Eric Tabone of Nearshore Business Solutions on Why Cheap Labor Is the Wrong Reason to Hire Abroad

NY Weekly Staff on May 26, 2026

By: Eva Keller

Most companies that explore hiring in Latin America start with a spreadsheet. They compare salaries, run the numbers, and decide whether the savings justify the effort. That calculation isn’t wrong, but if it’s the only one being done, companies are setting themselves up for a hire that looks good on paper and underperforms in practice.

Cultural alignment is the variable that doesn’t show up in the budget, and it’s often the one that determines whether a nearshore hire actually works.

Here’s what that means practically. A BDR in Colombia who grew up consuming American television, who understands the rhythm of a U.S. sales conversation, who can read tone, pick up on humor, and respond to the unspoken expectations of a client call, is a fundamentally different hire than someone with identical credentials who lacks that cultural fluency. Both might clear the resume screen. Only one is going to perform in the role.

“I’ve yet to find a good substitute for human-to-human connection,” says Eric Tabone, founder and managing director of Nearshore Business Solutions, who has spent 16 years building and placing teams across Latin America. “People want to deal with people. And that’s where the cultural alignment piece becomes everything.”

The practical markers of that alignment are more accessible than most U.S. companies realize. English proficiency in Colombia’s major cities, Bogotá and Medellín especially, has risen steadily, and much of it was built organically through cultural exposure rather than formal instruction. “Most people we work with grew up on the show Friends,” Eric says. “A lot of them, you have no idea if they grew up in the United States or Latin America. They sound like you’re speaking with somebody from San Francisco or Florida or New York.”

For client-facing roles, that matters enormously. The ability to mirror communication style, to understand references, to move naturally through a conversation without friction, these are things that training can only partially compensate for. Companies that overlook this when evaluating nearshore candidates often find themselves frustrated by performance gaps they can’t quite diagnose.

Time zone is another cultural alignment factor that gets underestimated. Colombia operates on Eastern Standard Time year-round, with no daylight saving shifts. That means real-time collaboration, same-day feedback, and the kind of spontaneous communication that keeps distributed teams feeling like actual teams. The difference between managing someone three hours behind versus 10 hours ahead is not just logistical. It shapes the entire working relationship.

There’s also a reputational factor that quietly affects how foreign managers show up with Colombian teams, and it’s worth naming directly. Outdated perceptions of Colombia, largely shaped by decades-old history and how it’s been portrayed in media, lead some executives to bring assumptions into their management approach that create distance before the relationship even starts. “Don’t believe what Netflix says about Colombia,” Eric says. “Forty years ago it was a very different place. Now, living in Bogotá, it’s a global city. It’s safe. It’s developed.” Walking in with that clarity, and treating Colombian professionals with the same baseline respect you’d extend to a hire in your home market, is a prerequisite for the relationship working.

The deeper point is that cultural fit isn’t a soft metric. It has hard consequences. A hire with strong cultural alignment stays longer, performs better in client-facing roles, integrates more smoothly into existing teams, and requires less management overhead. A hire made purely on cost, without that evaluation, tends to surface problems that are expensive to unwind.

The companies that get nearshoring right aren’t the ones that found the cheapest option. They’re the ones who understood that they were building a relationship with a professional, in a real place, and treated it accordingly.

How P3x Built a Brand on Sound and Vision

NY Weekly Staff on May 26, 2026

By: UFIRST Art Production

In a contemporary art world saturated with styles, movements, and carefully cultivated aesthetics, Paul Kwiatkowski (known as P3x) has done something genuinely rare. He has built a creative identity that refuses to be categorized, and made that refusal the source of his power.

The Brand: P3x and the Freedom of No Rules

The artist name P3x is not a genre label. It is not a style descriptor. It is something more interesting, a signature that signals immediately that what you are about to encounter does not fit the existing boxes. Paul Kwiatkowski chose it deliberately, and it reflects a philosophy that runs through every piece he creates. He believes the most powerful art is the art that surprises you, that makes you look twice, that does something you have never seen a painting do before.

