An Ode to the Dreamers Who Build Our Communities

I live in a city, and I walk out my front door and pass a family-owned variety store that has been there for 85 years, grab coffee from a shop that knows me by name, then grab a muffin from the new bakery that's about 85 days old.

These are the threads that weave our communities together, and we depend on them to take care of us.

I've been working with small businesses for over three decades now, and what strikes me every day is that it takes real courage and fortitude to open a business. Behind the scenes, each owner is juggling more than most people realize.

These aren't just businesses. They're love letters to possibility. They're courage made visible.

To the Ones Who Risk Everything

You mortgaged your house. You maxed out credit cards. You worked eighteen-hour days for months, then years, believing in something no one else could see yet.

You didn't do this because it was easy. You did it because you saw a gap that needed filling, a problem that needed solving, a community that needed what only you could offer.

36.2 million of you represent 99.9% of all American businesses. You employ 61.6 million workers, nearly half of our entire workforce. You've generated 20.2 million net new jobs over the past three decades. Your collective economic contribution? $5.9 trillion annually.

But those numbers don't capture what you really do.

You're the hardware store owner who teaches a young family how to fix their first home. You're the bakery sourcing flour from local farms, supporting an entire supply chain with every loaf. You're the coffee shop hiring the teenager next door, giving someone their first real job experience.

You're not just creating products or services. You're creating possibilities.

To the Ones Who Show Us What's Possible

When I was 22, I was thrown into managing a new family business. I was in over my head from day one, learning payroll, HR, sales, scheduling, marketing, tax compliance, all on the fly. That trial by fire taught me something crucial: small business owners aren't struggling because they're bad at business.

They're smart, capable people who simply lack the right systems and knowledge to make informed decisions.

I started MATAX so that others wouldn't have to go through what I went through. So they'd have a resource for answers, information, education, and the tools I wish I'd had. Being able to empower them and contribute to their success by providing the best tools and guidance is as much a privilege as it is a responsibility.

Recently, I had the honor of being part of a CBS documentary series, 50 American Leaders, which focused on Xero and the transformative power of the right technology in the hands of small business owners. One of my clients, Jason Manley, was featured alongside me.

Jason owns Anime Pop, a thriving retail store in Texas. But here's what makes his story extraordinary: he runs it remotely from Colorado while holding another full-time job. He's planning a multi-state expansion. And he does it all with confidence because he has the right systems in place.

Jason uses technology as his "central hub" to make data-driven decisions from anywhere. But the technology isn't what makes him successful. It's his vision, his determination, and his willingness to build the infrastructure that supports his dreams.

That's what you do. You figure out how to make the impossible work.

To the Ones Wearing Too Many Hats

I see you jumping from sales calls to payroll processing, from fixing your website to creating social media content, then back to bookkeeping. You're simultaneously the web developer, bookkeeper, social media manager, HR director, sales team, and customer service rep.

It's an exhausting, near-impossible juggle that would break most people.

But not you.

Your business expertise doesn't get the attention it deserves because you're too busy being part-time everything else. Most business owners spend 15 to 20 hours per week on administrative and accounting tasks alone. That's nearly half of a full-time workweek spent on activities that don't directly grow your business.

You should be focused on your core strengths instead of spending hours wrestling with expense categorization or trying to figure out compliance requirements you never expected to manage.

And still, you show up. Every single day.

The reality is stark: data shows that almost a quarter of new businesses fail within their first year, and only half make it to their fifth anniversary. But it's not because of bad ideas or lack of passion. It's often due to gaps in financial literacy and a lack of strategic support.

That's not a personal failing. That's a systems problem. And systems problems have solutions.

To the Generations Passing the Torch

I see you, the retiring generation who built empires with cash registers, paper invoices, and handwritten appointment books. Everything was tactile and personal. All the company wisdom lived in your heads, earned through hard-won experience. You built incredible personal relationships that kept your businesses going through good times and bad.

You remember which customers always pay late, which suppliers give the best service, and which expenses happen at certain times of year. You built your success on knowing your customers personally, remembering what they liked, doing business with a handshake.

And I see you, the incoming generation, stepping into shoes that feel impossibly large. You grew up digital and expect real-time dashboards, automated workflows, cloud-based systems, and instant access to information. You want to grow operations through technology rather than just personal relationships.

This creates tension. The older generation says, "We've always done it this way, and it works." The younger generation says, "But we could do it faster and more efficiently with technology."

Both are right.

The statistics are sobering: only 30% of family-owned businesses survive to the second generation. About 12% make it to the third generation. Nearly half of family business owners nearing retirement lack a successor.

