P is for the Paycheck Protection Program: Updated Thursday, 4/16/20 @ 4:30 pm EST – It's over, folks.

THE LATEST: Thursday, April 16, 2020

Welp, it's over folks. All $348B of the PPP has been committed, and here are the headlines.

• Ruth's Chris Steak House got $20M, despite being a publicly-traded company with more than 5,000 employees and $468M in 2019 AR.

WTF?? The "rules" of the PPP program explicitly say you must have less than 500 employees.

• Construction businesses received the most aid of any industry, more than the Main Street retail stores that have shut down and become the public face of the COVID-19 recession. Construction firms, meanwhile, have been deemed an essential business in all but six states, allowing most to continue to operate.

Um....we're overfunding construction businesses in the middle of the country (KANSAS??) where COVID-19 has hit the least? That makes zero sense.

There are so many other infuriating data points, and the one I'm trying to get to the bottom of is related to women-owned businesses.

Did you know that women own 40% of all businesses here in the United States? My spidey sense tells me that women-owned businesses did not get 40% of the PPP allocation. Let's find out, shall we?! Interested in being a part of the survey?

Take 10 minutes and fill this out

Final note: IFundWomen did get our PPP Loan, from Chase. I am filling out my own survey as we speak.

------------

APRIL 15, 2020: Meet E-TRAN! It's like a Commodore 54 made love to an Apple 2c and hired pigeons to fill in your PPP application at the SBA.

-----------------

APRIL 9, 2020 @ 9:30 PM EST

Short update tonight, guys. I've been trolling around the lady interwebs and from the sounds of it, there are signs of some money flowing from Bank of America, and now possibly Chase. After badgering my lovely loan officer multiple times per day this week, I finally received a call. Apparently my loan is approved. I'm cautiously optimistic. Cautiously. Obviously the rollout of this thing is a total poop show, but maybe, just maybe, the banks are getting it together. Below is my oh so scintillating vlog on the topic. I'll keep you posted. Happy Good Friday and Happy Passover to all who celebrate!

----------------

TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2020 @ 6:30 pm EST:

Guys, this PPP thing is making me real PO'd. I feel like I'm on the crazy town Ferris wheel and I wanna get off b/c I'm close to puking.

If you've been following this blog post, you will see that I start off with hope. Real hope that we entrepreneurs will get some relief funding to keep our employees, and to claw our way through this great recession.

Welp, today wasn't great. And, I promised you, dear readers, that I would always deliver you the NO-BS take on exactly what's happening with IFundWomen's PPP application, with the hopes that it helps some of you get to where you need to go.

Today's Net-Net:

1. The banks keep changing their ancillary forms and requirements, but when you try to resubmit your paperwork, you can't because it's already been filed.
2. The banks have changed the terms of the loan (it was 0.5% and now it's 1%)
3. The banks are asking people who already applied to apply again and then the systems crash.

I want to be very clear: I do not blame the banks for this. The people working at the banks, the loan officers, are working triple time trying to help business owners the best they can. In my eyes, the TWO LOAN OFFICERS I've been assigned to will be invited to my next wedding.

I promised my team I would not get political so I won't but FUCK....if there is any PSA that comes out of this crisis, it's VOTE IN 2020. Vote for people who are qualified to run a country. Vote for people who don't cut the CDC's budget, and don't poo-poo pandemics when they start and don't throw out $346B "stimulus" packages before readying the banks to deploy the funds. And then don't double down on that promise before dollar one has been loaned out.

HERE'S MY ASK TO MY COMMUNITY: Please comment if you have legitimately received your PPP money in your bank account. I want to know. You are a unicorn. Congrats.

--------------------------

MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2020 @ 9:30 pm EST:

Y'all, good news! I just heard from my homegirls at Ladies Get Paid that Chase has officially opened up their online application, they applied, and....wait for it....they got a response that their application was received! This is a major breakthrough, as it's the first time we have heard that a major bank has a legit, human-less, online application that seems to work. Cross your fingers and toes, we may be moving in the right direction.

In other news, it's been 24 hours and IFundWomen has not heard if our application was accepted, denied, or need more information. I think I can withstand another 24 hours of not hearing anything back before I start to bug my loan officer, who frankly deserves a 2-week vacation in Tahiti at this point, bless her heart.

-------------

MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2020 @ 6:30 am EST:

I received this email from my very nice and patient loan officer at Chase late last night:

"The application submitted."

So, now we wait....

If you have not watched my latest video on my experience applying for the Paycheck Protection Program, please do. It contains important updates to the bill and what you can and cannot use the proceeds for.

----------------

SUNDAY, APRIL 5, 2020 @ 9 PM EST:

I just spent an hour on the phone with Chase trying to get my PPP loan application submitted. To their credit, Chase is the largest SBA lender in the country and does not have an online application to take loans, so the fact that a human (a really lovely, kind human) spent an hour on the phone with me, getting my PPP loan application in order was pretty great. I have to give props to Chase. This is NOT A PAID AD although if this PPP loan comes through, these folks should pay me to promote them.

Here's a video about my experience today.

IN ANY EVENT, HERE ARE THE CHANGES THAT HAVE HAPPENED IN THE LAST 12 HOURS TO THE PPP LOAN:

1. You CANNOT use the proceeds for rent. Major bummer. If you listened to my Masters of Scale episode, you heard me say that you could use the proceeds of the PPP loan on rent, and at the time, this was true. My lovely Chase loan officer said they changed that rule this morning. Good times.
2. On a happier note, you CAN include Federal taxes for each employee in your loan. This is another change that just occurred.
3. As of tonight, and this has been consistent for a few days now, you can apply to have the loan forgiven in as short as 8 weeks from the loan origination (when you get the cash in your account). I asked my loan officer what happens if it takes us 12 or 16 weeks to spend the money and she said "You should be fine to have it forgiven." but TBH, I didn't totally buy it. It doesn't matter - it's cheap money and everyone who is applying for it needs it to keep their people employed, which is the main goal of the bill.

