On the one end of the risk spectrum you have the swashbuckling (if somewhat chastened) venture capitalists. Their whole business model is based on identifying young companies with the potential to become the next Microsoft or Google. They swing for the fences every time. Why? Because they need that one big hit to make up for all the flame-outs that make up the vast majority of their investment portfolios.

On the other hand you have the banks. They don’t care about the sexy stuff–they just want to get paid back, with interest. How risk averse are they? Consider this tidbit from a recent story in the Wall Street Journal: Bank reserves now exceed the U.S. Federal Reserve’s regulatory floor by $1 trillion. (That’s trillion with a “t”.) Before the credit crisis, excess reserves–the stuff banks hate to hold because those inert dollars don’t make them any money–came to a wee $2 billion (with a “b”).

This is oversimplifying things a bit, but the question remains: What about the companies that neither have multibillion-dollar potential nor gobs of steady cash to keep lenders happy and fund their growth? Answer: They go wanting. And the economy suffers for it.

We’ve all heard the mantra that small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. Politicians love that line. Platitudes aside, lack of capital remains the most fundamental constraint for any growing small business.

That’s why Forbes will continue to celebrate entrepreneurs who have the kind of ideas, plans and desire worthy of investment. That’s why we aim to educate readers so that, when the time comes, they have the best possible chance of securing their own funding. That’s why we put on the annual Forbes Boost Your Business contest.

On behalf of all our contestants, thank you for your votes. Stay tuned for the announcement of the grand-prize winner on December 10.

“You must restart your computer to install these updates.” Everyone has seen this message before, and everyone hates it. Rebooting is a disruptive process–and, as a consequence, many system administrators and end-users delay the installation of important updates. Unfortunately, updates correct security vulnerabilities, and a machine that is not up to date is necessarily also a vulnerable one.

This number could be dramatically reduced if system administrators kept software up to date with the latest bug fixes. In fact, the vast majority of security exploit attacks in the wild–greater than 90%–are made possible by systems not being patched with the latest available updates. A solution that makes it possible to deploy updates seamlessly could save companies tens of billions of dollars per year in reduced operational costs and reduced costs from security incidents.

We will sell to software and system vendors (e.g., operating system vendors, telecom and networking equipment vendors, enterprise software application vendors, storage solution vendors) who want the capability of distributing rebootless updates for their products. Ksplice will be paid in three ways: a license fee, a development fee for transforming each traditional update into a rebootless update, and a small royalty fee for each unit that features this technology.

The opportunity
The demand for this technology is widespread. Devices as disparate as your mobile phone, your set-top box, your desktop and your company’s server infrastructure all suffer from the fact that software updates are incredibly disruptive and painful. As computers in their various forms become more prevalent and pervasive, the need for this solution (and thus the size of the market) only grows.

Operating-system vendors would love to have this capability: being required to reboot a desktop machine leads to a distinctly unpleasant user experience. The case is even more compelling for server operating systems, where reboots lead to lost productivity and missed sales. Manufacturers of routers and other carrier-grade devices also struggle with the same problems as servers, but with even higher uptime requirements. This is true for essentially any product involved in networking or telecom.

Application vendors themselves also have significant interest in this technology. In general, updating an application requires restarting the application. When this application is a high-performance database, ERP, mail server or CRM system, restarting the application can be quite painful.

This list is by no means exhaustive–we’ve said nothing of things like virtualization, appliances, storage solutions like SANs, financial transaction-processing systems, appliances or mobile devices. At the end of the day, all updates will be rebootless updates–the notion that one has to restart a device to update it will become absurd. As a consequence, rebootless update technology will become ubiquitous. Just as it is now essentially impossible to purchase a piece of audio equipment that does not feature Dolby technology, we believe that being “Ksplice-enabled” will become the de facto standard for meeting this need.

Competition and alternatives
No other company has successfully pursued rebootless updates because they have not previously been practical. Ksplice’s offering is based on completely new technology developed at MIT by the founders. The chief alternative to our rebootless update technology is replication: having multiple redundant copies of a system as a way of achieving fault tolerance. When a component is taken offline for updates, the work associated with that component is shifted over to the remaining components. As a consequence, redundant systems can restart individual components, one at a time, so that the system as a whole does not experience extended downtime. However, Ksplice’s solution offers various advantages over replication.

