As a Certified Development Company and Lender Service Provider, B:Side Capital is committed to serving lending partners in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona through Small Business Administration 504 and 7(a) loans. We care about creating access to responsible capital for small businesses and being a resource for banks and entrepreneurs alike. Together with our sister company B:Side Fund, we strive to empower underserved markets- fostering economic growth and job creation through SBA and direct lending. The services we offer to lenders are solutions to financing requests that they otherwise would not be able to provide under their institution's conventional credit policy. Since 1990, we are proud to have funded over 5,000 small business loans, helping to create over 33,000 jobs injecting $9.06 billion into the economy.
We're heading to Trinidad!
We're proud to be sponsoring the 2026 OEDIT Outreach and Impact Summit on August 21 at The Commons @ Space to Create in Trinidad, CO. This day-long event celebrates growth and economic development across Bent, Baca, Otero, Crowley, Kiowa, Prowers, Las Animas, and Huerfano counties — bringing together small business owners, economic development pros, lenders, and community leaders for workshops, panels, and networking.
Come say hi at our table and join us for a day of great ideas and local impact!
Mark your calendar for the OEDIT Outreach and Impact Summit happening August 21, 2026 from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. held in Trinidad, Colorado at The Commons @ Space to Create.
This event is a celebration of the region’s growth, showcasing its vibrant community of small businesses, regional collaboration, and diverse industries. The Summit will also spotlight neighboring communities across the south and southeastern regions of Colorado, with a special focus on the unique character of each community’s Main Street. Attendees will benefit from engaging panel discussions, creative performances, and direct access to valuable resources from OEDIT and its partner organizations. On behalf of the entire OEDIT community, we hope you can join us for a day of celebration, creativity, and connection!
Register today to connect, collaborate, and grow.
👉 https://lnkd.in/eUwQgSNk
Everyone thinks the Library of Alexandria burned down.
It didn't. It was abandoned. The scribes who recopied the scrolls, generation after generation, simply stopped. The cost of keeping the knowledge alive exceeded the will to keep it.
We're doing the same thing right now. Fewer than half of American adults read a single book last year. More Americans placed a bet than read a novel.
But here's the opportunity nobody talks about: 20 percent of adults now do 80 percent of the reading. The person who can still sit with a long, difficult text isn't competing with everyone. They're competing with one in five.
Reading used to be table stakes. Now it's an edge. And writing sharpens the writer even more than it serves the reader.
Two minutes on why, in the video below. The full essay is on The B:Side Way, and it's the thread running through my new book, Honor Under Pressure.
A few months ago I wrote a book and built a platform around a single idea: the leaders who make it through periods like this one are not the smartest people in the room. They are the ones who decided what they stood for before the pressure arrived.
This week made the argument for me. The conflict with Iran has reignited. Markets are twitchy, supply lines are political again, and every leader I talk to, from community bankers to founders to my students at ASU, is operating with less certainty than at any point in their careers.
The video below tells the story, and I will admit it is a little high concept. So here is the plain version.
History gives us five leaders who faced moments like this one: Cato, Washington, Seneca, Lincoln, and Marshall. Each represents a different mode of leading under pressure. Hold the line when everyone else bends. Decline power when you could take more. Do good inside a system you cannot fix. Let the crisis remake you in public, at cost. Build the people and institutions that hold without you.
The book, Honor Under Pressure, tells their stories. The site turns them into something practical: a free assessment that diagnoses your mode under pressure, and the shadow most likely to corrupt it.
Here is the truth: a code written under pressure isn't a code. It's a rationalization. The time to build yours is before the moment arrives, and the moment is arriving.
Watch the video. Then take the Mode Finder: free, twenty questions, about five minutes, no signup.
Link to the free Mode Finder is in the comments.
Are you a business owner working with AI vendors? Here are three questions every owner should ask this quarter: Where does the work run, and who controls the hardware? What does the machine decide, and what does a human decide? And what happens to your workflows if that vendor triples its price, gets acquired, or shuts down? Clean answers mean you're buying real capability. Learn more in the full article https://lnkd.in/gCtvNVRh
The frontier AI labs are earning roughly $13 billion in revenue against $34 billion in costs, with net losses growing nearly eightfold in a single year. A lot of people look at numbers like that and quietly decide the whole thing is a scam.
It isn't.
Here's the truth: AI is real. The bubble is a business model, not the technology.
