I just signed the final docs for our approved PPP loan. We lost basically all of our revenue overnight at @seedandspark with COVID, and we raised a little bit of emergency funding from existing investors, enough to keep the lights on with 30% pay cuts across the board.

We already pay like a non-profit, not a VC funded startup (because we're not), so that was a huge financial hit for all of us. But we decided to do 30% across the board rather than layoffs, which we didn't know would make us a good candidate for PPP.

That said, the sheer amount of information coming at us as the PPP was forming, changing, and the rules were being written *literally* made me need to shut everything down and hide for a couple days. Sorry if I haven't answered your email, still digging out.

But we also had many investors with really good inside info. I got access to many, many reliable sources of information from jump. And then the sacred sacred @NathalieMolina sent me a link to @Lendio, and the application process was CRAZY simple.

Now, my bank has said they would "put me on a list" of folks they would call when they had more clarity. They never called. I got a call from and actual (really nice!) person from @lendio within 30 minutes (I am not joking) of submitting my application.

We switched from ADP to @JustworksHR for payroll and benefits, but both companies had already prepared the exact docs we needed to apply, so it was actually really easy for me to package everything. If you haven't been using a payroll company, the application is prob a nightmare

A few days later, I received my SBA approval number, and contact from the non-bank SBA lender, Ready Capital. This morning, I got a pretty straightforward docusign contract. Our loan is for $175,000, and I plan to spend 100% of it on payroll.

That's about 4 months of payroll at our reduced rates for 14 people in 5 cities. It makes it possible for us to see if we can deliver enough value in new ways to stay alive as a company. It's a huge relief, and I also see how much had to already be going right for us to get it.

I'm not advertising for @Lendio here, but I will say that the friends I referred to it who used it in the week after PPP went live secured their loans. And friends who went through traditional banks did not.

Because we had so much information, I was primed to apply basically as soon as it opened. I think it opened on a Friday and we applied the following Sunday or Monday (what even is time anymore). All of this to say: time and access to info should NOT have been a factor.

AND the fact that businesses couldn't rely on their banks to actually help them makes me BOIL. Congress needs to get their shit together and get another, bigger batch of cash approved NOW.