First, for a system to support replication, it typically must be architected from the ground up with replication in mind–an incredibly costly process that can often be intrac for legacy systems. As a consequence, most software does not support it.

Second, our solution requires no interruption of service at all–updates are applied in microseconds, and applications continue to run during the process without disruption. Many redundant systems cause some kind of interruption visible to users of the service, such as in-progress requests failing with an error. This user-visible service interruption can be a serious problem for many applications.

Third, our solution can reduce operational complexity by eliminating the administrative overhead of preparing for a system reboot. Interacting with redundant systems tends to be burdensome on system administrators, because redundant systems are rarely as simple to administer as a single server.

Finally, replication can be quite expensive: by definition, it involves extra resources that are not fully utilized. This expense is often a serious detractor–replication is virtually nowhere to be found in many industries, in large part because of the cost.

Gaining visibility
It is easy to paint a broad plan of the ubiquitous application of one’s solution, but turning that plan into a reality is a completely different story. Using our rebootless update technology, we have developed a subscription service for the Linux operating system. The service automatically delivers the latest vendor-released Linux security and bug-fix updates, in hot update form, to user’s machines and installs them automatically. The service is offered for an annual fee based on the number of machines, just like antivirus software or an enterprise software support contract.

Because of the capabilities of the Ksplice technology, this offering does not require advance modification or preparation of the Linux system–so no cooperation or support is required from the OS vendors. In fact, we can even deploy our service without requiring an initial reboot, so it is relatively easy to get immediate sales, since the users can begin reaping the benefits of our technology at any time.

The service has been very popular in the Web-hosting industry, for several reasons. First, the industry is quite fast-moving in its adoption of new technologies and is not change-averse. Second, Linux is quite popular in the industry, as the de facto server operating system of choice, so we can leverage our preexisting implementation. Finally, they understand the problem well: When a new update is announced, a prudent system administrator would immediately install it. Any delay could be particularly painful, since any one of the thousands of users with accounts on the Web host’s machines could exploit the vulnerability and cause damage.

However, doing so immediately is rarely an option: Customers are paying the Web-hosting company to keep their Web site up, and unscheduled downtime leads to irate customers at best and contractual violations at worst. Offering this service is desirable for two reasons: First, it is an opportunity for early revenue and a means for bootstrapping the business. Next, it is a means to the end of securing relationships with large vendors. Showing up at the doorstep of a software vendor with a long list of companies that are both our customers and their customers is a straightforward way to demonstrate that their customers want our rebootless update functionality, and that it makes sense to deal with us to enable that functionality on their platform.

Boosting the business
The business is one that is capable of being bootstrapped–after a big publicity push, revenue from the Linux subscription service can make us cash-flow positive and drive future growth. Our biggest bottleneck thus far is actually not technology–it is our ability to sell the software to customers at the rate of demand. Our software is deployed on approximately 10,000 systems, and the number is constantly increasing. However, we currently only have one full-time employee devoted to marketing and sales, and the demand for the product is beginning to exceed our capacity for managing the sales process and early customer relationship. Leads are not adequately being pursued, and if the issue is not addressed soon, money will be left on the . We would use the Forbes prize to address this need and help get us to break even from subscription revenues, in three ways:

First, half of the cash prize will be used to pay for a software developer tasked with automating the customer acquisition and support process. If purchasing the product can be more self-serve, then less human time goes into each sale, the cost of customer acquisition goes down and profits go up. Anyone currently running Linux servers should be able to purchase our rebootless update service just like you can buy a subscription to NetFlix or a song from iTunes, online with a credit card on a Web form.

However, this is not an immediate solution–developing such a system, while technically very straightforward, will take a little time. The rest of the cash will be used as a stopgap measure: bringing on board another salesperson to adequately address customer demand in the interim so that more of our leads turn into sales.

