September 21, 2016 The Skanner MINORITY BUSINESS ENTERPRISE EDITION Page 7
MBE 2016
Special Business Edition
SBA: Six Cities Launch Their “Startup in a Day” Solutions
Los Angeles creates an open source business portal with $250,000 prize Keith Bullock says
Small Business Association
WASHINGTON – Six cities: Los Ange-
les, Boston, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City,
Washington, D.C., and Jackson, Mich-
igan have launched their “Startup in
Day” (SIAD) solutions making it easier
for businesses to get started. Several
additional cities will be launching their
solutions over the next month.
“I joined President Obama last sum-
mer in calling on our colleagues at city
halls and in Native American commu-
nities across the country to pledge to
make it easier for every entrepreneur
to start a business by building stream-
lined, business-friendly, online tools.
I’m so pleased to see nearly 100 cities
and communities have taken the pledge
and many are now implementing their
solutions,” said SBA Administrator Ma-
ria Contreras-Sweet. “I’m encouraging
more cities, large and small, as well as
Native American communities to join
this initiative and take the Startup in a
Day pledge.”
Last year, as part of the initiative, 25
cities and two Native American com-
munities were each awarded a $50,000
prize as part of the Startup in a Day –
Start Small prize competition. One city,
Los Angeles, was awarded a $250,000
prize as part of the Startup in a Day –
Dream Big prize competition. For both
competitions, each winner was funded
based on their proposed ideas on how
to meet the SIAD competition chal-
lenge. These ideas have evolved over
the last several months resulting in a
variety of solutions.
“I am particularly pleased the City
of Los Angeles took on the additional
challenge of creating an online tool
that is open-source and can be shared
with cities and communities across the
country. This efort will make it pos-
sible for even more entrepreneurs to
have better access to the information
and services they need,” said Contre-
ras-Sweet.
Los Angeles oicially opened their
business portal today (http://business.
lacity.org/). The LA Business Portal is
an online resource for entrepreneurs
looking to start a business in LA or
businesses looking to grow their oper-
ations. It entails key product features
such as the Start Up Guide, which pro-
vides a roadmap for business regis-
tration based on answers to questions
around business types, Starter Kits
which are quick how-to-guides sup-
porting the most popular business
types in the city, a Resource Library, as
well as content pages related to how to
plan, manage, or grow a business. Sev-
eral unique visual elements are also
built into the site to engage the user
and navigate them through the content
on the site.
Los Angeles’ code, as well as code
from other open-source SIAD solu-
tions, can be found on GitHub at https://
github.com/StartupInADay
Business portal links for other
launched cities:
• Boston:
https://www.boston.gov/
starting-business
• Jackson, MI: http://buildmybusiness.
cityofjackson.org/
• Milwaukee:
http://city.milwaukee.
gov/StartSmart
• Salt Lake City: http://www.slcgov.
com/buslicense
• Washington, D.C.: https://business.
dc.gov/
Each of the Startup in a Day winners
and nearly 100 additional cities have
taken a pledge to work towards meet-
ing the Startup in a Day challenge.
To help with these eforts, cities and
communities that take the Startup in a
Day pledge are invited to join the Start-
up in a Day Community of Practice. The
goal of the Community of Practice is to
connect cities on a peer-to-peer level
with other city staf that are creating
online platforms for business permits
and licenses. The Community is linked
via conference calls, webinars, and an
online discussion board. SBA, along
with the National League of Cities and
Code for America support the Commu-
nity by connecting participating cities
with various, non-monetary resources.
For more details about Startup in a
Day visit www.sba.gov/startup. This site
will continue to be updated as solutions
are launched.
Transit cont’d from pg 6
Movement, but at times, union lead-
ership has taken their eye of the ball.
“We kind of lost our focus,” said Bull-
ock. “Once people get into leadership
positions, it seems they become like
management, like elitists, and that’s
the wrong attitude to have, because
the struggle continues every day.
Bullock continued: “You can never
get to a point where you are satisied
and think you have done all that you
can do. You have to keep your eye on
the ball and know where you are go-
ing and how you’re going to get there
because otherwise you’ll be lost.”
Since the Civil Right Movement,
the membership of trade unions has
grown in racial and ethnic diversi-
ty, but that demographic shit has
not translated to increased diversity
among the top leadership in the trade
union movement in the U.S.
“Our leadership is majority White
and, when you look at it, I don’t think
we have a Black person that oversees
an international union, so it’s still
very much a struggle to have minori-
ties in particular positions,” Bullock
said. “We’re on the frontlines, but be-
hind the scenes, there are a lot of Cau-
casians.”
In addition to union leadership in-
clusion, Bullock said he’d like to see
more African-American and Latinos
strive to be owners of the businesses
that contract with the industry.
