First we all must understand that our goal as a small business is to not to let the national chains take over the power control of the world.
We must grow together as a team and work on getting one rule in America changed, because the people spoke. Try to to get a 100 things changed at once, we have no chance. As an outside sales person for LED Action moving signs, I see business all over America that are in towns that are not small business friendly. In fact they are working to kill the small business by not letting them have signs letting the customers driving by their store have an action moving sign on their store or sign pole outside. National chains can run TV ads, it does not matter to them where the ads run, they have locations everywhere and money to spend on the ads, even if it only gets them a 2% return they are happy.
Will everyone in America, just stand there and let the major chains and the Government make rules to help the national chains destroy the small business?
Wait until you are on the national chain black list and cannot get a JOB and small business are a thing of the past, then we will see where you stand.
Scott
Susan Risdal
New York City
5/11/10
6:05 PM
All of the old rules have changed. Ten years ago, in order to get clients, you just looked for them...called them up...made an appointment, etc. Now you can't get anyone on the phone...and if you do happen to talk to a business owner, they are not interested in any sales appointments. My IT business almost faltered because I was trying to make the old rules work.
Found Meetup.com and started networking, which saved my business. I now work through the NY Entrepreneurs Business Network to help other startups start up.
Granted, paper work, absurd laws, government and oil, pharma and food are blocking us -- but we can do business with each other if we know each other. We can do this while we are working to change our environment from one of suppression to one of freedom.
Michael Croatt
Milwaukee, WI
4/12/10
4:04 PM
Being the owner of two successful startups that have been going for four years now, there is one issue that sets my hair on fire on a yearly basis; 1099's. The IRS requires that the forms be typed out using a manual typewriter. I do not personally know of a single person who still owns one. I am told, which I do not know the veracity of said statement, that the IRS checks employer versus employee 1099's by placing them on a light table... REALLY?!?
Why not set up form fillable PDF documents that can be uploaded to the IRS? These could be set up to be read into a database and then the verification set up through said database, automatically.
In my case I wasted a full day on this issue, once again, then had to send the information to my accountant in order to submit the forms, incurring a $90 charge.
If one were to multiply out the man hours wasted, not to mention fees incurred, at the hundreds of thousands of small business's nationwide on a yearly basis due to this requirement, it boggles the mind. This anachronistic and foolhardy practice that the government forces small business to perform on a yearly basis, when after all, they are just trying to do the right thing by hiring other self employed business people and reporting their recompense, is yet another example of how we, as the entrepreneurs who drive this economy, are not in any way catered to by a government stuck in the 20th century.
In a business environment in which every step of my workflow is done digitally, it is high time the IRS joined us in the 21st century!
Freddie Shivdat
New Jersey
2/15/10
6:02 PM
Entrepreneurship has been evidenced as the driver of the US economic growth from the start of the industrial revolution. It is hinged on our unique and sometimes complicated education system that supports expression of ideas that lead to innovation.
The failure of our society to recognize the decline in scientific minded graduates coupled with a growing trend in Washington to be bugged down by minutia instead of rationalizing and compromising to come up with policies to capitalize on the effects of globalization, we are adrift as a nation.
We as Americans are being handcuffed by policy more and more as the rest of the world frees up regulations to foster innovation. For the first time, the US is looking a some level of brain drain as more and more innovators leave for more fertile grounds.
The test will be whether we allow a few financial and a few industrial organizations to control our government and economy. We still have a chance to innovate ourselves to the top of the world but only time will tell. The key areas where we could excel are environmental, energy and aerospace.
However, as a very small business that depends on a vibrant economy, I am stuck with no source of financing other than my own and now friend in government, so i will keep plugging and hope for the best. Things have sure changed since the 1990's.
