Business Funding in College Point, Queens

A factory town inside the city

College Point is a working-middle-class neighborhood in northern Queens, bounded by the Whitestone Expressway and Flushing to the south, 138th Street to the east, the East River to the north and Flushing Bay to the west. It is mostly residential and ethnically diverse, with some industrial areas, and it contains two yacht clubs. It takes its name from St. Paul's College, an Episcopalian seminary that closed around 1850. In 1854 the German-American industrialist Conrad Poppenhusen arrived, expanded his hard rubber goods manufacturing there and turned the neighborhood into a factory town; his legacy includes the Poppenhusen Institute.

Light industry and warehouse: what the work looks like

The neighborhood's business angle is light industrial and warehouse operations. These businesses share a profile that differs from retail or restaurants:

1. Space is the largest fixed cost. Warehouse and shop rent is paid monthly whether orders are heavy or light.
2. Equipment is capital-intensive. Forklifts, racking, machinery, packaging lines and delivery vehicles are expensive and depreciate with use.
3. Customers are other businesses. Wholesale, distribution and contract manufacturing customers often pay on terms of thirty days or longer.
4. Payroll runs weekly. Warehouse and production workers are paid on a regular schedule, not when invoices clear.

How the cash gap grows with success

Here is the paradox of a business that sells to other businesses: the better it does, the more cash it needs. A bigger order means more inventory, more labor and a larger receivable.

These numbers are for illustration only and are not our terms or typical results. They show how one large customer can require three times the cash of a small one while producing the same thirty-day delay.

Equipment and capacity

When a warehouse reaches its limit, the choices are to add racking, add a second shift, rent more space or buy equipment that moves goods faster. Each step costs money before it earns money. An owner choosing among them should compare the cost per unit of added capacity and how soon the orders will arrive to fill it.

Smaller operators and sole proprietors

Not every light-industrial business is a large operation. Many are one-owner shops: a fabricator with two employees, a delivery operator with a few vehicles, a small importer working out of a unit. These owners face the same payment delays as larger firms but with less cushion, which is one reason the application is open to sole proprietors and uses bank statements rather than tax returns.

Applying

Funding runs from $25,000 to $5,000,000, funded in as little as 24 hours. The application takes about five minutes with a soft credit pull. We review about three months of business bank statements; no tax returns are required. FICO 500 and above is considered, and sole proprietors can apply. Start here when you are ready.

Owners elsewhere in Queens, such as Jamaica, Astoria, Long Island City and Ridgewood, use the same process.