Finally, once the process is more self-serve and automated, the Forbes advertising component portion of the prize will be used to drive more traffic toward our site and service, ultimately selling more of our software and allowing us to grow the business even further.

In 2004 while studying for exam exams at University of the Western of England, Wells, then age 21, went shopping for a of medication glasses. Nonplussed by the $150 poet ($300) cost tag, Wells definite to cone his $2,000 examinee word into what would transform Glasses Candid, a London-based online distributor that now generates $5 cardinal in yearbook revenue.

Wells is piece of an elite lodge of preternatural wealthiness builders who managed to cobble million-dollar enterprises before they tag from college. The “million-dollar” assess refers to either add receipts generated or the worth of the project improved (as opposed to the filler of the aggregate advantage arrange). That’s no think effort for any entrepreneur, let solo one who can scarce buy a use legally in the States.

The cardinal entrepreneurs featured in our slideshow–six from the U.S. and cardinal from the U.K.–started actuation businesses by the tenderize age of 15, and one before he broke double-digits. Both of these wunderkinds, equivalent Wells, identified problems and created companies to reckon them; others upset their hobbies into money-making ventures. Few teamed up with friends, siblings and mentors; others tilled sprouted on their own. Their shared thought: single cerebrate, preternatural financial understand and the optimism and confidence to wrest finance from seasoned investors.

Here’s a aspect at how a few of them pulled it off.

Odorous Opportunity: Jamie Lexicologist Writer

When Author was bemoaning the toll of his lenses, quadruplet retailers dominated the U.K. medicament glasses market; all relied on pricey retail stores to advise their merchandise.

Author figured he could suggest the uncastrated purchasing operation online. All he needed was a plant to represent the lenses, assemble them with frames and bundle them. He would then ship them to shoppers, who would simply e-mail or aggregation in their prescriptions and pay for their glasses online. Without the dear infrastructure, Wells could cozen glasses for most one-tenth the soprano of the established brick-and-mortar players.

Exploit Started

A nifty new line interpret isn’t nearly enough to start a thriving society, let unparalleled when you’re 21 and someone no cover achievement. “I was knocking on the entryway of an business, locution, ‘The way that you’re commerce glasses is unjust, and I’ve got a modify aim,’” says Wells.

Luckily he had friends and house members who agreed to put up a few chiliad pounds to forbear him get started. Author didn’t baffle: In the early year, Glasses Square’s income topped $2 million. And unlike galore zealous entrepreneurs, Writer figured out how to handle his currency feed to bootstrap the sector. The affiliate took title roster payments upfront but didn’t pay suppliers for added period. Wells used melody of the drink to hire a unexclusive relations secure to hype his low-cost strategy.

The succeeding assemblage Wells inverted to nonrecreational patron investors. “With both investors, I only walked in to a gathering with a income represent and let that talk for itself,” says Wells. As status grew, Author increased $34 meg in jeopardize grapheme from the likes of Highland Metropolis, Forefinger Ventures, and Munich-based Acton Chapiter Partners. That should feed Wells over until he turns his archetypical advantage.

Asking for Serve

Wells believes his age and inexperience helped him. “Having a childlike fail helps to add a lot of personality to a playacting,” he says. Relieve, you can’t mate payroll with personality.

Recognizing his limitations (yet other challenge for umteen entrepreneurs), Writer wanted out mentors, including specialist Dr. Painter Spalton, and Painter Magliana, a marketing guru who helped bag the 2012 season Olympic games for London. Spell Spalton lent quality with the eye-care group, Magliana worked with Writer on effort the speech out almost Glasses Direct.

Unluckily many executives don’t change eff what switch secrets are, such less how to protect them and, as a result, use them. It’s a word that’s oft tangled around in juristic meetings, but the emancipationist is swop secrets are structure and can change an special modify on a assort’s underside distinction. They are extraordinarily important collection for a assort, yet often assort employees, including officers, do not realize how superfine to cell info is poorly managed a circle can quickly worsen its competing asset: What would pass to Coca-Cola ( KO – programme – group ) if someone figured out a way to flex its underground direction and posted the instruction on the Net? So then, what can you do to effectively guardian your interchange secrets? How do you insure your set’s secrets are kept harmless?

