Blog on small business, entrepreneurship debuts

January 4, 2011
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Thanks for dropping in. You’ve landed at IBJ’s new blog about small business and entrepreneurship, Small Biz Matters. Glad you’re here.

At Small Biz Matters you’ll find an assortment of news, analysis, tidbits and more. But it’s a work in progress, so chime in about what you like and what you want to read about, and I’ll try to accommodate.

A few words about myself, then I’ll step back and the floor is yours.

I’ve been covering business news in one way or another for 25 years. Some of you know me as IBJ’s original small-business editor, back when the first George Bush was president. Others of you are familiar with the IBJ blog I wrote the past couple of years, NewsTalk. (NewsTalk is archived at ibj.com.) Still others of you read the IBJ sections I edit, Focus and Forefront.

Soon, in addition to this blog, I’ll also begin writing occasional articles on entrepreneurship.

For now, I’ll leave you with the small-business legislative priorities of the Indiana State Chamber of Commerce and the Indiana office of the National Federation of Independent Business. After all, the General Assembly starts Wednesday.

The lobbies hope to minimize any increase in unemployment insurance taxes as the state looks to plug a yawning debt to the federal government to pay claims. The state has been kicking the can ahead for the past couple of years in order to restructure the system during a budget-writing year, which is the primary task of the session.

Both groups also intend to lobby against starting a sales tax on services.

Thoughts?
 

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  • Encourage Support
    DarinJanuary 5, 2011 12:59 PM
    I encourage support of the small-business legislative priorities mentioned. As a small business offering primarily services, taxing them would distinctly impact our business. That coupled with increased unemployment taxes would be cripling to several small businesses.
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  • Small Businesses
    philJanuary 5, 2011 1:22 PM
    Something else to remember about small businesses is how many of them there are.

    I can find a cite /c data if anyone is interested - from the Census Bureau - so it's not an article where someone else analyzed the data and provides a particular slant on the stats. Truth vs. Reality.

    (It can be true you see pink elephants, but that doesn't mean they are real.)

    The number of operations (not defined, I thought it would work well as "stores" as in franchises, where a lot of people work (collectively) although each one has a substantially smaller headcount.

    Sure, one big factory can put a lot of people in the unemployed world, but if you want businesses which can't handle all of this extra financial burden, most (actually, a **HUGE** number of them are in the < 20 <50 or <100 ranges of people.

    Cheers,

    phil
    Reply to CommentFlag Comment
  • Hybrid Business
    Erin AlbertJanuary 5, 2011 1:32 PM
    Indiana is behind on the movement of hybrid business--namely, low profit limited liability companies (L3Cs) and benefit corporations as business entity types. IL and MI have the L3C business form, along with several other states. There are only two states with benefit corps on the books, but more coming. If we're truly a pro-entrepreneurship state, our law makers need to get the L3C and the benefit corporation entity types on the books...yesterday.
    Reply to CommentFlag Comment

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