A Cleveland millennial says a loan from Square helped power her cupcake shop to over $500,000 in sales. Here's how to secure the payment processor loans that business owners say are way easier than borrowing from traditional banks.

Courtesy of Kelly Kandah

Kelly Kandah started her bakery, Colossal Cupcakes , in Cleveland, Ohio after noticing cupcakes were having a moment in cities like New York City.

• Payment processors such as PayPal, Square, and Stripe offer loans to small businesses that can range from $500 to over $250,000.
• These loans are typically based on the sales a business makes through the payment processor, so they're often easier to get than traditional bank loans.
• Cupcake shop owner Kelly Kandah started her bakery with personal savings but said she wasn't able to expand as quickly until she started using loans through Square.
• Here's how she did it and how small business owners can apply for similar loans.
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When Kelly Kandah started her first cupcake shop, Colossal Cupcakes, she hadn't fully realized what she'd gotten herself into. Until she saw the line out her door on opening day.

Kandah, 33, said she knew cupcakes were having a moment, based on all the shops she'd seen popping up in New York City, where she lived for a year. But she hadn't prepared for such high demand in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.

She had a couple KitchenAid mixers to start, but didn't have the $10,000 commercial-grade mixers she needed. Meanwhile, her low-tech cash register kept customers waiting in line too long.

"I had to really quickly turn this dream or vision of a cute little bakery into a mass production cupcake factory," Kandah told Business Insider.

The key to this, she said, was securing the right loan at the right time - and not from a traditional bank.