The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) recently announced the Small Business Persons of the Year for 2023 from each of the 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The winners of the award are going to be officially recognized on April 30 and May 1 in Washington D.C. during the awards ceremony happening during National Small Business Week. Following the recognition ceremony for the state/territory winners, the ultimate winner will be declared as the National Small Business Person of the Year for 2023. SBA Names State Small Business Persons of the Year It has been a tradition for over 50 years to recognize the critical contributions of entrepreneurs and small business owners to the growth and occasional recovery of America’s economy. This year’s … [Read More...]

Etsy has announced that the recent payment delays experienced by a portion of the platform’s active sellers following the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) have been resolved. The delays happened because Etsy had been using SVB to issue payments to some sellers, and the bank’s subsequent collapse on March 10 meant those payments could no longer be made from the bank. However, Etsy worked quickly to ‘re-engineer’ its payment processes so they could send out the due deposits via another payments partner. Etsy Offer Assurances As reported on Small Business Trends, Etsy emailed affected sellers to inform them of the delay to payments due on that Friday of March 10. The ecommerce marketplace offered assurances that alternative payment partners would be found as … [Read More...]

Actress and entrepreneur Gabrielle Union is set to award three $25,000 grants to Black female-owned businesses in the fashion, skincare and hair accessories sectors. Gabrielle Union Providing $75K in Business Grants to Black Women Owned Companies The $75,000 total fund is being offered in honor of International Women’s Day, with the star of Bring It On and Bad Boys II teaming-up with celebrity hairstylist Larry Sims for the initiative. The pair previously co-founded hair-care brand Flawless by Gabrielle Union together, and are now partnering with LinkedIn to offer these grants along with mentorship sessions. Closing the Gap The grant initiative is inspired by the ‘significantly wide’ gap in access to capital, expertise, and opportunities for Black female entrepreneurs. According to … [Read More...]

The Washington State Department of Commerce recently announced a new grant opportunity specifically for businesses working in the hospitality and lodging industry. The grant program has a total fund of $100 million to help businesses that suffered losses due to the pandemic, although there is some strict eligibility criteria. For example, the program is restricted to businesses that experienced a 25% or greater loss in gross receipts or sales between 2019 and 2020 because of COVID-19 and the subsequent public health and safety measures. Additional Eligibility Criteria As well as the 25% threshold, eligible businesses must have generated minimum gross receipts or sales of $12,000 in 2019, or 2020 if the business opened that year. Each eligible business must generate at least 51% of its revenue in the state of Washington, … [Read More...]

A new ChatGPT app for Slack has been introduced by Salesforce and OpenAI which will provide instant conversation summaries, research tools and writing assistance directly in Slack. Built by OpenAI directly on the Slack platform, the ChatGPT app is designed to help millions of companies work more productively. It combines the knowledge found in Slack with the intelligence of ChatGPT, with the aim of empowering Slack users with the information they need to be more productive and make faster progress at work. ChatGPT App for Slack Salesforce previously conducted a survey of more than 500 senior IT leaders which revealed a significant majority were prioritizing generative AI for their business within the next 18 months. One third of those surveyed stated that it was a ‘top priority’. Most … [Read More...]

Wix recently announced the launch of its AI Text Creator within the Wix Editor, which the company says provides users with the ability to generate high-quality and uniquely-tailored content for their websites. The new feature will ‘significantly improve’ the quality of website content while simultaneously streamlining the website-building process. The AI Text Creator can be used to come up with creative titles or to personalize text and precisely formulate it for a website. Solving the Content Creation Problem Wix has built the AI Text Creator as they believe creating content to be a frequent problem users have when building their websites on the Wix platform. The idea is that the creator will provide Wix users with text that is ‘near-ready for … [Read More...]

Small business owners are a little bit safer today as a telemarketing fraudster who targeted small businesses has been sentenced to over six years in prison. Las Vegas resident Michael Jones was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kent J. Dawson to a total of 78 months in prison, followed by another five years of supervised release. Jones was convicted of defrauding hundreds of small business owners – with many of them considered elderly – to the tune of $12 million. Restitution and Forfeiture 43-year old Jones pleaded guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud, as well as two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud. His sentencing also contained an order to pay restitution of around $11.5 million to the victims, and a forfeiture money … [Read More...]

A California woman who fled to Europe to avoid being sent to prison for defrauding COVID-19 relief funds has been extradited to the United States. 43-year old Tamara Dadyan of Encino spent a year as a fugitive in Montenegro, which is east from Italy over the Adriatic Sea. She arrived in Los Angeles on February 27 and appeared before the District Court on the very next day. LA Fraud Ring Exploit COVID-19 Loans Court documents describe Dadyan as a member of a fraud ring based out of Los Angeles. Together with Richard Ayvazyan and Marietta Terabelian, the gang concocted a scheme to fraudulently apply for and receive over $20 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) funds. Dadyan and her co-conspirators used … [Read More...]

The IRS is expanding the electronic filing mandate for small and medium-sized businesses, requiring any federal tax or information returns in paper form to be filed electronically. The new regulations recently published by the IRS reveal the threshold for paper form filing is being reduced from 250 to just 10. The expanded mandate doesn’t come into force until 2024, so affected businesses who file ten or more returns or statements per year now have just under ten months to switch from filing in paper form to electronic. IRS Portal for Electronic Tax Returns and Statements To help businesses file their returns and statements electronically, the IRS has opened a new portal online which should facilitate compliance by helping businesses file Form 1099 series information. Called IRIS (Information Returns Intake … [Read More...]