“I paint the visions in my head,” he says simply. “I’m not really going for a particular style.” In an art world that often rewards legibility (artists who fit neatly into a movement, a market category, a collector profile), this is a radical stance. It is also, paradoxically, the foundation of the most distinctive personal brands. When an artist stops trying to fit in and starts making exactly what they see, the work becomes unmistakably theirs.

The Style: Where Painting Becomes an Experience

P3x’s work operates at an intersection that most artists never explore, the space where visual art meets sound, where a canvas becomes a three-dimensional object, where a painting can incorporate lights, movement, and electronics alongside paint and texture. His pieces are not flat. They are not passive. They are environments, invitations to engage, to touch, to listen, to interact.

At the heart of this approach is music. Rock, hip-hop, and punk are not just Paul’s personal soundtrack. They are his primary source material. He incorporates music equipment, memorabilia, and electronics directly into his work, the physical objects of sound cultures made visible, tactile, and permanent. A guitar component becomes a compositional element. A circuit board becomes texture. The boundary between listening and looking dissolves entirely.

The result is work that cannot be fully experienced in a photograph. It demands presence. It demands proximity. It demands the kind of slow, attentive looking that reveals more the longer you stay with it, which is, of course, exactly what the best art has always done.

Photo Courtesy: Paul Kwiatkowski

The Mission: Making the Unseen Visible

Paul’s mission is deceptively simple. He wants to make work that people have genuinely never seen before. Not shocking for the sake of shock, not avant-garde for the sake of positioning, but genuinely, quietly, unmistakably new. Work that solves a problem the viewer didn’t know they had, the problem of wanting to be surprised by something on a wall.

That mission grew directly from his own experience as a collector and observer before he became a maker. Spending four years managing an artist, watching the creative process from the outside, gave him something rare. He learned to see art the way an audience sees it, not the way a trained artist makes it. That outsider’s eye, combined with an insider’s understanding of craft, is the engine of P3x’s most original ideas.

Where the Work Belongs

P3x’s immersive, boundary-dissolving approach to art finds a natural home in curated spaces designed for genuine encounter, and that is precisely what draws his work toward events like the upcoming Hamptons Private Art Experience on June 7, 2026, in Southampton, New York, produced by Jason Perez and UFIRST Art Production. An intimate, collector-focused environment where art is experienced rather than simply viewed is exactly the context where P3x’s multi-sensory, deeply personal work resonates most powerfully.

Photo Courtesy: Paul Kwiatkowski

The Vision: Reaching Everyone Who Has Never Seen This

Paul Kwiatkowski’s vision for the future is expansive and rooted at the same time. He wants to show his work to as many new people as possible, not to chase fame or market share, but because he genuinely believes that the experience of encountering something you have never seen before is one of the most valuable things art can offer. And he believes his work can offer it.

That confidence is not arrogance. It is the quiet certainty of someone who started making art because nothing else existed that looked like what he had in his head, and discovered, when others saw it, that they had been waiting for exactly that without knowing it.

P3x is a brand built on a single, uncompromising premise. The best art is the art that makes you stop, lean in, and say, with genuine wonder, I have never seen anything like this. Paul Kwiatkowski has been saying that his whole creative life. Now he is making sure the world can say it too.

What ERP Development Companies Do Differently and Why It Matters for Your Business

NY Weekly Staff on May 26, 2026

Enterprise resource planning projects have earned a reputation marked by large budgets, extended timelines, and a history of implementations that delivered less than promised. That reputation is not unfounded, but it is largely a product of poor partner selection rather than an inherent characteristic of ERP development itself. The organizations that have built custom ERP systems successfully, on time, within budget, and with adoption rates that reflect genuine operational improvement, almost always share one common factor. They chose a development company whose depth of experience in this specific domain was evident from the first conversation, not just from the portfolio on the website.

What Genuine ERP Domain Expertise Looks Like in Practice

Evaluating a prospective ERP development company requires looking past the credential claims and technology stack listings that populate most agency websites to the evidence of actual domain knowledge that only surfaces in substantive conversation. The development teams that have genuinely built and deployed enterprise resource planning systems ask different questions than those who have not. They ask about the specific failure modes in your current system, not what features you want, but what problems you cannot solve with what you have. They ask about the exceptions to the standard process, because they know that ERP systems that handle the standard case well but break down at exceptions are systems that generate support tickets and workarounds rather than operational efficiency. And they ask about the people who will use the system daily. This includes the warehouse staff entering receipts, the finance team closing the month, and the operations manager who needs to see production status in real time. They ask these questions because they understand that a system that is technically correct but practically unusable has failed, regardless of whether every requirement in the specification has been met.

