Q&A with Register.com CEO Larry Kutscher
Register.com provides domain-name registration, Web design and marketing services primarily for small and medium-sized businesses. Washingtonpost.com’s Small Business Blog chatted about Web strategy with CEO Larry Kutscher, who joined the firm in late 2006 after executive positions with Dun and Bradstreet, Goldman Sachs and American Express. Larry Kutscher (Photo courtesy of Horn Group) SBB: What does Register.com do and why should small firms become familiar with it? Kutscher: Register.com is set up to be the Web department for small businesses. We try to make using the Web simple and cost effective by offering basic building blocks for…helping choose a domain name, Web hosting, search engine optimization, search engine marketing and branded e-mail. Those things that make you look like a professional business on the Web. What makes it so important from our perspective is that true small businesses — like those with one person, a couple people or 10 people
Report: HUBZone Program Basically Ineffective
A government program designed to award federal contracts to small businesses in disadvantaged areas has grown significantly since its inception in 2000, but has not generated enough contract dollars to have a national impact, according to a new study (pdf) released today. While the program has the potential to be effective, it currently isn’t, said the report. Congress asked the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy to take a look at the impact of the HUBZone program, which in its eight years of operation has awarded 21,350 contracts totaling $6.28 billion by price preference, set-asides or sole-source awards. Businesses in a HUB (historically underutilized business) zone, generally are quite small. Only about 7 percent of all HUBZone businesses have more than 50 employees. The report, conducted by Microeconomic Applications, found that the program has grown steadily in terms of total contract dollars, from $44 million in fiscal 2000 to $1.76
SEC Proposes New Filing Requirements
The Securities and Exchange Commission last week said it plans to formally propose that public firms must use a specific new technology to get information to investors faster — and yes, the plan would eventually apply to public small businesses. The proposed rule would require that all U.S. companies provide financial information using interactive data beginning next year for the largest companies and within three years for all public firms. The SEC has conducted a pilot program of the effort for the last three years and has deemed that it is worth making official. This interactive data is essentially computer tags that function like bar codes used to identify things like groceries. The data tags would identify items in a company’s financial statement with the intent that they can be easily searched on the Internet and downloaded onto spreadsheets or put into databases."Interactive data represents the logical next step
SBA’s Preston Heads to HUD
Small Business Administration head Steven Preston was sworn in today as the secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, where he will serve as the administration’s point man on the slumping housing market and subprime lending crisis. Preston is likely to be lead negotiator as Congress and the White House work on legislation to allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure up to $300 billion in refinanced mortgages, including many in which the mortgages exceed the value of the homes. SBA Deputy Administrator Jovita Carranza is expected to be elevated to the head post at the SBA. In other SBA news, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) this week asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the agency’s lender oversight system. A recent inspector general’s report found"major weaknesses"in the SBA’s lender oversight and detailed how the agency’s lax oversight of four lenders led