BusinessUSA: New Website to Help Small Businesses and Exporters Navigate the Federal Government

Today, the Obama Administration is launching a new online platform, BusinessUSA, to help small businesses and exporters of all sizes find information about available federal programs without having to waste time and resources navigating the federal bureaucracy. 

BusinessUSA, currently in “beta”, combines information and services from 10 different government agencies through one consolidated website and coordinate telephone support through a single 800#. The site already presents hundreds of business resources, in one place.

Whatever services a business owner is looking for, he or she can find it on BusinessUSA – whether it be support to grow a small business, export financing, counseling and training to help sell goods and services overseas, or various loan programs like SBA small business loans, USDA farm loans, and NOAA fishery loans.

To ensure that it is designed with the customer in mind, BusinessUSA was built with the active feedback of U.S. businesses and relevant online communities. To collect additional input from small business owners and entrepreneurs, we set up an easy-to-use mechanism to provide feedback to make the site even better.

It’s a “No Wrong Door” approach for small businesses and exporters, creating a common platform to match businesses with the services relevant to them, regardless of where the information is located or which agency’s website, call center, or office they go to for help.  The BusinessUSA initiative will modernize the federal government’s customer service channels and help streamline the process for today’s innovators and entrepreneurs to get their hands on information to help make better decisions.

As President Obama said in his State of the Union address, we need to give U.S. businesses every opportunity and tool to succeed. As part of his blueprint for an economy built to last, the President is committed to making our government leaner, smarter and more customer-friendly. BusinessUSA is an important step the Administration is taking to realize the President’s vision of a streamlined government that serves the 21^st Century economy.

Karen Mills is the Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

About the Author

Karen Gordon Mills is the Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. The SBA helps both Main Street and high-growth small businesses get access to capital, counseling, federal contracts, disaster assistance and more.