small.news: July 27, 2026 Rosa Benavides Spent Years Waiting for Permission to Speak small.storiesBy Kekeletso Nkele, small.news Assistant Rosa Benavides grew up in Boyle Heights, the eldest of five children in an immigrant family, learning early what responsibility felt like. She worked a grill at 15. She studied hard. She became the first in her family to graduate from high school and attend university — eventually making it from Boyle Heights to UCLA and, from there, into executive leadership. On paper, the trajectory looks like a story of continuous confidence. It was not. For much of her life, Benavides was, as she puts it, afraid of her own shadow. The criticism she absorbed in childhood — within her family, in school, in workplaces — did not dissolve when she achieved things. It followed her. Read more → Top Stories Resilience by Necessity: What South African Small Businesses Can Teach the World small.worldBy Ntlhari Mathebula, silv=r™ Success Manager It’s 5:00 AM on a chilly South African morning. As coffee machines hum to life and learners and students prepare for school, before the first rays of the Highveld sun strike the roofs of buildings, there is a sweet, heavy scent of hot magwinya (vetkoek) hitting deep oil. Hooters are heard beeping from a distance as other road users are trapped in a stagnant gridlock of minibus taxis and morning commuters. A delivery truck is running late because of traffic on the M1; the corner bakery is already serving its third customer, Read more → Canadian Small Business Owners Not Feeling Impact of Internal Trade Reforms Despite High Government Grades, CFIB Report Finds small.deskBy Kekeletso Nkele, small.news Assistant Most Canadian smbs say they have yet to see practical improvement in trading across provincial lines, despite governments achieving their highest marks in years for internal trade reform, states a report card released by the CFIB on July 15, as reported by Kenora Miner & News. Read more → Password Sharing and Weak Access Controls Putting Bangladesh’s Small Business Owners at Risk of Cyber Fraud, Experts Warn small.deskBy Kekeletso Nkele, small.news Assistant Small business owners who share passwords, circulate one-time passwords, and maintain poor digital access controls are leaving themselves vulnerable to cybercriminals, experts said at a roundtable on MSME cyber resilience held in Dhaka on July 14, reports The Daily Star. Read more → Build Your Network Like an Ecosystem, Not a Contact List small.adviceBy Sonya Jamula, Partner Growth Architect For most of my career, I worked in partnerships. Long before I became a solopreneur, I spent nearly two decades helping businesses grow through relationships. Whether I was supporting local retailers, working at DISH, or later helping small businesses through Gusto, the work was always the same at its core. Read more → small.laughs By Dave Zaboski Disclaimer: All resemblances to any persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental and in no way meant to intentionally hurt anyone’s feelings. Keep laughing → Stop Calling It Sustainability If It Doesn’t Make Your Business Better small.opinionsBy Sian Young, founder of Siel Environmental “If your sustainability initiative doesn’t improve efficiency, reduce unnecessary costs, strengthen customer trust, lower risk, improve operations, or build resilience, then it isn’t sustainable. It’s simply another expense.” – Sian Young Jay Cziraky on Duty, Community, and Building a New Philosophy for Small Business small.talkBy Kekeletso Nkele, small.news Assistant On July 23, 2026, Jay Cziraky, founder of The No-End Philosophy Company, joined our small.talk to share how a thousand years of family history shaped his belief that business is fundamentally an act of duty to community. Jay joined Silver Lining Founder and CEO Carissa Reiniger to make the case that small businesses don’t just need funding — they need a reimagined economic philosophy that puts people, purpose, and circular wealth back at the center. Read more → Thank You To Our Founding Sponsors!