Change Makers + National Small Business Week

Change Makers

This week I had the honor to be invited by Etsy to a Small Business Roundtable hosted by the National Democratic Caucus on Capital Hill---it was awesome. The event was about 2 hours and there were people from all over the country. It was amazing to hear from such a wide variety of entrepreneurs and the issues that they are facing since there were big-small businesses, traditional small businesses and then micro-businesses, like myself.There were a host of issues brought up like: sales taxes, tax breaks, international shipping regulations, access to more relevant business resources and how to tap into funding. The committee was really great about engaging with the entire group and making it clear that our voices matter.Julie Stitzel, the Etsy lobbyist was fantastic to work with and I was honored to have the opportunity to represent the 1.6 million Etsy sellers. Starting your own business whether on the side or full-time take a lot of courage, enthusiasm, patience and hard work. I'm really grateful I got the chance be a part of these discussions...because very often, you can feel like your voice doesn't matter. But in reality, I'm learning with a lot of patience and perseverence, we all have the ability to be Change Makers....one voice at a time.