the new breed of young intrapreneurs, how they are forging their own paths to profits. that and more coming up next on "your business." ♪

hi, there, everybody. welcome to "your business," where we give you information and advice to help your business grow. there is a lot of talk in washington about helping small business, but it remains to be seen what kind of relief if any small business owners will see. this week president obama reiterated his opposition to extending bush tax cuts. he also pressed republicans in the senate to work with democrats and help pass his small business lending legislation. >> if the republican leadership in congress really wants to help small businesses they will stop

using legislative maneuvers to block an up or down vote on a small jobs bill that is before the senate right now, right now. this is a bill that would do two things. cut taxes for small businesses and make loans more available for small businesses. >> so where does all of this leave small business owners fighting to survive in a challenging economy? todd mccracken supports extending the bush tax cuts, and donald marion served as a member of president bush's economic advisers. thank you for joining us. you support extending the tax cuts. how will that help small business? >> well, right now is a bad time, we think, to raise anybody's taxes. the current rates ought to be extended temporarily while we sort out through this recovery.

have you to remember that most small businesses pay taxes at the individual rates, so what your individual rates go to that's what they have to pay and those are the folks in the best position to add jobs and grow businesses. >> by most accounts it's a small percentage of people that will be affected by this that own small businesses? >> well, there is a lot of different ways to calculate that. it's certainly true most small business owners will not face these rights. and the ones that will face the higher rates are the ones that are most successful and most likely in a position to add employees, which i think is what we want this economy to do. >> donald, what do you think it would have on small business to extend the tax cuts? >> both sides of exaggerating

the numbers. only 3% of small business owners up there at the top is true, but those are the largest and most successful business that would likely hire people. there are people who are vest or llcs themselves and became an independent consultant and you discover most of the income being affected at the higher level does not have to do with small business. >> and one of the issues i keep hearing is sure lending is an issue and all these other things that is an issue but another issue is that customers disappeared. >> extending any of the tax cuts will help people be better consumers during a time period when the economy is quite weak.

that is probably larger for low and moderate income folks which than at the high end, but it's still true if you give tax cuts up at that end those folks will spend money, too. >> i suspect you agree with that? >> yeah, and that's what i was going to say. another big piece is the lending piece, too. they get more money in their hands and hire more people and those folks help grow the economy for spending in other businesses. that's why we supported the small business bill before the congress next week. >> do you have faith it will get passed? >> it may get past the senate, but it's different than the house bill. >> and another thing i heard a lot is that money is not necessarily the issue. they have the money to lend. they are not lending it for a variety of other things, like

the regulations, or they just want to keep cash on hand and the one i hear a lot is we are not getting enough good applications. >> yeah, i hear a whole variety of those things as well from bankers. the reality is that i think some of that is true and for certain bankers in different times. if you are a business trying to grow and have you been turned down for reasons you don't know at two or three banks, you will not keep -- you are not going to hear there is a bank in iowa that has money tloend, and you will probably give up and running your day-to-day business and not expand. we have to make sure the money is available when and where people are looking for it. >> donald, do you think it looks like anything is going to get done? it seems like there is job you

willing going on. >> yeah, there will be a mixture of serious debate and pure politicking ahead of the ae el t electi election. i cannot imagine either side going by without making a de sigs on what to do with the tax cuts for a year or two. >> i think the decision might be made at a lame duck. everybody wants to do something for small business, but it never quite seems to get done. >> thank you both so much. >> thank you for having us. what do facebook, google and apple all have in common? they are companies started by young intrapreneurs. we decided to take a look at what young people are doing today. this is the story of two booming businesses by two young women breaking all the rules.

♪ sophia drifted from job to job before she became her own boss. >> i have made donuts at midnight, and scrubbed ring around the collar off men's shirts at a dry-cleaner and i did landscaping and i was a waitress for about a week. >> when she started her company at age 22, and she had no small business experience. >> i was almost forced into this to survive and find something that i enjoyed doing. >> lany has never had the chance to work for anybody else, because she started her business when she was 11. >> all i have ever done is work for myself. it would be hard for me to get used to working for somebody else. >> both are young and successful in their businesses. neither can imagine ever working any other way after having the

freedom of being their own boss. there was always a knew yaek sense of style. she put that into our business, nasty gal image. >> vintage clothing has a good marvin. >> sometimes i would buy things for $20, and at action they could sell up to $300. >> the power comes from the community of fun-loving 20 something fashion eastas. she has built-up a huge network of customers. >> we have about 7,000 twitter followers, and almost 15,000 facebook fans, and i think something like 30,000 myspace friends. >> she started to get the old