CURTIS SCOTT
Florida
2/09/10
1:02 PM
I am an entrepreneur. Unlike most of the US population, I was not caught off-guard when the recession came -because I am also a student of Austrian economics & subscribe to the writings of Dr. Ron Paul & Mr. Peter Schiff. So, despite having my own personal financial crisis involving an unscrupulous business associate in 2007 (who is now in jail); -I managed to leverage over +3000% return from my humble savings -that I diverted into a specific investment when I saw the writing on the economic wall. I am all about risk-taking & delayed gratification. I also know from years of personal study that government is generally the problem --a severe one. Not only do government policies get in the way due to the backdoor agendas built into them, --but the rhetoric of government taints the minds of the public & generally blinds people to alternative ways of thinking about issues -even discouraging such talk. Earth shaking ideas always change society & it's the result of the paradigm-shift that spawns new innovations. But what happens in a society resistant to change (so resistant that government policy has indirectly locked in place the status-quo)? Just reading over the posts here -it's obvious to me that many of the contributors have been mesmerized by government-speak; --But I can tell you (law being a hobby of mine) -that much of what I read about taxes, regulations & things like patents are spoken from ignorance of the actual law about such matters and that DC does not have nearly the level of control that many people imagine it does. It's like watching a dog -held captive without a boundary by a collar that emits a sound when the dog gets near the boundary-line. And the irony is that all the other dogs bark frantic warnings when they hear rumor of the collar's sound --providing merely the peer pressure of fear to keep the dog inside an intangible fence. Let me cue you in on a secret: +90% of the time -the collar only makes a noise & can do nothing else. And having said that +90% of those reading won't believe it. And when those +90% of people -held in a mental prison set down by a matrix of misleading legal-language are also those who are "investors", -they will choose not to invest because some barking dog is freaking out about a boundary line that in reality -is an illusion (does not exist). There is an old saying -that "The truth will set you free."; --BUT ONLY the truth you KNOW. I just wanted to preface with that commentary. My invention (that I am seeking a QUALITY industry partner to venture jointly with) -reduces the energy wasted by the conventional clothes dryer -some 50-80%. The savings figures are quite impressive. The installation (via contractor) is very affordable. And the payback to the home owner is roughly 2-4 years based on use. My background in energy-management & control systems dates back to 1986 when I was doing computer-based, state-of-the-art system design. Fundamentals never change. My ideal partner would be an existing business with a solid personnel connection to the electricity-generation industry (which, -I'm told, -has the most to gain from innovations that can reduce the demand on the grid by GIGAwatt hours). - Good day.
Rick Falls
Ocala Florida
2/01/10
6:02 PM
We are the way out not the government, and change is the only thing that's constant.
Many current industries and government departments alike, need to simply die and fade away, and thereby give light to the kind of innovation and problem solving that makes America Great.
The most pressing thing that I feel that entrepreneurs need first is radically reduced bureaucracy overall, then encouraged, open, and willing connections to like minded people who can serve as both experienced partners ("been there, done that") and to those financially able to help, as they recognize and actually invest, time, experience, and money into trending opportunities and potential future profits, without looking like the typical VC extortion types of lending that are prevalent currently.
Access to innovative micro sized business capital, possibly including government guarantees for that capital would be good, and makes good sense, if the government really wants business expansion from it's purest point of origin.
And lastly we need a simple and flat and "fair tax" structure so that when someone does figure out a way to earn a dollar by filling a need and serving others, they actually earn "a dollar" without fear of how much of that dollar the government will take, or contemplating how that dollar will be treated by a complicated, bloated and confusing tax code that serves few and stresses many.
Back to basics, and the free flow of ideas and capital without all the social engineering "we want this to happen" kind of strings.
Bill Jacobs
Olney, MD
1/28/10
12:01 PM
I have a good 5 or 6 marketable ideas for products but no way to produce them and no intention of risking capital without an enforceable patent. I'm not risking capital on the patent either because it's a very expensive process.
A government program of profit-sharing that defrays the cost of acquiring a patent might be a terrific spur to job growth.
If patents cost 300 dollars instead of 10,000 in legal costs, you'd end up with an avalanche of ideas, the proceeds of which would pay the extra costs the government would be paying. A limit of these discounted patents could be imposed so each citizen could attempt to patent an idea once every three years. (or other time interval)
Until it becomes affordable, my 5 ideas stay on the shelf in my mind, employing NOBODY. The risks are too high, the rewards, too uncertain.
Shelley Booth
Asheville, NC
1/26/10
12:01 PM
Entrepreneurs who run small businesses need help in two areas:
1) The punch of payroll taxes. For every full-time employee, we pay in payroll taxes what I could pay a new employee in a part-time training level position. A payroll tax holiday would be a helpful and concrete step state and federal governments could take to assist small businesses in this economic crunch period. Not permanent, but just a brief payroll tax holiday to give the small business owners some breathing room.
2) Hidden credit card fees. Rewards cards and corporate cards hurt small business. For regular transactions, we pay 1.64% of the transaction in fees. But when a customer uses a rewards card, like a miles card, or a corporate card, we pay an outrageous 3.54%. It may not seem like much, but an extra $100-$300 a month in credit card fees matters to a small business. Why do we pay for customers free airline miles? This is an area the federal government has not addressed in the credit reform work.
