Hi ^redacted‌ - nice to meet you. I can speak from a lending perspective and I believe it would be very useful for you: Think of it as four lenses. Each one shows you something the others miss. 1. The 5 C's of Credit (the lender's lens) This is how SBA lenders actually size up a deal. Five simple things: Character – Does the owner have a clean track record and good credit? Capacity – Does the business make enough cash to pay the loan? Capital – How much money is the buyer putting in? Collateral – What assets back the loan if things go wrong? Conditions – What is happening in the industry and economy around it? If you only learn one framework, learn this one. It is the foundation of every SBA acquisition. 2. Cash flow (the most important part) A bank's main question is simple: does the business make enough money to pay the loan back, with room to spare? That extra room is called DSCR. It just means how much cash the business earns for every $1 of loan payment. The numbers to know: 1.15x is the SBA minimum. It means $1.15 of cash for every $1 of payment. This is the lowest SBA allows. But banks want more. Most will not do a deal under 1.25x. Cautious banks want 1.45x to 1.5x. So the SBA floor gets you in the door. The bank's higher number is what actually gets you the money. Two things that make banks nervous (even with good cash flow): One customer is too big. If a single customer brings in 20% or more of the sales, that is a red flag. If that customer leaves, the business could fall apart. Sales are going down. If revenue dropped from last year, banks get cautious. They want steady or growing sales, not a business that is shrinking. A deal can look fine on cash flow and still get declined because of these two things. Despite this, we have relationships with more aggressive lenders that can get these types of deals done regardless. 3. SWOT (the business up close) Four boxes about the business itself: Strengths – What it does well Weaknesses – Where it is fragile Opportunities – How it could grow Threats – What could hurt it A fast way to see the good and the risky in one picture. 4. Porter's Five Forces (the industry lens) This tells you how easy or hard it is to make money in that field. Five pressures: Competitors already in the market New businesses that could enter How much power customers have How much power suppliers have Substitute products that could replace it How they fit together 5 C's + cash flow = Is this a fundable business? SWOT = The business up close. Porter's Five Forces = The world around it. Run all four and you have your 360-degree view. We have a lot of experience financing various companies via the SBA. If you ever need help reviewing a deal, I am happy to help. We work with all the major SBA lenders. The bank pays us after your loan closes, so this is a 100% free service for you. You can email me directly at redacted or schedule a meeting with me: redacted. Look forward to chatting!