Small Business Funding – How to Find Funds for Small Businesses.

 Small business funding resources are crucial to the success of many independent ventures. Outside funding can help businesses meet expenses, overcome challenges, or take advantage of new growth opportunities.

However, many entrepreneurs aren’t sure where to begin looking for these funding options.

Small Business Funding Options – Where to Find Funds for Small and Medium Businesses

Exploring the various funds for small businesses is crucial in identifying the right financial support.

How do you start a business with no business financing? Luckily, there are many small business financing options. Here are the 17 best ways to finance your business:

1. Traditional Bank Loan

A traditional bank loan is a lump sum term loan. Usually, no collateral is required, and the payback time is fixed. The term loan’s interest rate is fixed when the business loan is finalized, and the monthly payback amount doesn’t change. A typical term loan is 7 years.

Alternately, the term loan may be calculated for a time period based on 75% of the estimated life of the business equipment.

Best for: business owners who are purchasing fixed assets that will help the company increase revenue.

2. Short Term Loan

A short-term loan is one of the top small business financing options and usually costs less than a traditional business loan. The payback time for this type of financing is usually from 12 to 84 months. The interest rate for short-term loans can be fixed or variable.

A series of short-term loans, cleaned up in timely payments, can help a small business owner with their credit score.

Best for: Those starting a small business who are in need of capital while waiting for alternate funding.

Get the full post on Smallbiztrends.com

Small businesses lead November job losses as tariff uncertainty weighs on hiring.

ADP's November employment report revealed that private sector firms cut 32,000 jobs in November overall. The decline was led by small businesses, which lost 120,000 jobs in November, while medium businesses (defined as between 50 and 499 employees) added 51,000 jobs and large establishments added 39,000 jobs to offset some of the monthly decline.

ADP chief economist Nela Richardson noted that hiring "has been choppy of late as employers weather cautious consumers and an uncertain macroeconomic environment," adding that while "November's slowdown was broad-based, it was led by a pullback among small businesses."

Small businesses are facing uncertainty over the economy, which has shown signs of a cooling labor market and persistent inflation despite economic growth data remaining resilient amid the AI boom. Unlike larger firms, smaller businesses are particularly sensitive to changing economic trends and policy shifts like higher tariffs.

Get the full article on Foxbusiness.com.

Economists run a secret prediction game each year.

 

• Economists, hedge fund investors, and tech executives compete in a forecasting contest each year.
• OpenAI's ChatGPT participated in the 2025 game for the first time.
• The competition tested AI's ability to make predictions without clear online content as a guide.

The ability to forecast the future is a valuable sign of intelligence and a good test of AI's capabilities. How good is ChatGPT at prediction?

An answer to this fascinating question emerged recently when economist David Seif wrapped up an annual forecasting contest he runs for a secret group of economists, hedge fund investors, and tech executives.

In its seventh year, the challenge requires contestants to predict roughly 30 events. The 2025 game kicked off in late 2024, when Seif sent out the list of events to predict in fields such as politics, business, science, economics, pop culture, and sports.

One question asked the contestants to forecast whether Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce would announce their engagement by April 1. Another: Would Bulgaria adopt the euro as its official currency on or before July 1?

Sam Leffell, a director at a hedge fund firm, was filling out his probabilities in December and had an idea.

"When I was answering the questions, I had the ChatGPT screen up. I wondered, what it will say to these questions?" he recalled in a recent interview.

ChatGPT had to learn complex rules

Leffell reached out to Seif to ask if ChatGPT could take part, and Seif said, go for it. So, Leffell got started by pasting the game's rules into ChatGPT.

These are complex rules, covering multiple pages. Contestants must assign a percentage based on the likelihood of each event happening. As the results come in over the year, these predictions are scored a bit like golf. The lowest score wins.

"You get points equal to the square of the difference between what you put and the results," Seif said.

You can get the full post on Businessinsider.com.