As Mary Naylor said in the report, “Additional dollars that have to go out the door are crucial for a small business.” These are just two of the specific areas where I see dollars going out our door.
First we all must understand that our goal as a small business is to not to let the national chains take over the power control of the world.
We must grow together as a team and work on getting one rule in America changed, because the people spoke. Try to to get a 100 things changed at once, we have no chance. As an outside sales person for LED Action moving signs, I see business all over America that are in towns that are not small business friendly. In fact they are working to kill the small business by not letting them have signs letting the customers driving by their store have an action moving sign on their store or sign pole outside. National chains can run TV ads, it does not matter to them where the ads run, they have locations everywhere and money to spend on the ads, even if it only gets them a 2% return they are happy.
Will everyone in America, just stand there and let the major chains and the Government make rules to help the national chains destroy the small business?
Wait until you are on the national chain black list and cannot get a JOB and small business are a thing of the past, then we will see where you stand.
Scott
All of the old rules have changed. Ten years ago, in order to get clients, you just looked for them...called them up...made an appointment, etc. Now you can't get anyone on the phone...and if you do happen to talk to a business owner, they are not interested in any sales appointments. My IT business almost faltered because I was trying to make the old rules work.
Found Meetup.com and started networking, which saved my business. I now work through the NY Entrepreneurs Business Network to help other startups start up.
Granted, paper work, absurd laws, government and oil, pharma and food are blocking us -- but we can do business with each other if we know each other. We can do this while we are working to change our environment from one of suppression to one of freedom.
Being the owner of two successful startups that have been going for four years now, there is one issue that sets my hair on fire on a yearly basis; 1099's. The IRS requires that the forms be typed out using a manual typewriter. I do not personally know of a single person who still owns one. I am told, which I do not know the veracity of said statement, that the IRS checks employer versus employee 1099's by placing them on a light table... REALLY?!?
Why not set up form fillable PDF documents that can be uploaded to the IRS? These could be set up to be read into a database and then the verification set up through said database, automatically.
In my case I wasted a full day on this issue, once again, then had to send the information to my accountant in order to submit the forms, incurring a $90 charge.
If one were to multiply out the man hours wasted, not to mention fees incurred, at the hundreds of thousands of small business's nationwide on a yearly basis due to this requirement, it boggles the mind. This anachronistic and foolhardy practice that the government forces small business to perform on a yearly basis, when after all, they are just trying to do the right thing by hiring other self employed business people and reporting their recompense, is yet another example of how we, as the entrepreneurs who drive this economy, are not in any way catered to by a government stuck in the 20th century.
In a business environment in which every step of my workflow is done digitally, it is high time the IRS joined us in the 21st century!
Entrepreneurship has been evidenced as the driver of the US economic growth from the start of the industrial revolution. It is hinged on our unique and sometimes complicated education system that supports expression of ideas that lead to innovation.
The failure of our society to recognize the decline in scientific minded graduates coupled with a growing trend in Washington to be bugged down by minutia instead of rationalizing and compromising to come up with policies to capitalize on the effects of globalization, we are adrift as a nation.
We as Americans are being handcuffed by policy more and more as the rest of the world frees up regulations to foster innovation. For the first time, the US is looking a some level of brain drain as more and more innovators leave for more fertile grounds.
The test will be whether we allow a few financial and a few industrial organizations to control our government and economy. We still have a chance to innovate ourselves to the top of the world but only time will tell. The key areas where we could excel are environmental, energy and aerospace.
However, as a very small business that depends on a vibrant economy, I am stuck with no source of financing other than my own and now friend in government, so i will keep plugging and hope for the best. Things have sure changed since the 1990's.
