SBA Awards, Big Money (So What?), and Uber For Tractors

SBA Now Accepting Nominations for 2019 Small Business Week Awards

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has opened the nomination period for the 2019 National Small Business Week Awards.

Looks like the time has come for you to muster up the courage and apply. (Yes, that means you.)

National Small Business Week got its start back in 1963. Every year, individuals running America’s top small businesses receive recognition for their contributions to both their individual communities and the national economy.

Awards include Small Business Person of the Year, Small Business Exporter of the Year, Phoenix Awards for Disaster Recovery, Federal Procurement Awards, Jody C. Raskind Lender of the Year, Small Business Investment Company of the Year, and Awards to SBA Resource Partners.

Visit www.sba.gov/nsbw to download nomination forms, understand judging criteria, and other necessary guidelines. For information about your local SBA, visit www.sba.gov/districtoffices.

Nominations for the 2019 Small Business Week Awards must be submitted no later than 3 p.m. EST on January 9, 2019. Nominations must be mailed or hand delivered to a local SBA Office. Email submissions are not accepted.

Big Money, Plenty of Whammies

According to the New York Times, “start-ups raising $100 million or more from investors—known as mega-round in Silicon Valley—used to be a rarity. But now, they are practically routine.”

Oversized investments may sound all well and good, but the reality of running a start-up means that building it should come first. Too much money and too fast—sure, a startup may be able to “pick up the tab,” but they might not be ready for all that business entails. Staff. Space. Goals. Objectives. Follow through. Logistics. If a start-up stays too reliant on funding, the start-up will never find a path to profit.

Big money may look appealing, but money won’t always be what drives your business to success quicker and faster. Growth isn’t what you’re after in the very beginning. Customers and revenue are.

Meet the Social Entrepreneur Behind Africa’s “Uber For the Farm”

Jehiel Oliver, the social entrepreneur who dreamed up Hello Tractor, understood there was a fragile link between the youth of Africa and the large agricultural sector of employment opportunities throughout the continent. According to Forbes, agriculture is the single largest employer of young people in sub-Saharan Africa. Combining the two, Oliver could see, would be powerful.

Hello Tractor, a platform that connects tractor owners to farmers and offers tools for business and operations, took root in 2014. The idea stemmed from the notion that farming was prevalent, but many smallholder farmers did not have access to equipment. Financing barely exists as an option, yet the machinery these farmers need...the costs are enormous.

Oliver knew access to a tractor was as good as owning one.

Just like Uber, Hello Tractor is about disrupting an antiquated systems and offering efficiency through the power of technology. Transparency matters, too. Ratings and reviews on Hello Tractor help smallholder farmers know which tractor owners they can rely on.

Whereas tractor owners may have a smartphone, a smallholder farmer may not. Hello Tractor knew this would be a bridge to build. Tech-savvy men and women (mostly from the younger generation) who live near these rural farmers help farmers book the tractors the smallholder farmers need.

Thanks to Hello Tractor, smallholder farmers are planting 40 times faster and at one-third the cost.