Dirty hands and elbow grease Bricolur Services — complete package

Business plan, the guide to opening it, and the funding path. Generated 2026-10-23T01:20.

Part 1 is the plan. Part 2 is what to actually do. Part 3 is how it gets funded. They are one document on purpose.

Part 1 — The business plan

This plan has no written document yet (research phase only). Run the plan phase first.

Part 2 — The Opening Guide

[ASKED] You are opening in Brattleboro, VT, so the town and the county have a say alongside the state.

1. The order things actually happen in

Not the order they are usually listed in. This is the order that avoids paying for something twice.

Decide the entity — sole proprietor, LLC, or corporation. The plan names the one it assumed; a lender will ask why.
Register the name with VT, and check it is free at the county level too. A state registration does not clear a local one.
Get an EIN from the IRS. Free, online, takes minutes. Do not pay anyone for this.
Open a business bank account in the entity's name. Mixing personal and business money is the single most common reason a small loan is declined.
Licences and permits — this varies by state and by what you sell. The plan lists what it found under Local; where it says [UNKNOWN] it means nobody published it and you have to call.
Insurance before the first customer, not after.
Then the money questions — see the SBA section below.

2. What nobody tells a first-timer

A business plan is not a document you write once. Lenders read the numbers against your bank statements, so the plan has to match what actually happened.
"Pre-revenue" is not a dirty word, but an unexplained number is. Every figure in this package is tagged [SOURCED] [ASKED] [ASSUMED] or [UNKNOWN] — a lender can challenge a tagged assumption. They cannot challenge a hidden one, they just decline.
The SBA does not lend money. It guarantees a loan a bank makes. That is why the bank's own underwriting is the real gate.
Most first applications are declined for paperwork, not for the idea.

3. What to do in the first two weeks

Register the entity and the name.
EIN, then the bank account.
Call the town clerk and ask what licence Dirty hands and elbow grease Bricolur Services needs at this address. Write down the name of who told you.
Open a separate account and put every business expense through it from day one.
Start the record that becomes your projections: what you spent, what came in. The plan's numbers are only as good as this.

Part 3 — The SBA ladder

The SBA does not give you money. It guarantees a loan that a bank or credit union makes, which means the bank's underwriting decides — and the SBA's own paperwork is what most first applications die on.

The ladder, in the order to climb it

Rung	What it is	What it needs from you
0	Personal funds and revenue	Nothing. This is where every business actually starts.
1	Friends, family, a credit card you can clear monthly	Honesty about the risk, ideally in writing.
2	Local bank or credit union, conventional small loan	2 years of returns, a plan, and a reason the number is what it is.
3	SBA 7(a) — the general-purpose guaranteed loan	Same as rung 2 plus SBA forms, a personal guarantee, and collateral or a strong case without it.
4	SBA Microloan — smaller, through a local intermediary	Usually the most forgiving rung. Ask your SBA district office who the intermediaries are.
5	Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI)	Mission lenders. They read the plan, not just the score.

What the bank will ask for

Two to three years of personal tax returns, and business returns if you have them.
A personal financial statement — every asset and every debt.
The business plan, with projections you can defend line by line.
Entity documents, licences, and a lease or a letter of intent.
A personal guarantee. Assume this is required.

[ASSUMED] Program terms, limits and rates change. Nothing here is a quote and nothing here is legal or financial advice. The SBA's own site and your district office are the authority; this is the map, not the territory.