​Those who got a large business loan or raised, and it worked or failed, what happened after, and what circumstances made you take the leap?

I’m at a critical point in my business right now where I’ve been building my foundation for about 5 years. I have a really strong foundation, fairly scaleable model, and decent margins (30-40%). I have multiple avenues for income and reduced risk if we grow, multiple ways to generate new sales, and some major growth opportunities with global clients we are starting to deal with (although it’s costing us a lot early on). Currently at 7 part time team members, and cash is coming in but going out much faster due to growth, proving ourselves to some major global clients and a few other new team members/softwares we are investing in to support our stability. For context I run a advertising agency that also does video production services.

My current thought process, is that a business loan right now, for around 70% of the annual revenue we generate, could completely explode the business since we don’t really have any working capital ( because I’ve re invested every cent and more in to learning and back in the business), but I’m kind of scared to take the leap. The amount of clients we are losing due to being under-resourced alone is significant (and another example on how if we just invested in more team we’d instantly unlock more sales), and feel that a massive hit of working capital would be transformative. The thing I’m fearful of, is if it doesn’t work, I could dig myself a major hole that would take years to climb out of, and it could screw my mid 20’s up. Raising capital on the other hand, would be easy as we’ve had multiple offers for investment, but losing 20% of the business this early before it’s even a mature company I feel could be way more more costly since my goal is to be a massive company one day.

Those of you who have been in a similar situation, where maybe you were operating for a few years and got to a point where you wanted to scale (and I know it’s impossible to tell exactly what’s right for me because everyones situation is unique), what happened after you took a big raise or loan leap at a time when it made sense? And what contributed to it going well or bad after? Also what advice would you give yourself if you were at that point again?

I feel that I’ve learned so much over the last few years, and invested so much in learning that I’m confident in my ability to not f* it up, especially due to us having multiple avenues to generate sales if things ever slow down in one area of the business.. (but at the same time, I’m conscious that almost everyone who takes on a large amount of capital risk never thinks they’ll fail so I’m in a weird confusing point where I kinda have to make a decision urgently).

Thanks Reddit, I don’t really know who to ask this to in my personal life, so I appreciate any responses