We've seen this movie. In 2000, the internet survived. What collapsed was a set of business models built on the assumption that traffic itself was worth money. The same correction is coming for below-cost, per-query access to giant general-purpose systems.
The technology stays. The pricing model breaks.
What survives is worth paying attention to, because it's the opposite of what the hype rewarded. Per-query billing gives way to fixed, outcome-based pricing. Small models handle the ninety percent of work that never needed a frontier system. Workloads move in-house, where you control the hardware. And the principle that matters most: the machine drafts, a person decides, every time, with no exceptions.
The bubble rewarded scale. The reset will reward control.
If you own or run a business, ask your vendors three questions. Where does the work actually run, and who controls the hardware? What decides the outcome, the machine or a human? And what happens to you if that vendor disappears or reprices overnight? Clean answers signal real capability. Evasion signals a dependency you don't want.
The bubble will do what bubbles do. The businesses built on top of it, thoughtfully and quietly, will keep running the next morning.
Check out the full article in the comments ⬇️
Every Fourth Turning ends the same way: with strengthened authority. The only open question is its character.
We tell the story of the Depression and WWII as if the outcome were destiny. It wasn't. By 1935, Huey Long ran Louisiana as a personal state. Father Coughlin preached grievance to tens of millions. A Marine general testified to Congress that businessmen had tried to recruit him for a coup. The last American winter almost went the other way — and it didn't because particular leaders held particular lines at particular moments. Character, not destiny.
Which means it's not destiny now either. In either direction.
Here's the hinge most commentary misses: you cannot beat a strong god with a spreadsheet. Weak authority is not the alternative to bad authority. Weak authority is the audition stage for bad authority. Every year the hedging, consensus-laundering leadership class fails to lead, the crowd's eyes drift toward the man who at least sounds certain.
The real alternative is just as strong and different in kind:
The authoritarian binds others to himself. The honorable leader binds himself to something above himself.
And this audition isn't only happening in capitals. If you lead an organization, the trust that left the institutions is in the room with you, deciding whether it can land on you. Write your code now, in the calm, before the pressure starts negotiating with you.
Full essay — Caesar or Cincinnatus, and why the audition was never really for him — can be find in the link below.
Congratulations to Sandra Lopez on graduating from Leadership Pikes Peak! Her commitment to community leadership shows up in everything she does, and this program only deepens it. We are so proud to have her as part of the B:Side team.
B:Side's CEO, Christopher Myers, and COO, Laurel Walk, visited Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to advocate for the SBA loan programs that help our lending partners reach more small businesses. They met with Representatives from Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico, along with Senator John Hickenlooper, to share the real difference SBA lending makes in the communities we serve. It's a trip we make every year—because policy shapes what's possible for small businesses, and the people financing them should have a say in how those programs take shape.
Veterans: If you're looking to start or grow a business, SBA can help!
Explore funding options, training, counseling, and more: https://lnkd.in/e2jBDxi
I see the AI revolution from two vantage points that have been leading me toward a singular idea.
As CEO of B:Side Capital + B:Side Fund, I work closely with small and mid-sized businesses that are the backbone of Main Street. They recognize the importance of AI for their future, yet many lack a clear, trustworthy starting point, as well as the time and budget to navigate the overwhelming information available.
As a professor at Arizona State University, I teach students who are growing up in an AI-native environment. They are fluent in these tools, eager to engage in meaningful work, and need opportunities to apply their skills.
These two realities converge, leading to the launch of my latest venture, Main & Machine. This agency focuses on AI implementation specifically for small and mid-sized businesses.
Main & Machine aims to bring practical AI solutions to Main Street. We develop functional AI agents that businesses can integrate into their daily operations, ensuring they deliver value rather than remaining in unproductive pilots. Our team consists of talented, AI-native graduates who are gaining valuable experience early in their careers while contributing to the next generation of innovators.
I am proud of the 25 professionals we have assembled—sharp, motivated individuals who are already making significant strides while enjoying their work.
I want to clarify that B:Side Capital and our mission remains my primary focus and first priority. At Main & Machine, I serve as Founder and Chairman, providing guidance and direction while allowing our talented team to excel.
The AI revolution will inevitably reach Main Street, and I prefer that we help shape its arrival in ways that benefit the businesses and individuals driving our economy.
If you operate a small or mid-sized business and are unsure where to start with AI, we are here to assist. Check out the link to our site in the comments.
