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Obama: $15B for Small Businesses

5 points by gne1963 18y ago

grandalf 18y ago
So Obama is encouraging small businesses to take on debt, and increasing the extent to which taxpayers are accountable if the business fails! This is a very narrow policy that will not help most small businesses, particularly not most tech startups, etc. Most of us either bootstrap or take VC funding -- neither of which have any hope of taxpayer bailout! This makes a great headline for Obama but is not doing anything for the valley.
- grandalf 18y ago
  (not that I think any of us would actually want a handout!)
  - gabrielleydon 18y ago
    Speak for yourself! Ill take a handout!!! :D
- gnaritas 18y ago
  The country is bigger than the valley and tech isn't the only industry. Tech startups also don't make up the vast majority of small businesses in America.
  - grandalf 18y ago
    True enough, but I'd strongly prefer a more general policy (such as a payroll tax holiday) that would benefit all businesses. Anyone under 40 should feel quite foolish paying payroll taxes anyway, considering that social security will self-destruct long before we get any benefits. So in addition to paying payroll taxes, tech startups are helping to subsidize loans for startups in other industries!
rms 18y ago
Where do I sign up? Seriously, how do you get a SBA loan?
- gne1963 18y ago
  Here is a list of top banks that offer SBA loans... http://www.tlmanage.com/sbabanks.html http://www.tlmanage.com/sbabanks.html
- patio11 18y ago
  http://www.sba.gov/services/financialassistance/loanapplication/index.html http://www.sba.gov/services/financialassistance/loanapplicat... Let me warn you in advance: they're set up to fund laundromats, McDonalds, and dental practices, NOT websites or software developers. The process of applying for the loan will consume an intense amount of resources which could be better spent getting stuff in front of customers. For most people on HN I'd advise you to invest sweat equity, get ramen profitable, and just grow via reinvestment of revenues at that point.
  - gne1963 18y ago
    patio11- please source your data on why they are NOT set up to fund developers or websites. That is not my experience... and at some point your business will require capital and an SBA loan is a nice alternative.
    - vaksel 18y ago
      Because they want you to have tangible assets that can be sold to recover some of the debt. If they give you money for a website and it fails they lose it all.
    - patio11 18y ago
      In my experience it is likely a business with 1) extraordinarily little capital or collateral 2) no or low revenues 3) no physical location 4) little documentation attesting to the nature of the business (leases, franchise agreements, written quotes for proposed capital purchases to be made with the loan proceeds, that sort of thing) 5) a founder who does not have a successful business background 6) a founder who does not individually have a very strong credit history (true of many of the young'uns here, largely as an artifact only recently starting work) etc, etc will have a bit of difficulty getting through. I respect that your experience may be different. Most of mine comes from shepherding startups through the Japanese analog when I worked at a technology incubator here -- one of our main skills was, ahem, learning how to describe high-tech realities in terms of words responsive to requirements tailored towards industrial businesses. (You don't have "no" capital, you have source code. How many man months in that? Seven? Great, we'll value that at the $10,000 per month chargeout rate for an intermediate engineer in this neck of the woods: you have $70,000 worth of intellectual capital. So we'll fill in $70,000 in this bubble here. How many suppliers do you have? Zero? Well, OK, you use electricity, right? So Chubu Power is supplier #1. Do you take business calls? NTT, #2... OK, 12 suppliers.)
notehall 18y ago
This is great news!
veritgo 18y ago
Obama is also making it easier to invest in small businesses and startups, according to the whitehouse blog: "... a series of tax cuts for small businesses and tax incentives to encourage investments in small businesses. He noted further that in his budget, he proposes permanently reducing to zero the capital gains tax for investments in small or startup businesses" Not sure how much investors care about taxes when they are investing in a startup, but it seems like this would make funding more available. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/16/Help-for-small-business-condemnation-for-AIG-bonuses/ http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/16/Help-for-small-busin...

5 points by gne1963 18y ago

So Obama is encouraging small businesses to take on debt, and increasing the extent to which taxpayers are accountable if the business fails! This is a very narrow policy that will not help most small businesses, particularly not most tech startups, etc. Most of us either bootstrap or take VC funding -- neither of which have any hope of taxpayer bailout! This makes a great headline for Obama but is not doing anything for the valley.

grandalf 18y ago
(not that I think any of us would actually want a handout!)
- gabrielleydon 18y ago
  Speak for yourself! Ill take a handout!!! :D
gnaritas 18y ago
The country is bigger than the valley and tech isn't the only industry. Tech startups also don't make up the vast majority of small businesses in America.
- grandalf 18y ago
  True enough, but I'd strongly prefer a more general policy (such as a payroll tax holiday) that would benefit all businesses. Anyone under 40 should feel quite foolish paying payroll taxes anyway, considering that social security will self-destruct long before we get any benefits. So in addition to paying payroll taxes, tech startups are helping to subsidize loans for startups in other industries!

rms 18y ago

Where do I sign up? Seriously, how do you get a SBA loan?

gne1963 18y ago
Here is a list of top banks that offer SBA loans... http://www.tlmanage.com/sbabanks.html http://www.tlmanage.com/sbabanks.html
patio11 18y ago
http://www.sba.gov/services/financialassistance/loanapplication/index.html http://www.sba.gov/services/financialassistance/loanapplicat... Let me warn you in advance: they're set up to fund laundromats, McDonalds, and dental practices, NOT websites or software developers. The process of applying for the loan will consume an intense amount of resources which could be better spent getting stuff in front of customers. For most people on HN I'd advise you to invest sweat equity, get ramen profitable, and just grow via reinvestment of revenues at that point.
- gne1963 18y ago
  patio11- please source your data on why they are NOT set up to fund developers or websites. That is not my experience... and at some point your business will require capital and an SBA loan is a nice alternative.
  - vaksel 18y ago
    Because they want you to have tangible assets that can be sold to recover some of the debt. If they give you money for a website and it fails they lose it all.
  - patio11 18y ago
    In my experience it is likely a business with 1) extraordinarily little capital or collateral 2) no or low revenues 3) no physical location 4) little documentation attesting to the nature of the business (leases, franchise agreements, written quotes for proposed capital purchases to be made with the loan proceeds, that sort of thing) 5) a founder who does not have a successful business background 6) a founder who does not individually have a very strong credit history (true of many of the young'uns here, largely as an artifact only recently starting work) etc, etc will have a bit of difficulty getting through. I respect that your experience may be different. Most of mine comes from shepherding startups through the Japanese analog when I worked at a technology incubator here -- one of our main skills was, ahem, learning how to describe high-tech realities in terms of words responsive to requirements tailored towards industrial businesses. (You don't have "no" capital, you have source code. How many man months in that? Seven? Great, we'll value that at the $10,000 per month chargeout rate for an intermediate engineer in this neck of the woods: you have $70,000 worth of intellectual capital. So we'll fill in $70,000 in this bubble here. How many suppliers do you have? Zero? Well, OK, you use electricity, right? So Chubu Power is supplier #1. Do you take business calls? NTT, #2... OK, 12 suppliers.)

notehall 18y ago

This is great news!

veritgo 18y ago

Obama is also making it easier to invest in small businesses and startups, according to the whitehouse blog: "... a series of tax cuts for small businesses and tax incentives to encourage investments in small businesses. He noted further that in his budget, he proposes permanently reducing to zero the capital gains tax for investments in small or startup businesses" Not sure how much investors care about taxes when they are investing in a startup, but it seems like this would make funding more available. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/16/Help-for-small-business-condemnation-for-AIG-bonuses/ http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/03/16/Help-for-small-busin...