Small businesses, while you might not know, are a very vital and important part of the American economy. Small businesses generate 1.5 million jobs a year, account for 64% of new jobs in America, and contribute 44% of the US economy activity. From 2000 to 2019, small businesses created 10.5 million new jobs, accounting for 65.1% of new job creation, employing 47.1% of private-sector workers. They are very important for new jobs that once were not available. There are 33,185,550 different small businesses in the U.S, so there are endless possibilities for people to find a job in a field that they want to work in.

Seth Goldman founded ActivePlay LLC in 2018, with his girlfriend *Sarah Reilly, with the intent to keep kids active and able to learn using teamwork and leadership skills in sports. The company has 3 different sections, they specialize in enrichment programs, after school programs, and summer camps. A big part of the enrichment and after school programs revolves around Seth contacting and partnering up with different schools around the DMV to run the programs with. Seth also has just started a Nerf gun league for kids which he has been really busy with. Over the years that Seth has run it, ActivePlay has grown a lot since their founding. He’s made relationships with many families and kids who have participated in the ActivePlay programs and he really values and adores the connections he’s made with each and every one of them. One of the main sports Seth runs is the ActivePlay hockey league which is by far the biggest one. A lot of challenges come along with that though, as he has to find vendors for the jerseys, he has to find coaches, and he’s had to partner with schools to be able to rent out areas to play. He’s also had to purchase and store a ton of hockey sticks, jerseys for coaches and players, and the boards for hockey. Seth had said that some of the biggest challenges he has faced with ActivePlay is paying taxes, learning different software to use, finding jersey vendors for the hockey league, and building relationships because it takes time to build. He says it’s a lot of jumping into new waters and figuring things out. Seth says though that building relationships with people have been easy for him since that’s his personality to connect with people. He says that it opens a lot of doors and that when you make these relationships with people they are asking you for favors, and in return, you can ask them for favors as well. He’s enjoyed making relationships with kids and families and that if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be as successful as he has. 

The entire coronavirus pandemic put a very significant mark on the small business industry. Small businesses were impacted disproportionally. Larger businesses had more resources and legal structure than most smaller businesses. Small businesses are way more vulnerable to disasters than larger businesses because they tend to have less access to physical and financial capital and lack geographical diversity. In 2020, 15 million jobs were lost, equivalent to the previous 7 years of job gains. For ActivePlay, it helped them get into markets that they hadn’t yet been in and reach families that he hadn’t reached out to yet. It eventually led Seth to beginning the hockey league. Covid almost seemed like a blessing in disguise for Seth and ActivePlay. Some of the challenges Seth faced was keeping up with the mainstream concerns with parents and Covid policies. He had to deal with abiding by the Covid policies while still making it fun for the kids to be at his camp. Seth said that it was a very difficult maneuver for him. He had to have parents know that if their child is gonna be at his camp then it is impossible to have fun if your child cannot make contact with another child. He said that it was another big hurdle for him as well as communication with the families about it. Some more hurdles for Seth was figuring out renting facility spaces to use for the hockey league. He said that everything is new when you first jump into that kind of stuff.

You may be wondering, how is a small business run in the real world? Well, Seth Goldman has a ton of experience doing that. He says that his day is seasonal based and subject to change. One day, he could be pumping up soccer balls or reorganizing all of the equipment in his vans. Another day, he could be having a business outreach meeting with a school, trying to set up registration for a summer camp, or paying people. He definitely has a lot to do every single day, and it really is not easy running a small business like his. 

Small businesses take a lot of time, ideas, and money. To be able to run a small business, it takes a couple of main steps. Step 1 is existence, what do you wanna do with your business? What kind of people do you need to help run it? How much money do you have saved to fund your business? It all mainly revolves around the amount of money you have and the amount of time you’re willing to put into it. Step 2 is survival, will your business survive even a couple months of running? Or will you go bankrupt? Nobody wants to go bankrupt and the best solution to that is to make sure you have enough to begin with before you actually begin your business. Step 3 is success-disengagement, the more money you have, the more employees you can bring on to do the work for you. The more successful your business becomes, the more money you will have to be able to use on employees. You can use those employees to do most of the work that you had to do back in the early stages of your business. Step 4 is success-growth, the more your company is successful, the more people know about it, and the more people, the more it grows. Step 5 is take-off, by now your company should have grown to the point that you are just the guy at the top that everyone listens to. You shouldn’t be doing as much work since you hired the employees to do the work for you. By now, your company should have matured into a very successful small business. 

*not the Sarah Reilly at The Field School, different Sarah Reilly