Small business owners are often hard pressed to find a way to voice their concerns to regulators. Whether it’s finances or just an inability to get away from running one’s business to go to Washington, small business owners will be forced to seek out an alternative means to vocalize the issues they feel are important. That’s why small business owners oft turn to national organizations. The two main ones are the Small Business Administration, and the National Federation of Independent Business. The SBA is a government organization and therefore not the best medium for small businesses to voice their opinions. The NFIB however is very vocal, as seen after the SCOTUS ruling on ObamaCare with their somewhat hardline opposing statement. Tired of the lack of options for an organization that could really voice the concerns of small business, John Arensmeyer, a tech- company owner set out to start his own. The Washington Post continues, “when John Arensmeyer owned a high-tech company, he didn’t feel that the organizations that lobbied on behalf of small business really represented him — or many other business owners.

“”They put forth a monolithic view of what small business wants,” says Arensmeyer. “I felt they were overly partisan and overly ideological and didn’t really look pragmatically at what small businesses need. So I felt there was an opportunity and a need for a new voice.” In 2005, Arensmeyer founded Small Business Majority, a group that now has 8,000 business people nationwide in its network. Like other lobbying groups, Small Business Majority takes positions on issues including tax and regulation. But it doesn’t follow the pack. Arensmeyer’s group supported President Barack Obama’s overhaul of the health care system — a stark contrast to the National Federation of Independent Business, which unsuccessfully argued against the law before the Supreme Court. “Policy makers need to listen to different voices because there are a variety of small businesses out there,” Arensmeyer says. “One of the things we’re trying to do is be somewhat of an aggregator of some of those voices.” Arensmeyer, now based in California, began his working life as a commercial and corporate law attorney in New York, where he was born. He served as chief operating officer of SoftAd Group, a developer of multimedia marketing products, and then founded ACI Interactive, an e-commerce company. He started Small Business Majority after selling his company…”