Not impossible, but very difficult. It's pretty much impossible at big banks. When my company was bootstrapped to $250k/year in revenue (with several years of h

Not impossible, but very difficult. It's pretty much impossible at big banks. When my company was bootstrapped to $250k/year in revenue (with several years of history), Bank of America wouldn't even extend a $10,000 line of credit. Each year, they would promise that they would be more "start-up" friendly, but it never happened (even when we crossed the $500k mark). You'll have better luck with local banks that work with startups. We worked with Cambridge Trust in Massachusetts to get a line of credit and it was a pretty painless process. Working with local banks definitely involves forming a personal relationship though, so there's a little time investment. Without external funding, you'll also find even the local banks will require a personal guarantee. There's a huge gap between VC funding and loans from big banks, so I'm excited to see people tackling this problem.