Comments on: Hustlers Gonna Hustle

By: An End to Cash? | Steggy

An End to Cash? | Steggy — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 00:19:26 +0000

[…] But one of the major problems I have with this, indeed really the only reason I still carry cash, is the cost to small businesses. One of the valuable qualities of cash is that it can be exchanged anywhere. You can use it to pay for a hot dog on the street, for admission at the door of a concert, or for your baby sitter when you return home that night. Most of these vendors aren’t going to carry around a credit card machine anytime soon. At least in America, accepting credit and debit cards means paying fees on every transaction and buying technology to process it. If your income is limited to electronic payments it can cut out microentreprenuers like my beloved hustlers. […]

By: Juliet Jones

Juliet Jones — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:20:53 +0000

Great insights; I really do believe everyone should have to try opening a business to see how much paperwork (albeit more online now, if you know how to use the Internet) and license fees are required. Some cities have fairly large tax exemptions for small business income but the annual license fees are still high – and this all assumes people are savvy enough to negotiate the Internet and paperwork. Becoming self-employed should be easier – like signing up for a social media account. 🙂 And someone will likely say something about food sales and public safety, but given our industrial food supply – red goo and peanut recalls to name a few issues, that seems like a specious argument to me….

By: Robyn Stegman

Robyn Stegman — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:15:00 +0000

I think your comment is spot on, Katie! Whether micro or nano, grocer or hustler, we’ve got to start making it easier for people to create their own economic way and then we’ve got to go out and make “it” happen, whatever our entrepreneurial vision might be.

By: Katie McCaskey

Katie McCaskey — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:57:39 +0000

What a nice vision of entrepreneurship — simple and right up close to the community served. Yes, rules and regs are in place for a reason (to protect people), but, it does come at the expense of micro or smaller enterprises. It is eye-opening to the uninitiated how expensive starting a brick-and-mortar business can be, and, yes, it can be prohibitive and exclusionary.

We own a neighborhood grocery. We were/are frugal and our start-up costs clocked in at around the price of one or two luxury vehicles (depending, of course, on what you define as “luxury”). Many people would prefer to spend that money on a luxury item — even one that depreciates — versus the risk and hard work associated with starting a business and the unknown return on investment, either for themselves financially or for their community at large. That’s expected.

Is it helpful to further distinguish between “micro” and “nano”? I think what you define as “hustlers” would fit the latter — virtually no start up costs or taxable hard assets but absolutely essential to our local economies. I wish more people would just “do it” and start where they are able…yes, physical storefronts are necessary, but so are economically healthy populations who can patronize them.

Thank you for including my site in the link above!