But you're not statistics. You are stories of resilience, adaptation, and hope passing from one generation to the next. Bridging that gap means finding ways to honor the relationship-building that made these businesses successful while embracing the efficiency that technology offers.

To the Ones Learning as You Go

You grew up with technology that made everything automatic. You expect apps to handle the complex stuff without needing to understand what's happening underneath.

But running a business requires understanding fundamentals. Why cash flow timing matters more than profit on paper. How money actually moves through a business. The "why" and "so what" behind the data.

Previous generations learned these basics the hard way because they didn't have software to do it for them. They tracked everything manually, developing deep understanding of business mechanics.

It's like knowing how to drive but not understanding how the engine works. Until something goes wrong.

You're incredibly tech-savvy and innovative. I love your energy and fresh ideas. You can tell me your conversion rates instantly, but you're still learning the relationship between customer acquisition costs and lifetime value. You have real-time dashboards, but are building understanding of concepts like cash flow planning or true product costs.

The technology gives you the "what" but not always the "why" or "so what." That's where the real business literacy gap shows up. Once you connect those tools with understanding how business really works, you become incredibly powerful.

That's what business literacy is about: making sense of all that data so you can actually use it to grow your business. And you don't just accept the way things are. You imagine how things could be better and then make it happen.

To the Ones Who Never Stop Creating

I've watched you turn a frustrating construction project into a tech solution serving millions of users. I've seen you transform your grandmother's pudding recipe into a thriving cafe employing fifteen people in your community.

78% of you now use digital tools, figuring out technology on the fly while also running your actual business. You're navigating a landscape that changes every single day.

The pace of new technology is relentless, and you don't have dedicated IT departments or teams to research, implement, and learn. You're wearing those hats too. You're experts in your fields, incredible plumbers, marketers, shop owners, but you weren't trained to be technology managers or data analysts.

Most of you end up in one of two traps. Either you get sold on solutions that sound perfect but don't quite fit your actual needs, leaving you more frustrated than before, or you cobble together free and low-cost tools that don't talk to each other. Both approaches create more complexity instead of simplifying your operations.

The resilience is unlike anything I've seen. You work those eighteen-hour days. You sacrifice vacations. You mortgage your homes. Not because you have to, but because you genuinely believe in what you're building.

And here's what sets you apart: the heart behind everything you do.

When your business thrives, you create jobs for your neighbors. You support other local businesses through your supply chain. You transform entire neighborhoods just by showing up and caring.

That 85-year-old variety store? It's helped three generations of families and taught countless kids about their community. The new bakery? Already becoming the place where neighbors meet and catch up, where community happens. That coffee shop that knows me by name? Still there, still caring about their community, still making everyone feel at home.

You're not just running businesses. You're weaving the fabric that holds communities together.

To the Ones Who Deserve Systems That Actually Work

When we work with clients at MATAX, we start by understanding what they're trying to build. Not just this quarter or this year, but where they want to be in five years. Then we build the infrastructure that gets them there.

Our entire reason for being is to guide businesses toward scale and sustainability. That's why we're constantly evolving, constantly learning, constantly employing the best technology and practices to stay ahead. We help our clients better, deeper, and more readily than traditional service providers because we understand that technology alone isn't the answer. It's the thoughtful integration of smart systems with human expertise that transforms businesses.

As agentic AI practitioners, we don't just implement tools. We architect intelligent systems that anticipate needs, adapt to growth, and work seamlessly in the background while you focus on what matters most. We've worked with hundreds of startups and small businesses, and that pattern recognition allows us to anticipate challenges before they become problems.

The best accounting software for startups isn't just about features. It's about removing the drudgery that used to consume entire days. Automated bank feeds mean transactions flow directly into your books. Real-time reporting means you always know where you stand financially. Connected systems mean your technology actually talks to each other instead of creating more work.

It's like having a really good assistant who never gets tired, never makes calculation errors, and works around the clock. Constantly organizing your data, flagging unusual transactions, preparing reports so you can focus on strategic decisions rather than data entry.

But here's what makes it more than just software. The right systems don't just give you numbers. They provide context about what those numbers mean for your business. This helps create that understanding that's so vital, especially for entrepreneurs who are hungry for knowledge but need the framework to make sense of their data.

This kind of guidance used to cost thousands of dollars in consultant fees or require complicated spreadsheets that most small businesses couldn't handle. Now, when thoughtfully implemented, it's built right in, helping bridge that gap between having data and actually understanding your business.

