Rieva, Your statements are in italics: I find it ironic Chuck, that you would take the time to trash the SBA and SCORE on a Web site (which provides important and essential information for FREE) that is itself part of the agency you're targeting. Interesting that you would find it ironic. Where should the thin ice sign be posted? Five miles from the lake? Is it ironic when protestors who disagree with a war protest at an Army base or when protestors who think a company is polluting stand out in front of it with signs? I find it ironic that you would not affirm activism when it comes from the other side but demean it as some kind if improper usage of the public domain. I suspect that in 1953, before software replaced human jobs that number [500 employees as the definition of small by the SBA] was more relevant. We cant just make statements and therefore have them be true. The term big business did not even come into common usage until the 60s and the statistics are clear that the average size of a business is much larger today than it was when the SBA was formed. It they formed it today, it would include all businesses under 1,000 employees. There is no escaping the fact that the SBA was never designed to actually help small businesses. Glossing over the stats just makes it more obvious. You state categorically that the SBA doesn't care about the truly small business. Please dont put words in my mouth or thoughts in my heart to twist things to make your point. Nowhere in my post do I say anything of that nature. This isnt about caring or not caring. I think almost all of the PEOPLE inside the SBA care deeply. I said the AGENCY itself is malformed, too big, with an undefined and unfocused constituency that is too broad as to have any meaning, that the AGENCY is ill-equipped to deal with the segment because its a giant government agency dealing with thousands of big companies with 100-500 employees, and that with large dogs and small hamsters nipping at their hills, it is only natural that they would pay attention to the large dogs. All the stats show this, as well as does the nature of the leadership over the last 50 years. I'm sure you remember the 1990s, the decade where 23 million jobs were created in America--most of them by small businesses. Small business has always been the engine of job growth, long before the SBA existed and now in spite of them. There is no statistical correlation whatsoever between the SBA and creation of new small businesses except some that might correlate that entrepreneurialism in America has declined ever since the creation of the SBA. NEVER once have I heard any SCORE representative boast about convincing 90 percent of the people they counsel to not start a business. Not one of the thousands of business owners I've met over the years has shared that particular SCORE story (and I've heard plenty from them). Fair enough we dont have statistics on this (Ive asked the SBA and SCORE innumerable times) so well have to go anecdotally. My experience is different than yours. The reason I could finish my sister-in-laws story without hearing it is because Ive heard it so many times from so many people who have had their dream smashed by an incredibly good and unassailable spreadsheet from SCORE. And I only had one SCORE counselor say it to me a half dozen years ago, but he did boast that well over 90% (I think he said 95% but its been too long) were people he talked out of doing something stupid. And all my anecdotal experience backs him up. It would be great to get real stats on this. Why isnt SCORE keeping them on who goes into business and who doesn't after contact with SCORE? Wouldnt it be good to know what impact if any they are having? Having started my own business at the ripe old age of 56, I'm not quite sure that it's fair to say that because one is old, one automatically becomes risk-averse. Well, actually it is quite fair and accurae to say age reduces the tolerance for risk and increases the desire for safety. Just because you and I are still anecdotally willing to take risks doesnt make it true for all people 55+ years old. Here's the reality: GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP MONITOR GEM 2006 Summary Results Early-stage entrepreneurial activity is most prevalent in the age group of individuals 25-34 years old, and least prevalent in the 55-64 year old group. gemconsortium.org/download.asp?fid=532 But to condemn 12,400 SCORE counselors because of some isolated incident/s is unfair. Again, dont twist what I said to make me look bad in order to make your point. If you dont have actual points to make, you wont make any by attacking me. Nowhere did I condemn a any SCORE one counselor or all of them at once. What I said was that most of them were retired and well beyond their risk-taking years. All the statistics back me up this isnt a condemnation, it is a simple fact. Too many never bootstrapped a business from the ground up and too many were middle managers from big business who were never even involved in a small business, let alone started one. I have asked SCORE numerous times for a statistical breakdown on this simple basis 1) # counselors that bootstrapped from the ground up with a big commercial loan (i.e. the traditional 401k, mortgage and credit card route), 2) # that ran a small business even if they didnt start one, and 3) # who have never ran a business under 20 employees. I did it again a few weeks ago 12 separate requests to local SCORE offices across the nation and to the national office. The local SCORE offices were not responsive, although the individual SCORE counselors VERY responsive, but with no answers. National, as usual, did not respond. So until we get stats on this, well have to acquire our own. And I know a lot of SCORE counselors who never bootstrapped a business who are instructing others how to avoid doing it because its too risky. But let me be very clear. The SCORE counselors themselves, to a person, all seem like the best folks on earth. Well intentioned, genuinely wanting to help, just like most SBA folks (the higher up you go, i.e. at the state and national director levels, the less this is true). Im not attacking individual SCORE counselors or SBA employees. Have you talked to SCORE CEO Ken Yancey lately? I have. Ken is an energetic, entrepreneurial thinker who is single-mindedly dedicated to helping the nation's aspiring and existing business owners... I have not talked with him. I would like to. I have received no responses from SCORE national, but have never specifically asked to talk with the CEO. From what Ive read about him he seems like a genuinely great guy and I love that he is a Cub Master. But again, this isnt about intentionality or desire to do good (well, it actually is with Karen Mills who has blatantly misquoted me for her own benefit and refused to own up to it even though its in writing). However, his resume, and Karen Mills are possibly the best proof that the SBA is ill-equipped to help small businesses under 20 employees. As great a guy as he may be, the only thing that can be found about Ken's background on the internet is eight years of executive positions in the banking industry and a statement he made that every bank I ever worked for failed. Its interesting that the exact nature of those eight years has been expunged from his LinkedIn profile and the SBA site, but clearly whatever is there, it isnt promoting him as a small business advocate or it would be easy to find. Executive in the banking industry would not exactly endear him to most small business owners and certainly doesnt qualify him to understand what it means to bootstrap a business. Probably a great guy, but not a small business expert (expert being defined as someone who lived it as a lifestyle, not learned it from books and second-hand smoke). Then there is Karen Mills, head of the SBA, heiress to the Tootsie Roll Fortune, who worked all her life for big companies like McKinsey, General Foods, Scotts Miracle-Gro and Arrow Electronics, many multi-billion dollar conglomerates. But because her parents ran a family-owned business she is considered qualified to run the SBA? Would the SBA ever even consider someone who had started, grown and run a few successful businesses under 20 employees and not grown or led a large one? Of course not, they need a Karen Mills because the main clientele are companies over 100 employees up to 500, with revenues in the hundreds of millions. That is the central clientele for the SBA. Which is why, among all the other reasons, the SBA is clearly not the place to go to get help starting a business. Well intentioned or not, you dont let an 800 pound gorilla hatch a chicken egg. ---This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.