This orientation toward real-world use rather than theoretical completeness is the hallmark of development companies whose ERP work has survived contact with actual operations. It is also the orientation that most reliably produces systems that get used, that generate the efficiency improvements the business case promised, and that earn the trust of the people who depend on them every day.

The Difference Between ERP Implementation and ERP Development

A distinction worth drawing clearly at the outset of any ERP evaluation is the difference between implementation and development. ERP implementation typically refers to the configuration and deployment of an existing vendor platform (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite) to serve a specific organization. ERP development refers to building a system from the ground up, or extending a platform so substantially that the custom components define the system’s behavior more than the base product does. The skills, experience, and risk profiles are different, and the organizations that confuse the two categories, hiring an implementation-focused firm for a development-intensive project or vice versa, tend to discover the mismatch at the worst possible moment. Knowing which category your project belongs to and selecting a partner whose primary expertise matches that category is the foundational decision from which everything else follows.

The Functional Scope of a Custom ERP System

The modules that appear in a custom ERP system should be determined entirely by the operational requirements of the business commissioning it, not by what a vendor has packaged for sale or what a previous client’s project included. The functional areas that most commonly drive ERP development projects, and that require the most careful requirements definition to design correctly, include the following.

  • Financial management and accounting. General ledger, accounts payable and receivable, fixed assets, budgeting and forecasting, multi-currency and multi-entity support, and the financial reporting infrastructure that management and auditors both depend on. The data model for financial modules is particularly unforgiving of design errors because financial data accumulates without the ability to retroactively correct structural mistakes.
  • Supply chain and inventory management. Real-time inventory visibility across locations, demand-driven replenishment, purchase order management, goods receipt processing, and the integration with supplier systems and logistics providers that keeps supply chain data current. Systems that batch-update inventory rather than processing in real time create the phantom stock and stockout conditions that erode customer trust and operational credibility.
  • Manufacturing and production management. Work order management, production scheduling, bill of materials management, quality control checkpoints, and the shop floor data collection that connects physical production activity to the system record. Manufacturing modules are where the gap between a system designed by people who understand manufacturing operations and one designed by people who do not is most clearly visible.
  • Human resources and workforce management. Employee records, organizational hierarchy, payroll integration, time and attendance, performance management, and the compliance reporting that employment law in most jurisdictions requires. HR modules interact with every other part of the business and are often the most politically sensitive to design correctly.
  • Customer order management. Sales order processing, pricing and discount management, customer credit management, delivery scheduling, and the customer-facing visibility into order status that has become a baseline expectation in most B2B markets. Order management modules are the interface between the ERP and the customer experience, and their design directly affects customer satisfaction.

How Integration Architecture Shapes System Value

No ERP system operates in isolation. Every organization has existing systems, including CRM platforms, e-commerce engines, payment processors, logistics management tools, business intelligence platforms, and banking interfaces, that the ERP must connect with to deliver its full value. The integration architecture of the ERP makes those connections reliable, and it is one of the areas where the difference between development companies with genuine ERP experience and those without it is most consequential. Integrations designed as afterthoughts (point-to-point connections added after the core system was built without a coherent API strategy) create fragile dependencies that fail unpredictably and require expensive remediation when any connected system changes. Integrations designed as first-class architectural components, with documented APIs, proper error handling, monitoring, and retry logic, create a reliable data ecosystem that can accommodate new connections without destabilizing existing ones.

Project Governance and How It Shapes Outcomes

The governance structure of an ERP project, how decisions are made, how scope changes are managed, how risks are identified and escalated, and how progress is measured and communicated, has as much bearing on project outcomes as the technical quality of the development team. ERP projects that run into serious trouble almost always exhibit identifiable governance failures that could have been detected early. Scope that expanded continuously without formal change control, requirements that were approved by people without the authority to commit the organization to their implementation, technical decisions that were made by developers without visibility into the business implications, and problems that were reported upward too late to be resolved before they became crises.

