Thank you, and thank you, witnesses, for coming.
At the beginning of your presentation, you talked about small businesses and the valley of death, the challenges that small businesses go through. I'm spearheading a study trying to identify different programs that are available to small businesses during the various stages of their development. One of the areas with the least number of programs or partnerships available is the valley of death during the growth phase.
What is your department doing, whether as a partnership with an organization such as BDC or independently, to help businesses get through that phase? That's where we lost a lot of businesses and that's where a lot of jobs could be generated.