Small Business Majority and Rocky Mountain MicroFinance Institute (RMMFI) convened an Inclusive Small Business Roundtable on December 4 with Colorado policymakers and agency leaders and a group of diverse small business owners ahead of the upcoming 2025 legislative session. The goal was to help legislators and agency attendees better understand the experiences and barriers that entrepreneurs face when starting and growing their businesses. 

Although Jessi Burg loved her career in seasonal industries like environmental education, outdoor guiding and agriculture, she faced a big problem.

“I wanted to make a living wage,” she said. 

With that goal in mind, the future Colorado entrepreneur thought about the small business owners she knew. They seemed to have more control over their wages, work schedule and life. This realization led her to found a landscaping business, Pears to Perennials, in 2016.

Gustavo Garcia Jr. contracted life-threatening viral meningitis as a child and ended up in the hospital as a result. But for Gustavo, something good came out of this experience: It inspired him to pursue a career in medicine and research. After studying immunology at the University of California, Berkeley, he went to work at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), during the Zika virus epidemic of 2015-2016, and played a vital role during the COVID-19 pandemic. His work at that time was instrumental to his career because it allowed him “to see the gap in preventative measures to combat these viral diseases,” Gustavo said.

Caitlin Copple never thought she’d become a small business owner.  “In college, I wasn’t a business major and didn’t take a single business class,” she said. “I was into activism and making the world a better place. But I’ve learned that if you start your own business, you have the freedom to do it differently than how it’s been done before even if there are not a ton of role models out there. One reason why I try to be visible as a queer single mom is because that was never an example of what a business owner could be.” 

Over the past few months, Small Business Majority network members participated in roundtable discussions with the White House National Economic Council. Small business owners from across the country had the opportunity to voice their top concerns, share their experience with federal small business programs and suggest issues they would like the federal government to address. As small businesses continue to navigate an ever-complex economy these roundtables helped the Biden-Harris administration better understand the evolving needs of America’s entrepreneurs.