The Steering Committee and Why It Cannot Be Delegated

ERP implementations require active senior leadership engagement, not just sponsorship in name, but genuine participation in the decision-making processes that shape what gets built and how. The decisions that matter most in an ERP project are not technical. They concern themselves with which business processes will be standardized and which will be accommodated with exceptions, how conflicting requirements from different departments will be resolved, and how the organization will manage the transition from old ways of working to new ones. These decisions require the authority to commit the organization to a course of action, the understanding of cross-departmental implications, and the willingness to make difficult trade-offs between competing interests. They cannot be delegated to a project manager or an IT team, and development companies that allow them to be are development companies setting up their clients for the kind of mid-project crisis that redefines timeline and budget expectations in a direction that nobody welcomes.

How to Evaluate an ERP Development Company

The evaluation process that most reliably identifies ERP development companies with the capability to deliver complex enterprise projects should weight demonstrated experience in the specific functional areas the project requires, the quality of the discovery process they propose, their approach to scope management and change control, the specific track record of the team members who will actually work on the project rather than the company’s portfolio in aggregate, and the quality of their references from ERP projects of comparable scope and complexity.

The conversations that reveal the most during evaluation are not about technology. Any competent development company can answer questions about its technology stack. They are about failure, specifically, how the company has handled the inevitable complications, scope surprises, and mid-project discoveries that characterize every ERP implementation. A development company that can describe specific situations where things did not go as planned, what caused the problem, how it was communicated to the client, and how it was resolved is a company whose experience has been tested against reality. That tested experience is what translates into the judgment, the process, and the client relationships that produce ERP systems worth the investment made in them.

7 Life Lessons Hidden Inside a Simple Fishing Story

NY Weekly Staff on May 26, 2026

A little boy wants to catch his first fish. His Poppy tells him a secret. The first fish is always magic. But Poppy will not say what the magic is. Johnny has to find out for himself. This simple story, Johnny’s Magical Fishing Trip by Bonni Lyn Kuhn, is expected to arrive soon. It may seem like a quiet tale about a boy and a green fishing pole, but inside the story are several meaningful life lessons. Each lesson appears in a small moment: a whisper, a tug on a line, or a father’s knowing smile.

Lesson 1

The first lesson is patience. Johnny cannot wait for his fishing trip. He asks everyone. He tells his Poppy, his Grammy, and his great-grandfather Pop Paul. He whispers to himself at night. But the trip does not come immediately. He starts kindergarten first. He rides the tractor. He waits through days of ordinary life. When the morning finally arrives, Johnny must wait again by the lake. His father says, “We must stay very quiet, so we do not scare the fish away.” Johnny stays quieter than he has ever seen him. Patience is not just waiting. It is waiting with purpose. It is holding still because something matters. Johnny learns that good things often come to those who can sit still and watch.

Lesson 2

The second lesson is pride. This is the heart of the story. When Johnny catches his first fish, he feels happier than ever before. Better than baseball. Better than riding his bike. He does not look at his father for approval. He does not ask, “Did I do good?” He simply feels wonderful. Then he says, “Now I know why Poppy said catching my first fish would be magical. Because of the way that fish made me feel when I caught it all by myself.” His father names the feeling: pride. Real pride does not need applause. It lives inside a person. Bonni Lyn Kuhn shows that the magic is not a spell. The magic is the feeling of earning something through personal effort.

Lesson 3

The third lesson is family bonds. Many family members appear in this story. Johnny tells his Poppy. Poppy shares the secret. Grammy listens from the hallway and smiles. Johnny tells his daddy. He tells his great-grandfather, Pop Paul, at the birthday party. Every generation gets involved. The fishing trip becomes a family event, not just a father-son outing. When Poppy refuses to reveal the magic, he does something important. He invites Johnny into a family tradition. The secret connects them. Years from now, Johnny may tell his own child the same words: “You have to find out for yourself.” That is the bond, a chain of trust stretching across time.

