Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel declared BusinessUSA, the administration’s new website designed to help American businesses, officially open for business.
The new website, announced last month, and still in beta, is an online platform that “will make it easier for businesses to access the services and information they need to help them grow, hire and export,” VanRoekel said in a White House blog post Feb. 17.
“BusinessUSA isn’t just another website,” VanRoekel said.
“It’s a virtual one stop shop that gives businesses access to the full range of resources they need at every stage of their development – providing assistance getting patents, loans to grow and hire, information on contracting opportunities, and help breaking into new markets overseas,” he wrote.
The site features a variety or resources, including ways businesses might find loans, international trade leads, marketing assistance, as well as federal business opportunities. The site also provides links to resources available by state.
VanRoekel described the site’s design as one where visitors can take “no wrong door” with a common platform designed “to match businesses with the services relevant to them, regardless of where the information is located or which agency’s website, call center, or office they go to for help.”
However, visitors are likely to discover that the portal site is a work in progress, with many doors leading to the same resource rooms. The site does however, pull together resources for the first time from a diverse array of federal departments and agencies, including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and various international trade agencies.
BusinessUSA is a manifestation of the administration’s efforts to streamline business-related agencies,” VanRoekel said.
“For too long, entrepreneurs – and especially small business owners – have been forced to navigate a confusing maze of government agencies to get the support and resources they need. The President has made clear that this is unacceptable. As he said in his State of the Union Address, we need to give U.S. businesses every opportunity and tool to succeed so that they can grow and hire right here in America – and that’s what today’s launch is all about.”
VanRoekel said the site’s design was engineered and tested, based on “feedback and expertise of U.S. businesses and relevant online communities” and that invited feedback from businesses using the site.