Picture this: you're at a job site and need to create an invoice for work you just completed. Instead of going back to the office and spending 20 minutes entering data, you handle it in seconds from your phone. AI automation makes this possible without sacrificing accuracy or control.

A contractor can check which customers owe money while driving between jobs. A restaurant owner can compare this month's profits to last month's while at a supplier planning next week's menu.

The stress reduction is significant because the right systems handle those routine questions that usually interrupt your flow. Instead of stopping what you're doing to dig through records, you get instant answers you can trust.

For small business owners who are constantly juggling a million things, having that reliable support available wherever they are is genuinely life-changing.

To the Ones Who Transform Time Into Value

Our clients consistently get back 10 to 20 hours per week because we've built systems that prevent problems instead of just fixing them. Some save even more, reclaiming more than 40 hours weekly that were previously lost to administrative tasks and manual data entry.

We create the underlying infrastructure that scales with growth, handles complexity automatically, and frees business owners to focus on what they do best.

That's not just about efficiency. It's about transformation.

We stay ahead of what's emerging so you don't have to. We test new technologies, evaluate their ethical implications, and implement only what truly serves your growth. We learn from every client engagement, every industry shift, every technological advancement. Then we bring that knowledge to you, distilled into practical systems that work.

This is how workflow optimization actually works in practice. Not by adding more complexity, but by eliminating it. Not by forcing you to learn new systems every few months, but by building flexible systems that evolve with your business.

When you're not buried in data entry and administrative tasks, you can focus on what actually grows your business. You can spend time with customers. You can innovate. You can think strategically instead of just reactively.

That's the difference between surviving and thriving. Between being trapped by your business and being empowered by it.

The technology gives you the "what," but we provide the "why" and "so what." That's where real business literacy shows up. Making sense of all that data so you can actually use it to grow your business. We help you achieve operational efficiency without sacrificing the personal touch that makes your business special.

Our clients typically see results within one to two weeks. Not months. Not quarters. Within days, they're saving 20-plus hours monthly on paperwork alone. Through our training, they develop greater confidence, start asking more in-depth questions, and become better prepared overall. These aren't temporary fixes. These skills stay with them forever.

To the Ones Who Keep Going

Despite everything, 56% of you reported revenue growth in the past year. Small business optimism reached a record high of 72.0 in Q3 2024. 31% of you reported being very comfortable with your cash flow, up from 23% the previous quarter.

You're not just surviving. You're thriving.

Against economic uncertainty. Against resource constraints. Against a million reasons to quit.

You keep going because you see what others don't. You believe what others won't. You build what others can't.

To the Ones Who Inspire Us

That combination of creativity, determination, and genuine care for others is what makes you truly extraordinary.

You create the gathering places where strangers become friends. You preserve local character in a world that increasingly looks the same everywhere. You provide the personal touch that makes a place feel like home.

I've watched clients navigate economic downturns, supply chain disruptions, family crises, and still show up for their customers and employees every single day. I've seen a landscaper work through a weekend to get a wedding venue ready, knowing it would make someone's special day perfect. A consultant who spent unpaid hours helping a client through a crisis because that's what good neighbors do.

When I walk out my front door every morning, I see you. I see the threads you weave that hold all of us together.

You are the dreamers who had the audacity to try. The risk-takers who bet on yourselves when no one else would. The problem-solvers who see opportunities where others see obstacles.

You are the late nights and early mornings. The sacrifices no one sees. The persistence that doesn't make headlines.

You are the heartbeat of America.

And when you thrive, we all thrive.

To the Future We're Building Together

So here's to you. The small business owners. The entrepreneurs. The dreamers who refuse to give up.

This is your ode. Your recognition. Your moment to know that what you do matters more than you could ever imagine.

Keep building. Keep dreaming. Keep weaving those threads that connect us all.

Because when I walk out my front door tomorrow, I want to see you still there. Still creating. Still believing. Still making the impossible look easy, one day at a time.

When a small business thrives, it ripples through the entire community. Supporting them isn't just good business. It's about maintaining the vibrancy of our communities.

If you're ready to build infrastructure that supports your vision, systems that scale with your growth, and partnerships that understand the journey you're on, let's talk about what's possible.

Dawn Hatch is the founder of MATAX, where she helps small businesses build intelligent infrastructure that scales with growth. MATAX is a three-time Xero award winner, most recently honored as the 2025 Advisory Innovator of the Year, and Dawn was featured in CBS's 50 American Leaders series. Dawn's approach has helped clients save 20+ hours per week, moving from data entry to strategic planning. Learn more at mataxhq.com.