Lesson 4

The fourth lesson is courage. Johnny feels nervous about kindergarten. The book mentions it quietly: “He was a little nervous, but he was excited to make new friends.” He does not let the nervousness stop him. He goes to school. He makes friends. He has fun. Then he faces the lake, a big lake with big fish. He hears stories of people catching fish that were huge and hard to catch. But he goes anyway. He casts his line. He waits. Courage does not mean having no fear. Courage means feeling fear and trying anyway. Johnny shows both kinds of courage: the courage to start school and the courage to face a lake full of big fish.

Lesson 5

The fifth lesson is trying new things. Johnny has never fished before. He has never owned a fishing pole. He has never cast a line. But he wants to learn. He picks a green pole that looks perfect to him. His daddy helps him cast for the first time. He does not get it right immediately. He learns as he goes. Trying new things can feel scary for children and adults alike. Johnny shows the joy of being a beginner. He does not need to be an expert. He just needs to try. The magic happens because he is willing to do something for the first time.

Lesson 6

The sixth lesson is keeping secrets as kindness. Poppy knows what the magic is. Johnny’s father knows too. But they do not tell Johnny. This feels frustrating to a child, but it is also part of the gift. If Poppy had said, “The magic is pride,” Johnny may have nodded and moved on. The secret makes him wonder. It makes him anticipate. It makes the discovery his own. Keeping a secret can be an act of love when it protects the joy of discovery. It says, “I trust you to find this truth yourself. Your discovery will mean more than my words.” Bonni Lyn Kuhn places the secret at the center of the story and lets Johnny earn the answer himself.

Lesson 7

The seventh lesson is the joy of anticipation. Much of the book takes place before Johnny ever touches a fishing pole. He talks about the trip. He dreams about the trip. He asks when they will go. This waiting is not empty. It is filled with hope. Johnny feels excited for days. He tells his Poppy while they draw pictures. He tells his Grammy, passing by the den. He tells Pop Paul at the birthday party. Each conversation builds the excitement. By the time his daddy wakes him and says, “Today is the day,” Johnny almost cannot contain himself. He jumps out of bed. He eats breakfast faster than ever. The anticipation makes the actual trip feel even sweeter. Johnny reminds readers that waiting can be part of the experience.

Johnny’s Magical Fishing Trip by Bonni Lyn Kuhn is expected to be released soon and made available through online bookstores and major retailers. The story offers a simple, family-centered reminder that meaningful lessons can be found in quiet moments, shared traditions, and the first experience of doing something on one’s own.

GTA 6 Misses Original May 26 Release Date as Take-Two Locks November 19 Launch and Late-June Marketing Push

NY Weekly Staff 2 on May 26, 2026

Today marks the date that millions of gamers once circled on their calendars. May 26, 2026, was the original release date Rockstar Games announced for Grand Theft Auto VI after the title slipped from its Fall 2025 window. The game is not launching today. Instead, fans are turning their attention to November 19, 2026, the new release date that Take-Two Interactive reaffirmed during its fiscal year 2026 fourth-quarter earnings call on May 21.

The missed date carries a symbolic weight that goes beyond a typical product delay. GTA 6 has become the most anticipated video game launch in history, with each trailer breaking viewership records and each piece of news triggering market-moving reactions in Take-Two’s stock. The fact that the title is still six months away from arriving on store shelves has not dampened the conversation around it. If anything, the silence between official updates has amplified speculation in every direction.

Where the Release Date Stands

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick used the May 21 earnings call to confirm that Grand Theft Auto VI remains on track for November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The confirmation arrived alongside fiscal year 2027 revenue guidance of $8 to $8.2 billion in net bookings, a roughly 20 percent jump that is built around the GTA 6 launch.

The financial guidance functions as the strongest signal that the November date is real. Take-Two has anchored its entire fiscal forecast to the release, and a third delay would force the company to revise guidance in a way that would shake investor confidence. Analysts at Oppenheimer have forecast GTA 6 unit sales of approximately 40 million copies at a $56 net price, with the title expected to contribute $3.45 in non-GAAP earnings per share in fiscal 2027 and $3.56 in fiscal 2028.