To all of my frustrated entrepreneur friends out there - I'm here for you. For real. I'm happy to pay forward any information I know about the PPP loan. We will have an AMA later this week on IFundWomen, so if you want in on that, go sign up to be a member and you will get a Zoom invite. It's $9 bucks a month, and that money helps us keep so much of our expert coaching FREE for those who truly cannot afford the $9/month membership.

The light in me sees the light in you. Namaste.

---------------------------------

SUNDAY, APRIL 5, 2020 @ 9 AM EST:

First off, if you have not listened to my CARES Act 911 Episode of Masters of Scale, I recommend it. It's actually helpful if you are planning on applying for the PPP.

Ok, so it's Saturday night, at 8 pm, I got an email from a kind woman at Chase, I guess a loan officer, who requested that I fill out the newest SBA document + some additional information that Chase needed. I filled out the forms, had a glass of vino, watched West Wing, and went to bed. I figured I would check over my work (again for the umpteenth time) and submit in the morning.

PERFECT ACTUALLY IS THE ENEMY OF DONE IN THIS CASE.

My biggest challenge so far in applying for the PPP was with my printer and scanner which, as lame as this sounds, is a REQUIREMENT if you are applying for all of these loans. If you want to laugh (or cry), follow me on Instagram and check out my story, because you will get the "Scannergate 2020" blow-by-blow. It's quite something.

It's now 9:30 am and my application for the Paycheck Protection Program is submitted to Chase. Cross your fingers, and let's see how fast the $$ comes.

---------------------------------

SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2020 @ 10 AM EST:

I'm going to be updating this blog post as new information comes in. Thank you to our friends at StreetShares and Mark L. Rockefeller for embracing our "NO-BS" approach to disseminating information.

Net-Net: Your local banks are likely doing "intake forms" to get you, as a "loan lead" into their systems. Be clear, they are not ready to deploy PPP funds yet. The rules and regs keep changing.

Watch this video for the latest:

-----------------------------------------

FRIDAY, APRIL 3 @ 8 AM EST:

Hey folks: Just got word from both Chase (my bank) and a few FinTechs vying for my business that the application process WILL NOT BE READY TODAY, Friday, April 3rd. Stay tuned to this blog post for breaking news on the #PaycheckProtectionProgram. Here is a video I released Friday morning at 8 am. Shout out to Snap's "nude makeup" filter for stepping in as HMU this morning.

-------------------------------------------------

This original blog post was written on Thursday, April 2nd. As you can see, things are changing by the minute.

My people: some free money is coming your way. 

I’m serious, read on.

If you run an SMB, which is fancy speak for small or medium-sized business, you already know that on Friday, March 28, 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act. Like SMB owners everywhere, I jumped into action. 

But my action wasn’t to apply for all of the aid that was becoming available. My action was to learn all I could about the bill to pay forward that knowledge to entrepreneurs at IFundWomen.

So, I lightly “trolled” the internet to find the best source of information. On Friday night, I posted this straightforward graphic on my IG, FB, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Saturday morning, I woke up to find my social inboxes filled with experts, including a random guy named Mark L. Rockefeller.

Being that I was on a quest for the best, most accurate information for my IFundWomen entrepreneurs, I was willing to talk to anyone. And thankfully, Mr. Mark L. Rockefeller was willing to talk to me on Saturday night. He was incredibly humble, generous with his time (thank you to Mark’s family for letting me steal him for an hour on a Saturday night), yet totally confident in his ability to give me honest, real-time information that was accurate. He caveated most statements with “this may change” or “we still aren’t sure,” which gave me comfort that he wasn’t overpromising anything. 

Let me tell you about Mark: Aside from being a Veteran (he served as a captain in the United States Air Force for 7 years), he is a lawyer, and a FinTech founder, living in D.C. Mark read and consulted on the CARES Act before it passed and his company, StreetShares, was already set up to handle the onslaught of loan requests that were to come. StreetShares is one of the front-end technologies that will connect loan seekers to banks. 

BINGO. I FOUND THE PERSON. Mark is close to the legislation, the technology, and the banks. 

Here’s a fun fact I learned from Mark: The banks who are servicing the loans are still TBD!! I learned from Mark that only between 1-2% of brick and mortar banks (think your local Chase or Bank of America) are set up to do online loans. That’s why companies like Kabbage and others have crushed the online lending space all these years—because in the past, you could not apply online at a traditional bank. 

This is probably changing, as traditional banks are going to be accepting PPP Applications.

At a high level, the entities who are eligible for PPP must: 

• Be a business, nonprofit, veterans organization, or tribal business; this includes sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed individuals
• Have been in operation on February 15, 2020
• Have employees for whom the business paid salaries and payroll taxes (this includes full-time and part-time employees, and those employed on any other basis, such as independent contractors, as reported on a Form 1099–MISC)
• Employ fewer than 500 employees (with certain exceptions)

How much do I qualify for? How is the loan amount determined?

• The loan amount will be equal to 2.5 times the average monthly payroll costs during the 1-year period prior to the loan application date of the person or entity applying. The loan is capped at $10 million.
• Only the amounts spent on an allowed purpose during the 8 weeks after loan origination will be forgiven, and any remaining balance of the loan must be repaid according to the loan terms.

To see if your SMB qualifies for the PPP, run, don’t walk, over to StreetShares where there’s a simple to use PPP loan calculator. 

For more info, you can also head to the SBA website.