Expanded Online Resources Give Businesses A Leg Up

By: Anne Artley

The City of Long Beach is leveraging data and technology to make the city more accessible to new businesses and increase the productivity of existing ones through initiatives such as BizPort, an online portal for aspiring entrepreneurs; My Sidewalk, a platform for providing demographic data; and the fiber master plan, an effort to expand Internet connectivity citywide.

The city launched BizPort in December 2016 to reduce confusion prevalent among prospective business owners when they came to city hall to apply for a license, John Keisler, the director of economic development for the City of Long Beach, said. The portal breaks down the process of starting a business from the planning phase to launching and eventually growing an individual venture.

Read more on the Long Beach Business Journal