Zelnick previously told podcast host David Senra that the November 19 release date sits roughly 18 months behind Rockstar’s original internal target, an admission that frames the delays as part of a longer development arc rather than a recent crisis.

The Marketing Push Begins in Late June

The second piece of news from the earnings call may matter more to fans in the short term. Rockstar’s launch marketing campaign will begin in late June 2026, aligned with the official start of summer in the United States.

Zelnick told Variety just before the earnings call: “So the next few weeks I don’t think it’ll be summertime yet, but when it’s summertime, Rockstar expects to start marketing GTA 6.” In a separate Bloomberg interview, he confirmed that pre-orders typically launch alongside marketing campaigns, meaning the long-awaited pre-order window should open in the same late-June timeframe.

This timeline puts a definitive end to several weeks of pre-order speculation. A Best Buy email earlier in May suggested pre-orders would go live on May 18. Zelnick personally debunked that rumor during the earnings cycle, and an Xbox storefront listing at £89.99 that surfaced earlier this year was confirmed as a placeholder rather than official pricing.

The marketing approach will differ from previous Grand Theft Auto launches. Zelnick indicated the campaign will be “broad-based” but noted that Take-Two will not buy heavy network television placement, a strategic shift from how Rockstar promoted GTA 5 in 2013.

Trailer 3 and What Comes Next

The community has been waiting for a third official trailer since GTA 6 Trailer 2 dropped in May 2025 and crossed 100 million YouTube views within days. As of May 26, 2026, no third trailer has been released.

A rumor that surfaced on GTAForums suggested Trailer 3 would drop today, May 26, but no official announcement has materialized. The source of the rumor, a leaker who correctly debunked the Best Buy pre-order story, has a track record of accurate gaming leaks. The trailer would have served as compensation for the missed release date, but Rockstar appears to be holding the reveal for the late-June marketing kickoff instead.

Industry watchers expect the third trailer to drop alongside the pre-order announcement, giving Rockstar a single high-impact moment to launch the full marketing cycle.

What About PC Players?

PC gamers remain in a familiar position. Take-Two and Rockstar have not announced a PC version of Grand Theft Auto VI. Based on Rockstar’s history with GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, PC players should expect to wait one to two years after the console launch before a PC port arrives.

This pattern has frustrated PC users for over a decade, but it remains a deliberate strategy. Rockstar uses the staggered release to maximize console sales and refine the title before bringing it to a more technically demanding platform.

Grand Theft Auto VI has been hit with two official delays. Rockstar first announced the title for Fall 2025, then pushed it to May 26, 2026, before the most recent shift to November 19, 2026. The November date was announced minutes before Take-Two’s November 2025 earnings call, a move that left the gaming community little time to absorb the news.

Despite the delays, the confirmed Vice City setting and the story details Rockstar has released continue to fuel anticipation. The official synopsis describes protagonists Jason and Lucia caught in a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida, with Vice City as the central location. The plot description suggests a more character-driven narrative than previous entries in the franchise.

Looking Ahead to November 19

For the next several weeks, the conversation around GTA 6 will quiet down. Rockstar has clearly signaled that nothing significant will happen before late June, and fans are unlikely to receive new gameplay footage, pre-order details, or trailer drops until then.

Once the marketing campaign starts, the pace will accelerate quickly. Pre-orders, special edition reveals, pricing announcements, gameplay deep-dives, and additional trailers are all expected to land between late June and the November launch. Take-Two has committed significantly higher marketing spending for fiscal year 2027, signaling an advertising rollout that will likely dominate the gaming news cycle through the fall.

For now, May 26 passes as a reminder that even the most anticipated games take longer than expected to ship. The good news for fans is that the November 19 release date appears as solid as a planned game launch can be, anchored by financial commitments, marketing infrastructure ramping up, and a CEO who has repeatedly staked his credibility on the date holding.

The wait continues, but it has a defined end point.

The $41 Billion Funding Boom That Side Hustlers Will Never See

NY Weekly Staff 2 on May 26, 2026

Venture capital is flooding into early-stage startups at a pace not seen in years. Early-stage funding hit $41.3 billion in Q1 2026, a 41 percent jump from the same period in 2025. The numbers paint a picture of an investment climate eager to back new ideas.