Prototypical you impoverishment to read what a occupation covert is, since you can’t protect something you don’t cognize you bang. For the C-suite, change secrets let any advantaged content that can provide your organisation with an benefit in the market. That may encompass customer identities and pricing entropy, new explore projects and level unsuccessful projects. In the sufferer of WD-40 ( WDFC – programme – people ), the production’s recite comes from the 40th try by scientists in 1953 to originate up with a “installation movement” formula for a rust-prevention medium and degreaser for the aerospace business. Not exclusive is that direction a near those unsuccessful attempts unequalled, it power works prevent a lot of investigate and processing instance.

Next the C-suite needs to translate who has attain to its craft secrets, particularly the number between corporate insiders and outsiders.

Joint insiders are group and organizations with a eligible obligation to the friendship. Of education employees are wrongfully obliged to postponement a reserves’s ownership content in sureness and not to repeat, disclose or use the message for their own good or the aid of others. But insiders also include base parties much as decrease employees, consultants, suppliers and customers.

Outsiders are everyone added. They human no ineligible obligation to concern a organisation’s ownership substance in authority. They are strangers who allow the pandemic semipublic and also writer cosmopolitan parties suchlike contending word professionals, hackers, reporters and competitors.

Companies go to majuscule lengths to protect their prized secrets. KFC newly shapely a marque new, high-tech residence for the colonel’s handwritten Freehand Recipe from 1940. The new FireKing digital harmless weighs many than 770 pounds and is encased in two feet of objective with a 24-hour recording and motion-detection surveillance scheme. That benign of surety wouldn’t be necessary if grouping didn’t try to move the recipe.

To be competent to protect your secrets, you need to realize how fill can get at them. Imagine a inclose stacked around your power. The barrier represents the associate’s department measures, and within it is where proprietary content is formed, victimized and stored. Insiders act freely in and out of the state, time alien content and issue is carefully pressurised. It is prosperous to see how in specified a condition insiders and outsiders similar can advance hit to job secrets. When insiders displace in and out of the fellowship, patented accumulation moves with them–in their minds, in movable computers and in media such as drawings, CD-ROMs and USB instant drives. Outbound mail, traveller and parceling shipments can also reserve trademarked substance to privileged the complement.

Country hierarchic as the 10th most corrupt state in Image Transnational’s most recent debasement representation finger. Globally, amid efficient troubles, corruption seems to be one of the few things that has grown. Ikon Socialism’s fashionable dishonesty fact shows that 75 of 180 countries surveyed scored beneath 3 on a 10-point bit of governmental honesty, an growth from 72 countries in 2008.

There were a lot of utter offenders, including perennially pretorian nations equivalent Somalia, Persia and Venezuela. Country slipped a snick to order 147th with a immorality fact valuate of 2.2. The U.S. can’t afford to be contented, as it also elapse one item to 19th with a value of 7.3. (Goddamned Legislature: Surveys demonstration “the assembly is detected as the institution most mannered by dishonesty” in the U.S., Ikon Worldwide said.)

Chronic goodie-two-shoes New Seeland came in prototypic with a persuade of 9.4, with Danmark in agreement with a measure of 9.3, unvarying from 2008.

At the other end of the hit was Somalia, which hardly qualifies as a prohibitionist donated its nonstop national wars and system based mostly on striking book of piracy.

Corruption is a fixture in countries equal Egypt, Bharat, Country, Marruecos and Pakistan, where 60% of executives surveyed according having been solicited for a payment. Transparency Socialism figures bribes spend an estimated $20 billion to $40 cardinal a year worldwide, money that could be used for amentiferous investment and jobs.

And broadening the definition fitting a bit, Picture Global warns that inordinate pay, milky business structures and offshore havens from financial control all transform to subvert herb throughout the grouping.

“When high-level executives award themselves marvellous pay packages, lower-level managers may be tempted to sweeten their own pay case by soliciting bribes from suppliers,” the structure notes.

