⚖️ Laws, Loans & Legacy—Plus: AI Obits Stir Ghostly Questions

Welcome back to the AI for Small Business newsletter!

This week we’re idling through some serious pivot points—legal guidance from the Supreme Court, SBA disaster loans hitting communities, and signs of a shift from family-owned to employee-run businesses. We even stumbled across AI-generated obituaries, proving that technology isn’t always... tasteful. Read on as we unpack what all this means for your shop, service, or startup.

📜 What the U.S. Supreme Court Told Small Businesses

Big Ideas highlights key decisions from the recent SCOTUS term that impact small business—covering employment, regulatory reach, and more.

TL;DR? The Court is pulling back on broad agency power and emphasizing narrower enforcement, which could lighten the compliance burden for smaller firms. Worth reading if you’ve ever dealt with sprawling federal rules.

Also worth bookmarking: the Legislation section of Big Ideas' tag feed—worth revisiting every few months for legal updates relevant to SMBs.

💸 SBA Disaster Loan Outreach & Uptick in Lending | Dallas–Fort Worth’s $1.5B Surge | Iowa’s $9M in Loans Approved

From Missouri’s outreach center to Dallas–Fort Worth’s $1.5 billion campus for funding and Iowa’s $9 million in approved loans, the SBA is pouring resources into SMB recovery. If you're bouncing back from flood, fire, or economic downturn, now's the time to learn what’s available in your area.

It is also always worth seeing what is available in SBA grants - there’s often a lot of grant money available at the city, state, and federal levels. If you need help with the paperwork for a grant, give us a yell and we’ll help out at no cost.

🧩 First-Time Buying a Business? | Employee Takeovers Are Trending

A Reddit newbie lays out questions about what it takes to buy an existing business—valuation, due diligence, SBA zero-down programs—and it sparked some smart dialogue.

Meanwhile, across Massachusetts, multiple SMBs are handing the keys to employees via ESOPs or co-op models—a shift toward preserving local legacy and smoothing succession.

If being an entrepreneur means retirement planning or fresh owners, these ownership models make the succession conversation feel more real than just theory.

👻 AI-Generated Obituaries Are a Thing Now?

The Atlantic writes about stylized, AI-crafted obituaries flooding the internet—raising ethical and emotional questions.

Are we ready to trust a machine to write our life summaries? For those of you in services like funeral planning or memorial web platforms, this might be your next big conversation with clients (or competitors).

📣 Your Turn

Still wrestling with regulatory compliance or succession planning? Have you tapped SBA funding—disaster or otherwise? What’s your take on AI intruding into human narratives?

Hit reply and share what’s shaping your small business today.

Until next time,
—The MarketStreet Team