At the same time, one in three American adults plan to start a business or side hustle within the next 12 months, and most of them list funding access as their biggest obstacle. The disconnect between these two realities is the story most coverage of the side hustle surge has missed.

The Gap Between What the Numbers Say and What Founders Experience

A QuickBooks survey of 3,000 U.S. adults found that 33 percent plan to launch a business in 2026, a 94 percent increase from the previous year. The same survey identified funding barriers and lack of financial guidance as the top challenges aspiring founders face. These are not contradictory data points by accident. They reflect a structural mismatch in how capital flows.

The $41.3 billion in Q1 early-stage funding sounds like opportunity. In practice, the vast majority of that capital went to a small number of AI companies building foundation models and enterprise infrastructure. OpenAI raised $122 billion. Anthropic raised $30 billion. xAI raised $20 billion in the first week of January alone. Four companies absorbed a disproportionate share of all venture activity, leaving the broader market for first-time founders, side hustlers, and small business builders fighting over what remains.

For someone launching a freelance design business, a local cleaning service, an Etsy shop, or a consulting practice, none of that venture capital is accessible. The funding boom is happening in a separate economy from the one most new entrepreneurs operate in.

What Side Hustlers Actually Have Access To

Most aspiring entrepreneurs in the QuickBooks survey are not building venture-scale companies. They are launching side businesses while holding traditional jobs. They need capital in the hundreds or low thousands of dollars, not millions. The funding sources realistically available to them include personal savings, credit cards, friends and family contributions, small business loans from community banks, microloans from organizations like Kiva or Accion, and revenue-based financing for businesses with early sales.

Each of these options carries trade-offs that venture capital does not. Credit cards charge interest rates above 20 percent. Small business loans require established revenue and credit history that first-time founders often lack. Microloans help but typically cap out below $50,000. Friends and family contributions strain personal relationships and are not available to founders without affluent networks.

The result is that the people most eager to start businesses in 2026 are also the ones with the fewest paths to the capital they need. The funding barrier reported in the QuickBooks survey is not a perception problem. It reflects the actual structure of the funding market.

The AI Adoption Story Has the Same Problem

The $41 Billion Funding Boom That Side Hustlers Will Never See

Photo Credit: Unsplash.com

A similar gap shows up in how new founders are using AI. More than 60 percent of aspiring entrepreneurs say they will use AI tools to help launch their business. Millennials lead adoption at 75 percent, applying AI to branding, market research, and operations.

The framing in most coverage celebrates this as democratization. Anyone can now build a logo, draft marketing copy, or analyze a market without hiring an expert. That is true at the surface level. But the AI tools delivering meaningful business advantages, the kind that move revenue rather than just save time, sit behind enterprise pricing that solo founders cannot afford. The free and consumer tiers handle basic tasks well. The advanced capabilities that fuel the AI startup gold rush are not available at the side-hustle budget level.

The same dynamic applies. The infrastructure exists, but access is tiered, and most aspiring founders sit at the bottom tier.

Why the Side Hustle Surge Is Happening Anyway

Despite the funding gap and the AI access gap, the 94 percent year-over-year increase in entrepreneurial intent is real. The motivation is not opportunity-driven. It is reliability-driven.

The QuickBooks data shows that financial stability and wealth-building rank as primary motivations, with many respondents viewing entrepreneurship as more reliable than traditional employment. That framing is worth pausing on. Side hustles have historically been seen as risky compared to stable W-2 jobs. The fact that a third of American adults now view the opposite as true reflects a broader shift in how workers perceive job security.

Layoffs across technology, media, finance, and other white-collar sectors over the past two years have shaken the assumption that traditional employment is the safer path. The rise of what the survey calls “invisible entrepreneurs” — people running unregistered side businesses alongside their main jobs — is a defensive response. Building a second income stream is becoming a form of insurance, not a path to wealth.

What This Means for the Year Ahead

If the funding gap and the AI access gap persist, the side hustle surge will produce a wave of new businesses that look very different from the venture-backed startups dominating headlines. They will be smaller, slower-growing, bootstrapped from personal savings, and built without outside investment. Many will stay invisible by choice, never formalizing into LLCs or hiring employees.