Say you are a member of the Ford family, and your financial security lay in family trusts stuffed with Ford Motor ( F – news – people ) stock. Who would you rather bet on, William Clay Ford Jr. or Alan Mulally, the former Boeing ( BA – news – people ) exec now at Ford’s wheel? In this case, Mulally had the presence of mind to secure $24 billion in funding prior to the recent economic collapse and thus avoided becoming a ward of the federal government, like GM and Chrysler.

The same can be said of the Walton clan at Wal-Mart. When founder Sam Walton died, much ink was spilled over fears that the culture, and thus performance, of the giant retailer would deteriorate. In fact, transition to professional management has yielded relentless revenue growth and profitability.

Remember: It doesn’t matter what the books say a CEO is supposed to do. Figure out what the organization needs, then pick someone who is good at–and passionate about–meeting those needs. And don’t worry about whose name is on the door.

To be clear, I have met many family-member executives who were excellent leaders. But to be fair, the odds are heavily stacked against them.

In Depth: How To Find The Right Career Fit

In Depth: 10 Ways To Boost Employee Morale On A Budget

In Depth: 12 Ways To Bounce Back From Failure

We all have some vision of what the head of a company is supposed to look and act like–be it a swashbuckling robber baron or a by-the-book Harvard Business Review type. But archetypes don’t matter. Maximizing performance is about finding the right person for the right job–and that means marrying someone’s specific skill set with what he fundamentally enjoy doing.

* How To Take Your Business To The Next Level
* Extreme Growth Gambles
* Doing Business With The Big Boys
* Toppers Pizza Wants A Big Slice Of A Small Pie
* Are You An Empire Builder?
* Ten Ways To Attract Angel Funding
* Making Market Research Pay
* Is Relief In Sight For Small Businesses?

The Passion-Performance Connection
I’ll give you an example. We worked with a family-owned warehousing and trucking business in New Jersey. Annual revenue: $50 million. The father was active, although he was serving more as chairman, and had turned over the CEO role and day-to-day management to his eldest son, Jed.

When we got involved, Jed was spending approximately 95% of his time on operations and 5% on selling. His ineffectual sales manager hadn’t closed much new business in three years, yet Jed understood customer service and so a lot of business came in from referrals. While the company’s top line was growing at respec 10% annual clip, the potential was huge.

Jed was an effective leader too. His employees were loyal and would log all-nighters to get rush orders to demanding customers–no questions asked.

When I spent my first day with Jed, he was continually on the phone fielding customer calls and pumping orders over loud-speaker systems in three buildings. He had a formal organization chart, but in practice the structure looked more like a wagon wheel, with Jed in the middle and all associates reporting to him.

That approach worked extremely well in the company’s early years, but by 2006, when Jed boasted 60 warehousing customers and over 150 trucking customers, the wheels were wobbling. Revenue was still growing, but profitability and cash flow were ebbing. Inefficiencies abounded.

After working with Jed for a few weeks and joining him on a number of customer visits, I discovered a glaring disconnect. Jed was one of the best relationship guys I had ever met. Customers loved him; prospects wanted to spend time with him. He had grown up in the logistics business with his father and had tremendous knowledge. After just a brief discussion with a prospect, Jed could identify the major concerns and communicate probable solutions. He had uncanny command of metrics and could surmise throughput, turns and costs after just a few minutes of qualifying questions. All this–and yet he was spending only a small fraction of this time with customers.

Not only was Jed good at selling, he loved it. He loved meeting prospects and the challenge of converting them. Enjoying what you’re good at is a powerful combination. We knew what we had to do.

Making Moves
We fired the sales manager and put Jed in charge. Then we moved all of the operations, administrative and financial resources (once under Jed’s purview) under the chief operating officer. Jed weighed in on strategy, but he was no longer bogged down in daily details.

Next we created a management-training curriculum and ran weekly evening classes with required reading. We addressed accounting, customer service and the importance of delegating responsibility. The goal: to make Jed’s lieutenants more self-sufficient and less reliant on him. With Jed out selling and his managers minding the store, revenue shot north of 25% for the next three years. Margins improved too.

The question: How to measure success?

