I would be interested to hear about others' small business owners about their experience with writing biz plan & asking the bank for a credit to set up the business.

Lets say, that €30,000 is needed to set up the biz. and i want to ask for 40, as my plan support that from the first months i can acheive the break-even point. In other countries the bank will expect you to have the capital for 12 months * monthly expenses in case no profits gaines. Is this also the case here? in that case, can i just ask a higher loan? is it reasonable to present a plan that u start pay the loan with bigger loan?

In practice it is very difficult to get capital for a business start up in Switzerland and the capital required for starting a GmbH or AG should not be borrowed. i.e. you have to do it the hard way and save the money.

If you are looking for 66k CHF from a major bank then I think you would need at least 250k of your own, a thoroughly worked and proven business plan, and be judged by the bank to have excellent business acumen. If you have major collateral you would need less cash, obviously, but would still need a substantial amount of cash up front.

Capital financing for an established business is a little better, but not much, while an overdraft is unusual in the first couple of years. Once there are a few years of accounts behind you the banks are much more willing to talk.

Your last point, can you borrow extra in order to cover the loan payments, I will assume that is a witticism . Don't ask your bank manager that one .

Setting up the GmbH is not that difficult, it needs 20.000chf as a deposit but you will be also able to put it in as goods.

For example, for my GmbH i put my car into the GmbH which was accepted as an own investment for more than 20.000chf

About the banks i will come back on that later, making the business plan to get the loan takes almost all my time at the moment (but help is more than welcome!!)

GL

While you are correct that you can put goods in to cover the liability amount you need to have these valued. For cars it is relatively straightforward in that you use the Eurotax blue book to ascertain the value.

With respect to the business plan. What are the specifics you are looking to cover in your plan? A business plan should take a lot of time as it incorporates many aspects of your future business and the research and time spent in the set-up will go a long way to having a successful business. That said if you did not have at least 5000 to put in to your GmbH you might well find yourself in difficulty later. Unless of course you have the money but did not want to put cash in to the company as capital but rather put cash in through your company owner account. Also why do you need a detailed business plan? What are you intending to do with it? Don't get me wrong with this question. I believe strongly in businss plans however I would spend my time doing these before starting a business to make sure I actually had a viable proposal...

IF you need help with the business case feel free to ask any specific questions.

Only 10,000 CHF since this year, I think.

A friend of mine had a look into the business plan stuff. If you ask for something around 50.000 CHF you need to spend about 30.000 CHF in work hours (correctly calculated) to get the 50.000 CHF. Also banks ask for thousand things for their security.
Then he did another business plan (actually for another guy) and asked for 2.000.000 CHF - that was not problem at all.

It's a strange world and I guess it's not only in Switzerland like this. But for 50.000 CHF it might be the easiest, if you find a person who trusts you and is capable of giving you the money to start...

Experience from a very good friend of mine; didn't do it by myself up to now; hope it helps anyway.

The current minimum requirement is 20,000 CHF of which you need to liberate 50% ie pay half. As of Jan 1. 08 the requirement will be 20,000 CHF 100% paid up.

This is a well used urban myth. I wanted to have a credit limit on my account for 30,000 and rang up the bank manager who said okay without business case, without security, simply was so. Perhaps because he knows who I am and he has my personal account in his hands... If on the other hand I had asked for 2 Mio he would have made me jump through rings, small highly placed rings...

small highly placed rings...

I know that feeling and remember the sound

Richard, a pm is on it's way to you...

Well, a "known face" is still one of the most important things in business life - makes things happen.