 Most people just often have never heard of a micro-business. My name is Danielle Smith, and I am the CEO of Soundbat. We are husband and wife team. We run Austin's first cut-to-order cheese shop. We like to think of Lost Republic as representing the California spirit, being independent, being a little bit different. In the 21st century alone, we've had three major economic shocks. Dot-com bus, the Great Recession of 2008, and we're in the midst of the economic upheaval of COVID-19. Tracing back the impact of micro-businesses, we can see that communities that had a higher than average number of ventures withstood these shocks far better than communities that did not. Ventures are directly associated with helping drop unemployment rates. This effect held through COVID-19 communities. When they have more ventures, we start seeing a decline in low-income job loss. So ventures help buffer and mitigate against the effects of COVID-19. Doing that little bit of payroll that I do makes me so happy, because I know I'm circulating money in our communities and our homes and in our families. I make sure that I'm not just hiring transplants who are just coming in and out. All my employees and everybody who's around me is part of the community. We also found that communities with a higher than average number of ventures also had higher levels of prosperity. And when we look at prosperity, we're looking at the combination of effects, whether it be migration patterns, whether it be lack of poverty, whether it be graduation rates. Many of these businesses are the lifelines in their communities for jobs, creating incomes for others. Our study of micro-businesses also helped us understand the unique needs of micro-businesses. When I started, I really didn't know what I was doing. I did everything. I did the bookkeeping. I did everything. If you don't have access to capital, how do you fund your ideas? How do you finance your ideas? A lot of clients that we work with need help with cash flow management, just making sure you have enough to cover the expenses of the business. I don't know how I'm going to make any money, what I'm going to do, but all I know is I'm going to create this community. Micro-businesses are everywhere. They're having a positive impact across all borders, across all ethnicities, across all economic classes. All of our data and insights are publicly available, and we want to arm policymakers so that they can make the decisions and help these ventures in their communities take more root and thrive further. We want to get Americans back to work. Businesses need to be ready so they can employ them. And so our hope is to tailor our gift to serve the community and change it for the better.