It Wasn’t One Big Check: Inside a Staged Growth Financing Story
Last week I shared how a $250K loan got an HVAC owner through his slow season after a past bankruptcy had shut most lenders’ doors. What happened next is the part that stuck with me even more. Once stable, he wanted out of the seasonal cycle entirely — Florida HVAC means strong summers and quiet winters, no matter how well you run the business. He already had an electrical division. It just wasn’t big enough to carry the company through the slow months. Growing it meant more trucks, more electricians, real overhead before the revenue caught up. His lender didn’t just approve a lump sum — they staged it. Ten trucks, then twenty, then twenty more, each wave given time to settle before the next arrived. They even timed the purchases to capture a tax deduction on the equipment. The relationship scaled his borrowing capacity 5x over time. The business went from $7M to $23M to $53M, with $70M projected next. What gets me about this one is the sequencing. It wasn’t one big check — it was a partner who kept showing up as the business proved itself, round after round. If your business is working through a similar growth bottleneck, I’m glad to talk through what staged capital planning could look like for you.