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Wayne, I'm guessing you didn't really mean what you said? 'I have to disagree with you. The censorship here is what makes it quality spam free forum and you can get real honest small business information.' I'm guessing you meant you want unbiased advice, and appreciate the SBA for keeping people out who are trying to sell you their secret' - yes? Let me know if I'm reading this wrong - don't want to put words in your mouth. If so, I would agree there are a lot of people pushing their wares instead of looking out for the small business owner. The SBA is one of them and is certainly the most dangerous, for the very reason that you think they are unbiased when they are among the most biased. Here's just one example of how narrow the SBA is and how you should never look here for what you seek - real honest small business information.' The SBA site assumes you should write a Business Plan as the first step in starting your business. If you look throughout the small business advisory world, you will find that half of the experts out there would say that isn't a good idea. But you don't get that opposing view - very biased. Instead we believe we are getting real honest small business information, and dive into their Free Online Course on How to Prepare a Business Plan which can be found on the SBA site at sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/plan/writeabusinessplan which promotes the products of just two companies, one that is a giant foreign conglomerate. So thinking that you are getting real honest small biz info is inaccurate. You're getting sold the biased viewpoint and resources of just two private companies. Who are they? The first is CCH Business Owner's Toolkit (see slides 23, 24, 25 and 30 on the SBA Online course). Download the templates and their names are given right at the top so you can find them and buy the rest of their resources. CCH Business Owner's Toolkit is owned by Wolters Kluwer, a giant Dutch conglomerate that did $4.7 billion in 2009 and has 19,500 employees. Their templates were developed over the last 75 years of working with large corporations and if you can find a single person in their top 500 employees who ever worked in a small business in Holland or any of the other 35 countries in which they have headquarters, I'd be very surprised. The only other resource you're allowed to see amongst the thousands available in private enterprise is sample business plans from Palo Alto Software (Slide 32). When you click on these it takes you directly to the Bplans./Palo Alto business site so you can buy their Business Plans, which were initially developed by doing Business Plans for such 'small businesses' as Apple Computer, Hewlett Packard and Borland International. Palo Alto owns 60% of the Business Plan market. So on what you perceived to be the real honest' SBA site you're not going to get to see anyone else's software. Your desire to find a neutral place where you wouldn't get sold someone's favorite secret' doesn't work out that way here at business.gov. Instead of using a small business that has designed all of what they do around helping other small businesses, the SBA, which is supposed to champion small businesses, looks to one non-American giant corporation and one other company that owns 60% of the market and developed its product initially by using it with giant corporations. Who picked these two companies out of the thousands available and didn't tell you you're getting that very narrow, big business view of the world? You guessed it, SBA bureaucrats who have never started, built, managed or even worked in a small business. What is a foreign conglomerate doing selling us software via the SBA site? Isn't the SBA supposed to be the guardians of small business, not promoting a giant foreign corporation? This is just one example of the biased and prejudicial Big Business viewpoint you get from everything the SBA does. We could go on for pages about every other aspect of the SBA, its people and its resources, and you would see the same outrageous commitment to big business and narrow, biased, uninformed views of small business. If you want real honest small business information, you won't get it here. Everyone here might actually be well intentioned (although I'm beginning to believe the higher-ups are in save-my-job mode and aren't worried about you), but they simply don't have the experience to help you. Go to private businesses who have gotten help from private advisors and small biz growth products, and ask them who they used to help them with their business. Then use them, too. That's the best way to get real honest small business information.

Mourad, I keep working on this because of statements like yours: 'Why on earth would you go after the one website that actually helps small businesses?' There are thousands of websites that help small businesses, most of them attached to people who have been in small business and are true small business advisors with a lifetime of small business experience. If there is one place on the internet that is the least small-business oriented, it is this. If you believe that the government, with no background in small business, is the place to find help for your small business, then that is your prerogative. But I find that 99% of small business owners have no idea that no one at the SBA has a small business background and that the SBA actually focuses on businesses with up to 500 employees. Whining is when you think you deserve something you don't. We are not asking for anything - no handouts, no bailouts and no special treatment. We're just asking that government, including the SBA, stop giving those handouts, bailouts, and special favors to big businesses and then pretend that they are small. Just stop making it harder on us to do business. And one way they could make it easier is to have real small business people representing us who would push back on government for creating an unlevel playing field. We're advocating for small business, something the SBA isn't. The only people to date that have found that irritating are those making money off the SBA.

I have to disagree with you. The censorship here is what makes it quality spam free forum and you can get real honest small business information.