You Needed a Special Program for That

Michigan just announced a new statewide support hub for early childhood education business owners. It will offer business coaching, help with licensing navigation, staffing support, and guidance on sustainable pricing.

And my first thought was: why did that require its own program?

Not why did Michigan do it. That part is great. The question is why business coaching, pricing support, and licensing navigation for a small business owner required a separate initiative, a separate partnership with a small business association, and a special federal grant to make it happen. Most small business owners in other industries can walk into a Small Business Development Center, talk to a SCORE mentor, or access a chamber of commerce without anyone having to create a new program to get them there.

Early childhood education business owners have been doing this without that infrastructure for decades. Not because the need was not there. Because the sector was never designed with the business owner in mind. It was designed around families, around licensing standards, around subsidy systems. The person running the business was an afterthought in the policy architecture, which meant they were an afterthought in the support architecture too.

Michigan is correcting something. That is worth recognizing. But it is also worth naming what they are correcting: a sector-wide gap in basic business support that should have existed all along.

You should not need a special program to access the things every other small business owner takes for granted. And the fact that one is being built right now tells you something important about how long this sector has been operating without them.

What business support do you currently have access to? And what have you been figuring out alone that you should not have had to?

You own a business. Now go own your business.