restless feeling that led her to jump from job to job. in 2008 she made the decision to start her own commerce website. >> it gave me a platform to start the business and brand the business and get customers initially. i think i wanted to grow something bigger than ebay would allow me to. i could not link to my own website. >> now, she sells trendy new clothing, and she is racing to keep up with demand. >> the business is growing at a pretty alarming rate. it's actually growing faster than we can control. it's pretty insane. >> lany's pittsburgh company, simple sugars is grabbling with

challenges with a fast growing business. she has juggled her homework, crew practice and running her business during her summer's off and after school. >> it's hard to balance everything. i get up at 6:00 in the morning and go to school and then don't get home until 7:30 at night, and i still have homework and simple sugars to do. >> a thriving business online, and the time has come for her to relocate simple sugars out of her basement. the next move is to rent office space and hiring employees. >> it's too much volume for me to handle by myself. i need somebody that can come in and help me do things like pack up and ship orders. right now i am working in my business and not enough time working on it.

>> host of the radio show "an american intrapreneur" says the novel tea of her youth is what makes her exciting. without it, it would be another cosmetics company. >> she has got to exploit her prime differentiator, which is her youth and freshness, and i said two years from now you will be 18 years old and will be another 18-year-old, and that sounds callous and hard, but it's true. because lany is the product, not the substance. >> in order to have her best shot into making it into a million-dollar company. >> if i were you i would drop out of school immediately and spend the next year or two trying to push this company over the top, because as i said to her, i said right now you have one shot in ten of hitting a home run. each year that goes by, i think you can -- i think when she is

18 she has one shot in 100, and when she is 21, it will be one shot in 100,000. >> intrapreneurs break the rules best. >> i want to make all the opportunities with simple sue gurz and i don't want to give away my high school experience. but i really think that i have a lot that i can learn from taking a year off and working on my business. that would be equally as valuable as what i could learn in a year at school. >> was it worth it for her to give up school? did she make that decision? we can find out because she is here with us on the program. also joining our board of

directors, danielle and mrs. snyder. great to see all of you young intrapreneurs. this is fun. so are you in school or no? >> not completely. i am taking a year of independent study this year, so they allowed me to complete the english and history courses on my own. technically i am still a junior and i will still graduate this year and go back to school next year. >> i thought your life was crazy. >> yeah, it was crazy. instead of spending my whole day at school, i am spending my whole day on simple sugars. >> you guys have been making jewelry since you were kids and started your company when you were in the your early 20s.

do you think that's an advantage? >> i do. >> what do you gain by doing it when you are so young? >> i think you are just more fearless when you are young. everybody always says, it's really daunting to have your own company and people want to know if you wrote a business plan. if we had written a legitimate hard core plan we might not have done it. >> you also bring something new, because you are fearless but also coming from a different perspective. in this economy, what is going on with the fashion in general, like we started this company right when we were spending less money. for us, you know, we used special media, and we use our jewelry to update looks and not having to find a new wardrobe. >> you said i cannot imagine

working for anybody else. you are 16 and hopefully won't have to. >> you have to do what other people in their 40s and 50s and 60s is, which is figure things out. they are older but don't have the experience in getting funding or marketing. how did you figure it out? did you have advisers? >> yeah, you don't know how to do everything when you start a company, and the best advice was find people who know how to specialize in areas that are your strengths and seek them out for advice. >> that's exactly what you said in the --. >> how do you do that? how do you get somebody to give you advice, not as a nice hobby, but actually believing in you and saying your company will work. >> that is something that i struggled with every since i have had my business. since i am young people are willing to give advice, but not really. they will want to help me

because i am so young just to be nice, and then a lot of the times they either don't take me seriously, so they will start to do something and then they will stop and won't do a good job. >> how do you get people to take you seriously? this is the same for a 40-year-old who has a caulk maim me idea? >> it's tough, you have to have the right person who will take you seriously, and then prove that what you are doing is legitimate and it's not something some kid is making up. >> do you have that same issue? >> yeah, it's difficult to find somebody that will take you seriously. you are 16? >> yeah. >> young 20s. >> once you have proven -- well, watching you have already sold your product at whole foods, and i would take a meeting with you.

