Helping Entrepreneurs With Funding

Need a loan? Plenty of small businesses do. The administration wants to show they're helping entrepreneurs secure funding.

"As we restore a more stable financial system with better protection for consumers and investors we want to make sure that we focus everyday on trying to make sure that how we rebuild that core strength of our system that was so important to the growth of so many world class companies today," said Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner.

The Treasury Department hosted officials to talk about taking a startup company from the beginning to profitability and the difficulties they meet securing access to public markets.

"The recession made the hurdles higher for America's entrepreneurs," said Karen Mills SBA Administrator. "They're having to wait longer to get access. They have to show more cash... they have to access more cash and more customers before they even talk to somebody about the next stage of financing. And too many of them are finding that hurdle too high."

Many small companies choose to avoid the trading environment - declining to offer stock in their businesses to investors.

The idea of standing at attention when Fidelity calls, of wining and dining hedge fund managers, of setting earnings expectations and beating them routinely in an age in which stocks are traded every three months ...all these things make the decision to keep going alone and to go public a more difficult and unappealing decision," said AlexLasky, president and founder of OPower.

Though without investors, stockholders or willing banks - business plans often go nowhere. Some business owners are calling for more predictable tax and oversight policy and more government loans. Though current programs have mixed results and there is trillions in mounting government debt .