Advertising agencies claim you get more bang for the buck with them, but numerous studies (and common sense) have shown that articles in major media have more credibility than advertisements. “Buy My Product!” will always be a less convincing approach than getting established reporters or customers to tout a firm’s services in a magazine.

The problem is, calculating the return on any PR campaign is far from an exact science. Is it the total number of stories in the media? Is it the number of new customers through the door? Is it some vague perception of your company’s brand? Is it a combination of many variables? And if so, how do you track and properly weight all of them?

Top Tips: Five Do-It-Yourself Public Relations Tactics

* How To Take Your Business To The Next Level
* Extreme Growth Gambles
* Doing Business With The Big Boys
* Toppers Pizza Wants A Big Slice Of A Small Pie
* Are You An Empire Builder?
* Ten Ways To Attract Angel Funding
* Making Market Research Pay
* Is Relief In Sight For Small Businesses?

Robert, Very good piece. These products, though not the perfect solution will accomplish the goal of helping to determine a businessâ??s reach and is well within the budgets of most small business.

There are now a slew of tools that aim to get at those answers–and do a pretty good job at it. Some are free, others are not. The deeper the dive, the more you’ll spend.

On the free end of the spectrum, you have Google ( GOOG – news – people ) Alerts. It’s a crude yardstick, but if you just want a quick tally of all the mentions of your company in the media, it works just fine. Google News, also free, goes a step further: This function lets you map the rise and fall of coverage of your company.

Then come the paid services. All provide free online demos to give you a feel for the Web interface. (Be sure to test drive them before you write any checks.) Prices for media-monitoring services range from about $1,000 to $20,000 per year for small businesses based on the number of users and the level of the analysis. Social-media monitoring–as in, tracking the response to comments on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter–is most often a separate charge.

As with most things, you get what you pay for. Then again, measurement is a waste of time if you go broke running the calculations. For small-business owners serious about media measurement, I would budget about $5,000 per year unless you are already scoring a stream of quality media.

“If you receive numerous press mentions, paying for comprehensive monitoring services will end up saving you money over the year as compared to the staff hours you’d need to use [tracking] the same number of clips,” says Kiki Keating, public relations director at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, who has used many of these programs.

Very few of the media-tracking programs are plug-and-play, so be ready to work with whatever provider you choose to set it up and get comfor. Here are five products I like in the $5,000-a-year range:

BurellesLuce’s “iMonitor.” Tracks media mentions on the Web based on keywords. This self-guided monitoring service is very clean and easy to navigate. Cost: $3,600

Cision’s “Small Business Edition.” Assigns “publicity values” for different stories based on length, media type (print, online, video), estimated number of readers/viewers, tone and reach. Cost: starts at less than $5,000 a year.

Filtrbox’s “G2.” The “Click here for Live Chat” button makes trying the site a breeze. Cost: as little as $2,000 a year and includes both traditional and social-media monitoring.

Meltwater “News and Buzz.” Claims to track more than 100,000 media outlets around the globe. Downside: Somewhat hard to choose among the list of features. Cost: starts at $5,000 a year.

Radian6. Only tracks media hits online (no print). If buffing your image on social media sites is a top priority, this may be your program. Cost: starting at $7,200 a year.

For those with a slightly larger budget, check out Vocus’ ( VOCS – news – people ) “News On Demand” service, which tracks more than 50,000 U.S. media sources–print, online, Twitter, blogs and RSS feeds. Charts and dashboards measure positive, negative and neural coverage on you and on your competitors. Cost: $6,000 to $10,000 a year. Your time and media reputation are valuable. Let the measurement begin.

At the Brookings Institution Tuesday, the president made several overtures to small businesses. He wants to expand or extend some of the tax breaks offered in the stimulus bill, including a 100% exclusion from capital gains taxes next year. And the president proposed an “employment tax cut” to encourage small business hiring. He also wants to cut fees and increase government backing for Small Business Administration programs.

“It’s worth remembering that every once in a while a small business becomes a big business and changes the world,” the president said. “That’s why it is so important that we help small business struggling to open, or stay open, during these difficult times.

