Nov. 2--Launching a small business is challenging in the best of times.

Imagine what budding entrepreneurs face when approaching traditional lenders in the hope of launching their dream venture in the current credit crunch that is bringing some of the nation's biggest corporations to their knees.

"A year ago, it was hard but not impossible -- if you had a good relationship with the bank, repaid loans in the past and your personal expenses were under control," says Charles Edmonds, a Fort Worth business broker.

"Today, if you had to borrow all of the startup capital, you just can't unless you had collateral, like a CD in the bank or real estate."

And that's hitting home for some would-be local entrepreneurs.

Dream Venturini was about to sign a lease and open an Arlington day spa when her bank suddenly demanded that she double her equity stake from 10 to 20 percent before it would extend a loan.

Yaw Asante, an engineer-turned-business consultant with an MBA, specializes in advising people who want to start small ventures on ways to raise capital, including bank loans.

So it was a shock when Asante himself failed to get a loan promised by a national bank to help him buy an existing and profitable retail business, a pack-and-ship store in Carrollton. Then a second national bank, from which he had requested just half as much, also turned him down.

Venturini said she lost the retail space and is still seeking financing.

For Asante, raising capital became a professional challenge. He figured that roughly $100,000 was required. And in the end, he managed to open his business, The Mailroom, using equal parts ingenuity and equal parts lenders' blind spots.

"It was interesting," he said. "I took a step back and looked at the resources I had."

Putting it in the bank

Instead of requesting a business line of credit, Asante applied for personal lines of credit from three banks in quick succession, and drew $68,000 before the hits against his credit score were registered. Then he advanced himself cash on personal credit cards to the tune of $20,000 and got the remainder from savings to raise $108,000.

"I think I can recoup it all in less than three years, which is better than investing anything on Wall Street -- even before this crisis," said Asante, whose wife will help him operate the business while he continues his consulting business.

He figured that the retail shop was a good gamble, considering the previous owner had gross sales of $189,000, from which he had cleared about $50,000. Asante plans to run the business for three months without changes, then add services like helping customers place, sell and ship auction items on eBay.

Day-care dilemma

Teshia Kyser has a master's degree in education, 10 years' experience as a secondary-school counselor, owns two rental houses and operates a food concession business at youth sporting events with her husband, a Dallas/Fort Worth Airport firefighter with a business degree.

Their plan was to open Brilliant Minds Daycare Center in an underserved area of Arlington with about $50,000 in savings and $300,000 in loans. It would be near a large educational institution that has an 18-month waiting list, so Kyser knows that there's pent-up demand in the area.

The Fort Worth Business Assistance Center linked her up with a Minnesota firm, First Children's Finance, which specializes in underwriting day-care centers. First Children's is willing to lend $125,000 if a commercial bank provides the rest of the borrowed funds.