i think one thing that danielle and i did, we found people in other fields. sometimes people will be willing if you are a competitor to give you advice, because -- >> you are in the same market. >> every i think you guys are a three very impressive, and it's amazing to watch these businesses grow at such a young age. thank you for the discussion. >> thank you. a laptop is an essential tool for intrapreneurs of all ages. here are the five best. >> the user may want to check out dell's vostro v13. and then number two would be an

alternative. and then the idea pad from lenovo is less than an inch wide. and then acor aspire timeline x is $750. if you are a mac person, mac book pro offers great programs. a retired executive who is young at heart starts his dream business. a wild west dude ranch. ♪ [trumpet playing "reveille" throughout]

reviving the economy means reinventing the way we do business. here's to the owners showing us the way. [trumpet playing "reveille" fades to silence]

our young intrapreneurs know what it's like to have investors to make their products grow. hi, i am president of the mp global connect. we are an exclusive brand of teas. the tea is currently distristri yao ted. now, what is special about the tea is packaging and story.

fibers taken from the trees on paradise farms in surrounding areas. the concept was to teach the women farmers how to use the research of the rain forest to create sustainable economics in a social business here in the u.s. our company is looking for $300,000 to purchase inventory to go to scale. you can expect a convertible rate of return, so we hope you will join us. >> well, you did a great job. the secret is monica is also a performer, so i expected great things out of the elevator pitch. let's hear from the panel. >> she definitely had solid points and was focused on the sustainability of it and providing an economic opportunity. it sounds like it's a unique type of tea with the packaging and you have great distribution.

>> did she hit all the points you would need to hear? >> it's hard to get all the points across in a minute. i love the packaging and concept and tea, and maybe more business. i would want to know the research that you already did, what the consumer thinks, or where your target is to sell the tea. i would love more time to hear about where you would be selling and what the overall response has been. >> maybe more about the finances. >> did you taste the tea? >> taste it. taste it. would you both take another meeting? >> of course. >> the tea is? >> great. >> it's great. >> thank you so much and good luck with everything. if any of you have a product or service and you want some feedback from the elevator pitch panel, just send us an e-mail. the address is your

business@msnbc.com. please include a short soummary of what your company does and how much you plan on raising. it's not just young people starting up young businesses. today we meet somebody that quit one career at a shot for starting a new one. >> silverado you pushed me too far this time. >> he is a straight shooter from texas. his name is steve schmidt. she is by no means a quitter. >> there is a ranger that says no man in the wrong can stand up against a wrong in the right that keeps on coming. >> he retired from the air force academy in 1988, but has not slowed down, and on the

contrariy, he kept on coming. >> i cannot turn my brain off. i tried to retire twice. >> my husband is just an intrapreneur. what can i say? he likes to study new products. >> the route he first took was skills and contacts. in 2007, schmidt sold the company and bought the ranch in the texas hill company. he thought finally he was ready to head out to pastor. the problem was, he could not stop wur kinlg. >> the problem is this busy solved out of emotions, and passion for the old west and more than a business plan. >> we're from texas. we have to wave the flag, don't we. >> i drove enough nails until i felt a money pinch and i stopped

and then i waited to see if the business would give a return on investment. my feeling was if it doesn't work, we will stop. we're not going to vest the whole thing at the beginning. >> now, instead of a quiet house on the prairie, he and his wife own a full blown wild west park, and slash movie set. >> i run into lots of people that have ideas on how to do a business, but ideas without the determination to execute and to see it through just don't mean anything. ♪ >> what is impressive about the second retirement enterprise is

that at the age of 56 he entered a business field he knew nothing about. >> starting a business after 50, if you are going down the same lines of where you worked for years, you are going to be using all of that knowledge to push you forward. i started a business that i was totally unfamiliar with. >> but schmidt says while there are challenges with being an older intrapreneur, he does get the benefit of experience. >> sometimes it may feel like searching for the best airfare takes more time than flying.

if that's the case for you, this may be able to help. simply plug mountain cities you are traveling in between, and the site will sort your flights. to learn more about today's show, click on our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. you can find more information to help your business grow. don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. we look forward to getting some of your feed book. and follow us on twitter. and next week, meet an intrapreneur that thinks it's good business to promote businesses other than her own. >> if you are in a situation where you are closing yourself off, not only from your peers but from your competitors, you will not be able to grow and you're not going to be able to grow. >> we're tell you why taking

orders from a competitor is fair game. remember, we make your business our business. [trumpet playing "reveille" throughout]