Small business groups are happy about the help, but at the same time they worry that a host of Obama’s signature policies could more than offset them.

Take health care reform. The National Federation of Independent Business and the National Small Business Administration both oppose the House of Representatives’ version of reform, which includes an employer mandate for coverage. It would also levy a surtax on individuals who make more than $500,000 annually ($1 million for couples) to help pay for the bill.

Opposition is just as strong for the Senate’s version of reform. In a recent statement, NFIB Senior Vice President Susan Eckerly said the bill amounts to new taxes, new mandates and new entitlement programs. “There is no doubt all these burdens will be paid for on the backs of small businesses.”

Other administration proposals, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s move to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, are equally noxious. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says the administration doesn’t want to snare small businesses in a regulatory trap. That’s why the agency has proposed to “tailor” its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions to affect only the largest polluters.

But some opponents don’t believe the EPA has this authority. Officials from the National Association of Manufacturers have argued that the administration’s exemption for small businesses is hazy under the law. Their worry is that if EPA regulates CO2 for big polluters (and let’s be fair–this is what NAM is truly nervous about), the courts might declare that that small businesses are subject to similar limits on emissions.

Business groups, including NAM and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also oppose congressional efforts to cap carbon emissions because it would raise the price of energy and could force some jobs overseas. Legislative efforts appear to be stalled, but the EPA regulation could goose Congress into acting.

In addition, there are the usual tax disputes business groups have with this administration. During the 2008 campaign, “Joe the Plumber” gained fame as a small business owner who opposed Obama’s proposal to increase taxes only on the wealthiest Americans because such a plan might also affect small business owners.

Last week the House passed a bill that would prevent the estate tax from expiring in 2010, and instead impose a 45% tax on estates with a $3.5 million exemption for individuals. The NFIB says the rate is too high and the exemption too low. The group wants a full repeal of the tax, but would settle for a 35% rate with a $5 million exemption.

To be sure, much of small business’ opposition to Democrat proposals is directed at Congress and many disputes are longstanding concerns. For example, business groups worry that Democrats will make it easier for workers to join unions, that Congress will pass legislation to expand paid leave and that lawmakers will counter the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts with a broad range of tax increases. (See: “How Congress Will Steal The Recovery.”)

Nonetheless, small business groups will take what they can get from the White House. “We very much appreciate the attention to small business,” says NFIB’s Eckerly. However, she adds, the president’s proposals won’t draw customers to stores or help businesses increase cash flow. “It’s hard to use tax credits when you don’t have any money,” she says.

The Times Union Center, in downtown Albany, N.Y., has earned the second-highest operating profits in its 20-year history, county officials said Monday.

The sports and entertainment arena posted a profit of $1.76 million in 2009. Profits jumped 95 percent from 2008 levels, despite the recession.

“We’re very favorably surprised with the outcome,” said Bob Belber, general manager of the facility. “Attendance was up almost across the board.”

Last year, the arena held 158 events, an increase of 12 events, or 8 percent, from 2008. Attendance in 2009 totaled 682,154 people—a rise of 16 percent.

The Times Union Center is home to the Albany River Rats minor league hockey team, and the men’s basketball team at Siena College. The facility also hosted high school basketball and wrestling tournaments.

Major events last year included concerts by Toby Keith, Bruce Springsteen, Phish and Trans Siberian Orchestra. Other events included Disney on Ice, Cirque du Soleil, Ringling Bros. Circus and an appearance by the Dalai Lama.

2009 was the 13th straight year of profits at the arena. The largest profits came in 2000, when operating profits totaled $2.1 million.

The reported profits are money going to Albany County; additional profits go to Philadelphia-based SMG, a company that operates the arena. The county owns the facility, which seats 17,500 people.

Revenue data were not immediately available.

Belber said one reason for growth in profits was a $350,000 reduction in operating costs. The savings were achieved through a range of cost-cutting moves, such as a four-day work week during the summer months.

No layoffs were made, Belber said.

The arena employs 40 full-time staff and 650 part-time workers who handle concessions, security, ticket sales and other duties.