You’re the Boss Blog: Are Young Entrepreneurs Getting Enough Help?

Today’s Question

What small-business owners think.

We’ve just published an interview with Neil Blumenthal, a young entrepreneur who recently went to Capitol Hill to talk about how important young entrepreneurs are to the economy. One of the founders of Warby Parker, an online eyewear company based in New York, Mr. Blumenthal and Hannah Seligson discussed, among other things, what politicians don’t understand about business, what he had to promise the Small Business Administration he wouldn’t do with his borrowed money, and what the Bloomberg administration is doing right. (You can read more small-business conversations here.)

At one point, Mr. Blumenthal noted that his company had struggled to get a loan backed by the Small Business Administration because the company did not yet have two years of tax returns.

“Isn’t that a reasonable request when you’re talking about using taxpayer dollars to guarantee a loan to a private company?” Ms. Seligson asked.

“I understand where the banks are coming from,” Mr. Blumenthal responded. “It probably was necessary to implement hard and fast rules to stop the bleeding when the crisis hit, but they should be looking at the policies and thinking: does this make sense now?”

What do you think?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=996ee82bdde742e734e26eb852055d06