Blog Posts by Adrienne Burke

Small business owners struggling under the burden of regulatory compliance, take heart. In this election season, the White House hears your cries.

The Executive Office yesterday reminded the heads of federal departments and agencies that some "sectors and industries face a significant number of regulatory requirements, some of which may be redundant, inconsistent, or overlapping." A guidance "effective immediately" urged agencies to take into account the costs of cumulative regulations that "can create special challenges for small businesses and startups."Regs create "special challenges" for small businesses

Cass Sunstein, the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the Office of Management and Budget, instructed agencies to "avoid unintentional burdens that could result from an exclusive focus on the most recent regulatory activities."

Sunstein's memo follows a meeting earlier this month between President Obama and the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of leading U.S. companies with combined

One of the top complaints raised by business owners in the recent Yahoo! Small Business survey was about a lack of access to capital. It’s tough to grow your business when the economic climate and banking rules are standing in the way of getting loans.

Loosening rules on “crowdfunding” is one option the government is currently considering to address this problem.

Entrepreneurs and artists have used online crowdfunding platforms for a few years now to drum up cash from friends, family, and strangers. It’s illegal in the U.S. to sell shares of stock to unaccredited investors this way, so people who support startup businesses via crowdfunding are essentially donating their money. The most they’ll get in return is a “thank you note” or a trinket bearing the company logo.

It might sound like a quaint or even ineffective way to get cash to run your business. But Kickstarter.com, one of the better-known crowdfunding platforms, helped creative projects raise nearly $100 million last year.

While politicians argue about how best to halt rising gas prices, business owners just want relief. And fast.

The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council reported today that 72 percent of small business owners say that increasingly high gas prices are impacting their business, and a majority are also dissatisfied with the overall direction of federal policies meant to help the economy.Gas prices are hurting businesses

The survey of 304 small business owners was conducted in late February before gas prices had reached today's highs of $3.80 per gallon. Even then, 43 percent said their business would not survive if energy prices continue to remain high or increase further.

The SBEC suggests that advancing pro-energy policies, including the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, is the best route the government could take now to help small businesses. "The U.S. cannot allow world events, supply disruptions and global demand surges to control the fate of our economy or global competitiveness. We must take full advantage

"Business owners who seek to learn from others and reach out to resources for help are more successful than those who don't." So says Ken Yancey, CEO of SCORE, a national nonprofit network of experienced business executives who offer free counseling to entrepreneurs. In his 20-plus years on the job, Yancey says he's come to see that small businesses really need two things most: money and mentoring. Could a coach help your business stay afloat?

While nearly three-quarters of business owners who responded to a recent Yahoo! survey said that their business is suffering the effects of the stalled economy, Yancey says a SCORE year-on-year survey showed that some 90 percent of businesses that had consulted SCORE for help in 2009 were still in business a year later. Yancey won't take all the credit for that—"we all know there are a lot of factors that come into play"—but he has no doubt that SCORE's 13,000 volunteer mentors who counsel businesses at 364 chapters nationwide have played a big role.

In addition to SCORE, Yancey points to

Ken Yancey would like to see the presidential candidates start talking small business. “It’s important that they recognize that small business owners are critical to our economy, particularly to job and wealth creation. It would be great if they could demonstrate a knowledge of that,” Yancey says. SCORE CEO Ken Yancey

Yancey is CEO of SCORE, a non-profit network of 13,000 seasoned business professionals who provide free mentoring to small business owners and entrepreneurs at 364 chapters across the U.S. In 2010, SCORE volunteers helped businesses to create 71,000 new jobs and 58,000 new businesses nationwide. Funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the Small Business Administration, Yancey notes that the cost to the taxpayer of SCORE's work was $117 per business and $98 per job.

Yahoo! Small Business Advisor spoke with Yancey about key election and congressional issues affecting small businesses right now.

Yahoo! Small Business Advisor: When asked to name the Republican Presidential candidate

Earlier today we posted a Yahoo! Small Business Advisor article about  legislation that would make it legal for entrepreneurs to sell small stakes in their companies through online crowdfunding platforms. Just a few hours later, the House voted to pass the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, a package of six separate pieces of legislation, including the one supporting crowdfunding that it had approved in a vote last November. The Senate will consider a similar bill next week.

Business owners have told Yahoo! that a lack of access to capital is hurting them. Crowdfunding is just one element of the JOBS Act meant to address that problem. As the Washington Post reported this afternoon, small business advocates are applauding the bipartisan passage of a bill that "would ease Securities and Exchange Commission rules that can impede or slow the process for companies trying to enter the public markets."

Aside from legalizing crowdfunding--which would let proprietors raise investments

More than 70 percent of small business owners say the stalled economy is hurting them, and many have yet to be convinced that any of the Republican candidates for President is equipped to turn things around. That’s according to the latest quarterly Yahoo! Small Business survey of small business owners who intend to vote on November 6. The online survey of 250 full or partial owners of U.S. businesses with 1-100 employees was conducted in February with Ipsos MediaCT.

Seen as a crucial component of the nation’s economic recovery, entrepreneurs and small business owners are a target of presidential hopefuls on the campaign trail. GOP candidates are wooing Mom & Pop shops with promises to eliminate health care mandates and regulations and shrink their tax bills. But many business owners remain to be persuaded.

Asked which GOP candidate will best support small business issues, 40 percent declined to name one. With 23 percent of respondents behind him, Mitt Romney narrowly edged

The Young Entrepreneur Council today kicked off a national initiative to steer politicians' attention toward policies and programs that YEC and its partners say would encourage and enable more entrepreneurship among young people and tackle "an epidemic of youth unemployment and underemployment."   

YEC's ambitious and energetic founder Scott Gerber, a 27-year-old self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur, says his organization's #FixYoungAmerica movement will feature a social media campaign, nationwide events, and the publication of a compilation of essays on entrepreneurship written by the country's "brightest intellectuals, nonprofit founders, philanthropists, educators, politicians, and entrepreneurs."

He says the goal is to create a "positive conversation" about how to build solutions for young entrepreneurs. "Whenever you hear about youth unemployment, it's always in the negative. We're the 'lost generation'," Gerber says. He'd prefer to focus on what's working and legislate from that