Kashu

What would you use your credit card for if you could use it anywhere?

A Houston landscaping company won a $90K municipal contract last spring. They couldn't take it. They had $30K in unused credit on cards. They had no idea it could cover the front-end. The contract went to a competitor with a worse bid and a banker on speed dial. The cards weren't the problem. The vocabulary was.

@ExtraBulled Yes.

@trykashu Can I buy crypto with my business Amex????

CASHMAN

Most businesses are sitting on more capital than they think. The challenge isn't getting more money. It's getting to the money you already have, fast enough to matter.

A bank dictionary, translated: Available credit: money the bank decided you can have but won't tell you how to get. Hold time: the time during which your money becomes their interest. Service fee: payment for the service of having your money. Overdraft protection: a feature where they protect you from the fee they invented.

The bank charged you $35 to inform you that you ran out of money.

The bank wants you broke. The factor company wants you desperate. Your customers want you patient. Kashu wants you paid.

If you run a service business with seasonal revenue: The 6 months of strong cash flow shouldn't pay down working capital lines. They should sit in a sweep account at 4%+ APY. You're not paying off debt. You're storing optionality for the slow months.

Then (1985 small business): bank line of credit, 30-day terms with vendors, store credit at the lumber yard. Now (2026 small business): MCAs at up to 99% APR, Net-60 terms, factor companies advertising on Spotify. Same business. Different cost of capital.

A merchant cash advance isn't a loan. (Legally, that's literally how lenders avoid usury caps.) It's the sale of your future receivables at a discount, repaid daily, with a confession of judgment if you miss. The naming is just a loophole.

If you've ever said "we're waiting on a check": you have a working capital problem, not a sales problem. If you say it twice in one quarter: it's structural. If you say it monthly: a competitor with better cash conversion is about to take your customers.

"1.49 factor rate" means you pay $49,000 to borrow $100,000. "3 cents on the dollar" means $30,000 on a $1M factoring contract. "Reverse consolidation" means two MCAs on top of three MCAs and a new collateral lien. The vocabulary is the sale.

It's mid-May. Q1 receivables invoiced in January are 130 days old. Quarterly tax estimate due June 17. Summer slowdown for service businesses starts in 6 weeks. The cash flow decisions you make this month determine whether October has options.

Question for any small business owner: do you know your DSO? (Days sales outstanding. The number of days between sending an invoice and getting paid.) If you don't know it, you don't actually know whether you can take the next contract.

A staffing agency in Cleveland factors $120,000 in receivables at 3% per month. Annual cost: $43,200. A business card opened in the last 18 months with a $150,000 limit at 0% intro covers the same bridge for $0. Most staffing companies qualify for both.

Most businesses that fail in year two aren't failing because the product was wrong. They won a contract, fronted the cost, and ran out of runway before the invoice cleared. The win became the cause.

There's a word for a business that can't pay its bills: insolvent. There's another word for one with $80,000 in receivables clearing in 45 days: illiquid. They look identical from the outside. They require completely different solutions. Most lenders sell one for both.

A contractor finished a $400k job last year and missed payroll the same month. The work was profitable. The check just hadn't cleared yet. Income statement said one thing. Bank account said another.

10 business credit cards with $50k+ limits and 0% intro APR windows of 12-18 months. More business owners qualify than you think. 1. Chase Ink Business Cash. 12 months 0% APR. Limits reported to $75k. 5% back on telecom and office supply spend. 2. Chase Ink Business Unlimited. 12 months 0% APR. Same high limit ceiling. Flat 1.5% on every purchase, no category tracking. 3. Capital One Spark Cash Plus. Charge card, no preset limit. 2% cash back on every purchase. Right next to the 0% set on this list because it gives the same working-capital ceiling without the APR construct. 4. Amex Blue Business Plus. 12 months 0% APR. 2x Membership Rewards on first $50k in spend per year. 5. Amex Blue Business Cash. 12 months 0% APR. 2% cash back, no category management required. 6. US Bank Business Triple Cash Rewards. 12 billing cycles 0% APR. 3% back on gas, office supply, cell phone, restaurants. 7. Capital One Spark Cash Select. 12 months 0% APR. Accessible approval profile. Unlimited 1.5% cash back. 8. Mercury IO. Charge card, no APR. Limit scales with deposits in your Mercury account. Designed for startup cash management. 9. Brex. Charge card, no APR. Limit scales with treasury balance. No personal guarantee required. 10. Ramp. Charge card, no APR. Limit tied to bank balance, built-in spend controls. These cards go beyond credit. The limit can be used as cash for payroll or whatever the business needs. That is the premise Kashu is built on.

Profit is what you say you have. Cash is what you actually have. Every business that goes under learns the difference too late.