Building a business is an exciting, but uphill, challenge. You need a great product or service, customers, a viable business model, and access to capital (a major challenge, itself!). But today even that may not be enough. You also need a plan to deal with monopolies.

Across the economy, in everything from online marketing to live entertainment and even in cheerleading, dominant corporations operate as gatekeepers and private regulators, settings terms and conditions for entrepreneurs — small, medium-sized, and sometimes even large businesses.

How did this happen? For forty years, policymakers failed to ensure that markets are structured to be fair, open and not just for the largest players. As a result, entrepreneurs and small businesspeople face much longer odds of success, as they can no longer fairly compete and thrive on the merits of providing better products or services.

On Friday, March 12th at 12:00 PM ET we launched a new “Access to Markets” initiative featuring remarks from House Antitrust Subcommittee member and Innovation and Entrepreneurship Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Joe Neguse (CO-02). This event focused on the challenges that private market restrictions pose to entrepreneurship and business growth and how public policy can rebalance the playing field.

We heard from experienced entrepreneurs and business owners, leading advocates for entrepreneurs and independent businesses, and antimonopoly experts. Watch here to learn how you can be involved to push for fair markets that are open to everyone.

Welcome:

Sarah Miller, Executive Director, American Economic Liberties Project

Keynote:

Rep. Joe Neguse (CO-02), member of the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law and Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Panel: Access to Markets is a Monopoly Challenge 

Victor Hwang, Founder & CEO of Right to Start

Stacy Mitchell,  Co-Director of Institute for Local Self Reliance and Director of it’s Independent Business Initiative

Matt Stoller, Research Director of the American Economic Liberties Project & Author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy

Moderated by Brandi Collins-Dexter, Senior Advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project and Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy

Materials referenced by the panelists are available here.

Remarks:

Tim O’Reilly, Founder, CEO, & Chairman of O’Reilly Media

Panel: Perspectives from Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders

Jules Pieri, Co-Founder & former CEO of The Grommet and Author of How We Make Stuff

John Arensmeyer, Founder & CEO of Small Business Majority

Ted Milner, President of Executive Temps- An Entertainment Employment Agency

Rodney Foxworth, CEO of Common Future

Moderated byDenise Hearn, Senior Fellow of the American Economic Liberties Project and co-author of The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition

About Access to Markets:

The Access to Markets initiative is building a community of engaged entrepreneurs, business leaders, and investors along with advocates of entrepreneurship and independent businesses who are coming together to help ensure policymakers prioritize fair access to markets not just for themselves, but for the next generation of inventors, creators, and businesspeople committed to competing by providing better products or services.