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Suggest who benefitsWhat’s Harder Now: Getting a Job or Starting a Business?
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Suggest questionDespite the waves of uncertainty crashing across the economy, this week we hear from three owners who feel cautiously good about how their year has started. David C. Barnett budgeted for slightly less revenue in 2026, but he’s operating more efficiently and expects to turn a bigger profit. Jaci Russo is hitting her revenue projections—and after implementing a profit-first accounting system, she says the results have been “eye-opening.” And while Lena McGuire isn’t quite on track to meet her aggressive goal of doubling her business this year, she’s doing far better than she did a year ago.
Along the way, we talk about getting runaway software subscriptions under control, figuring out how businesses get discovered in an AI world, and why Jaci’s health plan charges almost three times as much to cover female employees as it does comparable male employees. And we consider a question that might have sounded ridiculous not long ago: Has it become harder to get a job than it is to start a business?
About 21 Hats
The proponents of employee stock ownership plans can make them sound like the greatest thing ever. A business owner can take a big chunk of money off the table—or even all of it—while still getting to run the business. And there are some pretty great tax breaks. Oh, and it will also solve income inequality in America. On the other hand, if ESOPs are so smart, why are there so few of them?
Jim Kalb of Triad Components Group in San Diego and Jeff Taylor of Crafts Technology in Chicago have both implemented ESOPs. Jay Goltz of the Goltz Group in Chicago has reached his 60s without a succession plan, and he’s considering his options. In this 21 Hats Conversation, you get to listen in on a street-smart discussion of the pluses and minuses of ESOPs from the business owner’s point of view.