I am an entrepreneur. Unlike most of the US population, I was not caught off-guard when the recession came -because I am also a student of Austrian economics & subscribe to the writings of Dr. Ron Paul & Mr. Peter Schiff. So, despite having my own personal financial crisis involving an unscrupulous business associate in 2007 (who is now in jail); -I managed to leverage over +3000% return from my humble savings -that I diverted into a specific investment when I saw the writing on the economic wall. I am all about risk-taking & delayed gratification. I also know from years of personal study that government is generally the problem --a severe one. Not only do government policies get in the way due to the backdoor agendas built into them, --but the rhetoric of government taints the minds of the public & generally blinds people to alternative ways of thinking about issues -even discouraging such talk. Earth shaking ideas always change society & it's the result of the paradigm-shift that spawns new innovations. But what happens in a society resistant to change (so resistant that government policy has indirectly locked in place the status-quo)? Just reading over the posts here -it's obvious to me that many of the contributors have been mesmerized by government-speak; --But I can tell you (law being a hobby of mine) -that much of what I read about taxes, regulations & things like patents are spoken from ignorance of the actual law about such matters and that DC does not have nearly the level of control that many people imagine it does. It's like watching a dog -held captive without a boundary by a collar that emits a sound when the dog gets near the boundary-line. And the irony is that all the other dogs bark frantic warnings when they hear rumor of the collar's sound --providing merely the peer pressure of fear to keep the dog inside an intangible fence. Let me cue you in on a secret: +90% of the time -the collar only makes a noise & can do nothing else. And having said that +90% of those reading won't believe it. And when those +90% of people -held in a mental prison set down by a matrix of misleading legal-language are also those who are "investors", -they will choose not to invest because some barking dog is freaking out about a boundary line that in reality -is an illusion (does not exist). There is an old saying -that "The truth will set you free."; --BUT ONLY the truth you KNOW. I just wanted to preface with that commentary. My invention (that I am seeking a QUALITY industry partner to venture jointly with) -reduces the energy wasted by the conventional clothes dryer -some 50-80%. The savings figures are quite impressive. The installation (via contractor) is very affordable. And the payback to the home owner is roughly 2-4 years based on use. My background in energy-management & control systems dates back to 1986 when I was doing computer-based, state-of-the-art system design. Fundamentals never change. My ideal partner would be an existing business with a solid personnel connection to the electricity-generation industry (which, -I'm told, -has the most to gain from innovations that can reduce the demand on the grid by GIGAwatt hours). - Good day.
We are the way out not the government, and change is the only thing that's constant.
Many current industries and government departments alike, need to simply die and fade away, and thereby give light to the kind of innovation and problem solving that makes America Great.
The most pressing thing that I feel that entrepreneurs need first is radically reduced bureaucracy overall, then encouraged, open, and willing connections to like minded people who can serve as both experienced partners ("been there, done that") and to those financially able to help, as they recognize and actually invest, time, experience, and money into trending opportunities and potential future profits, without looking like the typical VC extortion types of lending that are prevalent currently.
Access to innovative micro sized business capital, possibly including government guarantees for that capital would be good, and makes good sense, if the government really wants business expansion from it's purest point of origin.
And lastly we need a simple and flat and "fair tax" structure so that when someone does figure out a way to earn a dollar by filling a need and serving others, they actually earn "a dollar" without fear of how much of that dollar the government will take, or contemplating how that dollar will be treated by a complicated, bloated and confusing tax code that serves few and stresses many.
Back to basics, and the free flow of ideas and capital without all the social engineering "we want this to happen" kind of strings.
I have a good 5 or 6 marketable ideas for products but no way to produce them and no intention of risking capital without an enforceable patent. I'm not risking capital on the patent either because it's a very expensive process.
A government program of profit-sharing that defrays the cost of acquiring a patent might be a terrific spur to job growth.
If patents cost 300 dollars instead of 10,000 in legal costs, you'd end up with an avalanche of ideas, the proceeds of which would pay the extra costs the government would be paying. A limit of these discounted patents could be imposed so each citizen could attempt to patent an idea once every three years. (or other time interval)
Until it becomes affordable, my 5 ideas stay on the shelf in my mind, employing NOBODY. The risks are too high, the rewards, too uncertain.
Entrepreneurs who run small businesses need help in two areas:
1) The punch of payroll taxes. For every full-time employee, we pay in payroll taxes what I could pay a new employee in a part-time training level position. A payroll tax holiday would be a helpful and concrete step state and federal governments could take to assist small businesses in this economic crunch period. Not permanent, but just a brief payroll tax holiday to give the small business owners some breathing room.
2) Hidden credit card fees. Rewards cards and corporate cards hurt small business. For regular transactions, we pay 1.64% of the transaction in fees. But when a customer uses a rewards card, like a miles card, or a corporate card, we pay an outrageous 3.54%. It may not seem like much, but an extra $100-$300 a month in credit card fees matters to a small business. Why do we pay for customers free airline miles? This is an area the federal government has not addressed in the credit reform work.
As Mary Naylor said in the report, “Additional dollars that have to go out the door are crucial for a small business.” These are just two of the specific areas where I see dollars going out our door.
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