I’m excited to announce that I have been accepted to the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. The 10KSB program is a $500 million investment from Goldman Sachs with the goal of helping entrepreneurs create jobs and economic opportunity through education, access to capital, and networking opportunities.

The program is offered at 14 colleges around the country, but they also offer a national cohort for applicants that don’t live close to a host university. Since I am not close to any of the locations (the closest to me is Miami), I applied to the national program run by Babson College at the recommendation of a colleague and was recently accepted.

The program consists of 9 educational modules:

  1. You and Your Business
  2. Growth and Opportunities
  3. Money and Metrics
  4. You Are the Leader
  5. It’s the People
  6. Marketing and Selling
  7. Strategic Growth Through Operations
  8. Being Bankable
  9. Action for Growth

Throughout the program, participants work on developing a customized 5-year strategic growth plan for their business. All of the coursework is actually focused on our individual businesses’ challenges and goals, which is exciting.

The program also opens up a network of funding sources to applicants. While I haven’t had problems getting credit for my business, I’m interested to see how much more credit we could secure (and on what terms) after completing the program.

I’m very excited for the opportunity to be a part of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program and will be sure to post updates throughout the program.