She called a different kind of lender: a small agricultural co-op bank that offered a with a clean feature: she would draw funds in April, pay interest only during the growing season, and repay the principal in full by October. The rate was 8%, not 25%. The collateral was her future crop, not her past invoices.

She called Dante. He listened. Then he said something that surprised her.

Working capital isn't about the money. It's about the time between the money.

Seasonal working capital is not a product. It's a problem to be solved. The right solution depends on your margin, your cycle length, your customer concentration, and your risk tolerance. Factoring is fast but expensive. A seasonal line of credit is cheaper but requires discipline and history. Self-financing is cheapest but demands that you have cash left over after the harvest—which is the hardest thing of all.

She opened her laptop and built a spreadsheet she should have built years ago. She mapped out her cash conversion cycle: the days between paying for inputs (April) and collecting from buyers (August). That gap—122 days—was her enemy. Every day of that gap cost her money.