National Small Business Week 2015 Highlights

It is my absolute pleasure to be, well, the leader of the Small Business Administration to kick off National Small Business Week this morning. Please join us in honoring all of you today.

We are truly honored to have this celebration taking place across our great country today.

The government has made this week Small Business Week focused on delivering great quality events for business owners. We're kicking it off here in Boca Raton, Florida.

We really have a full suite of services for every entrepreneur. As America's diversity continues to blossom, what we want to do at the SBA is make sure that they can begin to think about how they're going to start their business and grow jobs. National Business Week is a time when we really reflect on the engine of our economy.

Small business is the backbone of Miami, like it is the backbone of the country. What we're seeing is a renaissance or an emergence of entrepreneurs, technology here in this county.

So together, I want us to be a team to lift the nations, to lift our country, to lift our communities and our families along the way. That we're not here just to be greedy, but we're here to do good, to make sure that we're having a social impact on society. I've been doing SBA lending since 1988.

And have helped hundreds and hundreds of small business owners.

Watching our companies grow from 2 employees to 20 to 100 is very exciting.

And having the opportunity of getting the SBA loan helped us expand and get.

Into a new market.

Definitely looking into getting a new loan for a new location that we plan to open this year with the sba.

This year's theme is dream big, start small.

And this is the culmination of what happens when you mix dreaming big, starting small, and pushing forward on that vision.

We get the dreamers, and we get the good dreamers, making sure that they have the talents to run that business. But what needs to follow the idea is the preparation to execute against that idea. In general, there's been a tightening of the supply chain and a complexity brought on by technology.

The technology landscape has allowed more local businesses to interact globally.

We have to continue to educate ourselves and get smarter and faster and more efficient.

So if you're passionate and you're realistic and you prepare and do your homework, then you can make it happen.

When small businesses win, our communities win, and America wins.

Los Angeles is the place where that conversation has to begin, because we are the nation's capital for small business. More small businesses in this area than anywhere else in the country.

But we're also there to celebrate that innovation is coming from immigrants.

I came in as a Cuban refugee to accomplish my American dream.

As the world has shifted more and more to a global economy where the world's middle class is growing, particularly in.

California, it has to do with ego maintenance. We truly have to understand that we have to do things together.

Pleased to have the administrator here with an appreciation that our opportunities lie south as well as north.

Imagine the despotism, the tyranny that's taking place around the world because they don't have strengthened middle class economies. We are all here in the same boat.

I want to take my business from 10 employees to 30 employees.

And so what we did is we launched a new initiative called Link L I N C for Capital. And as a result, I think we're transforming, lending and empowering the borrower to have choices. And speaking of inspiration and innovation, it's my privilege to introduce our host for the evening, Mike Muse.

The Small Business Administration has had an incredible week. This week, we are actually here to talk about millennials. Right, that's you. This new brand of entrepreneurs, this new brand of people, this new brand of thoughts. Millennials no longer just want to have a mom and pop shop. Then how is the government preparing to assist those individuals with that?

And so we're taking the walls down at SBA and we're going to these very fresh places so that we can be where they are. Now that I know what I want, I have the obligation to go and do that.

My grandfather was able to do it. He's always been my hero, and it seemed really scary, but I said, if I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it.

Creating a fashion label was always a dream. You know, we loved it from being a small child growing up in Somalia.

All of a sudden, it was in the media, and it seemed like any person anywhere could start a business and become a billionaire.

I'd like to welcome all of you to Washington and to this afternoon's award ceremony. And thank you to all in the small business community here today for your continued vision, innovation, and contribution to our nation's prosperity.

Choose what your passion is. First of all, find what your passion is and then work on that. Make that a lifetime career. Every single time you're faced with a hardship, it's there for a reason. It's been put into your path so. So that you'll learn and you'll grow. And once you do, that's when enormous freedom comes.

Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Ms. Rachel Roy. Thank you so much. Allen and Sarah Galbraithone. Are SBA's 2015 National Small Business of the Year.

We needed the SBA because they believed in us. You know, they kind of could walk through it and they thought, you know, this is a good risk, and they went with it.

It's a celebration of the diversity and our connectivity to the rest of the world. And the tools they bring will allow us to create that 21st century economy driven by entrepreneurship, driven by risk taking, driven by the opportunity to succeed. And everyone should have that same chance.

And so I invite you to this awakening of entrepreneurship, to join us in this movement and celebrate this week, National Small Business Week. Thank you so much.

Thank you.