> You present a plan, someone reads it, you talk it through, clarify a few things and if everyone is happy they give you a loan and you start (or grow) your business with it.
In the US, unless you can put up property like a house or land as collateral, or plan to use the loan to purchase recoverable assets like industrial equipment (I suppose a data center would qualify, but actual computer hardware depreciates faster than banks like), you won't get the loan, even if it's a local bank you're approaching.
In theory a software business could use IP assets as collateral, but that usually doesn't apply to new software businesses.
Getting to the point where a software business could get a business loan from a bank more or less requires bootstrapping.
In the US, unless you can put up property like a house or land as collateral, or plan to use the loan to purchase recoverable assets like industrial equipment (I suppose a data center would qualify, but actual computer hardware depreciates faster than banks like), you won't get the loan, even if it's a local bank you're approaching.
In theory a software business could use IP assets as collateral, but that usually doesn't apply to new software businesses.
Getting to the point where a software business could get a business loan from a bank more or less requires bootstrapping.