks at your credit. The first is a round number with nothing behind it. Fifty thousand, asked for in a sentence, tells a reviewer you have not costed the thing you want to do. The second is asking for too little, which feels modest and is the more dangerous of the two: you run out two thirds of the way through, with the money spent, the project unfinished, and no realistic way to go back and ask for the rest.

A properly built use of funds page prevents both. It also does something less obvious. The act of costing a project line by line regularly changes the plan, because the costs owners forget are the ones that decide whether it works.

You need the project defined before you can cost it. Not the ambition, the project. Not we want to grow, but we want a second oven and a second van so we can serve 22 more accounts.

Then gather:

• Written quotes for anything you are buying, including delivery and installation
• What permits or inspections the work requires, and what they cost
• How long between spending the money and the new revenue arriving
• Your current monthly fixed costs, so you can cost that waiting period
• Your gross margin, so you can show what the money produces