This is not a failure mode. It is a different kind of entrepreneurship that the economy has historically undervalued. Microbusinesses generate income, build skills, and create resilience without showing up in venture capital reports or unicorn lists. The data suggests millions of Americans are choosing this path deliberately in 2026.

The aspiring founders entering this market do not need to be told that AI will democratize their work or that funding is flowing into early-stage companies. They need access to small-dollar capital, basic financial guidance, and tools priced for the budget level they actually operate at. Whether that infrastructure shows up to meet them will determine how many of the 33 percent who plan to start a business this year are still running one in 2027.

For now, the funding boom and the founder boom continue in parallel, with very little overlap between them.

Company Awards to Apply For for Greater Visibility

NY Weekly Staff on May 26, 2026

Keyword: company awards to apply for

Knowing which company awards to apply for helps position businesses within a larger conversation about leadership, innovation, customer experience, and long-term excellence. In 2026, as the next award cycle begins, companies across industries are becoming more intentional about where they apply and why.

However, not every business awards program carries the same influence. Strong programs are usually those with clear categories, transparent evaluation standards, and recognition that can support broader visibility through partnerships, press, and industry awareness.

A business award can affect how a company is perceived, especially when the recognition comes from a credible program with a defined review process. Customers notice it. Industry peers notice it. Employees may notice it as well.

For small businesses trying to stand out in competitive markets, that visibility can matter.

Why Knowing Which Company Awards to Apply for Matters

Recognition can shape perception. A company listed among annual honorees or announced as a winner in a respected category may gain credibility with customers, potential employees, collaborators, and partners looking for signs of stability and leadership.

Awards can also create internal momentum. Teams often want to feel their work is seen. A workplace recognized for employee well-being, customer service, or community contribution may strengthen morale because the acknowledgment feels external and earned.

For entrepreneurs and business owners, this type of visibility can support business growth in practical ways. Recognition may lead to speaking opportunities, increased engagement on social media, stronger digital marketing performance, or inclusion in industry roundups and print features. It may also help a company stand apart from competitors offering similar products or services.

What Makes a Business Awards Program Worth Applying For

Not all award categories are created equal. Strong programs are clear about what they recognize and how they evaluate entries. A respected awards program usually has a structured process, a defined deadline, and a judging panel made up of experts or industry leaders.

Programs tied to established organizations, respected media outlets, or long-running recognition platforms tend to carry more influence. Recognition through programs like these often extends beyond the ceremony itself and into broader industry awareness.

Awards programs also change as the market changes. Categories related to digital innovation, customer experience, sustainable practices, creativity, workplace culture, and tech leadership continue to receive attention. Companies that show adaptability and measurable impact may stand out in those categories.

Choosing the Right Category Matters

One common mistake applicants make is entering the wrong category. A company may have strong results, but if the entry does not align with the intent of the award categories, judges may struggle to see the fit.

Effective submissions are selective. For instance, a for-profit business with strong community involvement might focus on categories tied to positive impact or leadership. Similarly, a company focused on digital marketing or customer engagement might apply for awards related to innovation or creativity.

Businesses with notable products or strong customer service should highlight those strengths directly, especially small businesses and entrepreneurs competing against larger enterprise-level companies. Judges often evaluate based on context and scale, so selecting the right category creates a more balanced comparison.

What Judges Actually Look For

Awards are rarely won through vague claims. Judges usually want specifics. They want measurable growth, a clear strategy, and evidence that the company can execute its vision.

Strong entries often include customer retention data, workplace initiatives, partnership outcomes, or examples of how the business fostered long-term community relationships. If a company can demonstrate a thoughtful customer experience or meaningful employee engagement, that can strengthen the submission.

Storytelling matters too. A dry entry filled only with numbers is easy to overlook. Strong applicants combine measurable outcomes with narrative clarity by explaining the challenge, the response, and the result in a way that feels grounded and authentic.

Visibility Beyond the Award Itself

Winning is not the only valuable outcome. Finalists and honorees often gain visibility simply by participating. Many programs announce shortlists publicly, feature profiles online, or include participants in gala events, newsletters, or media campaigns.

That exposure can extend beyond the award announcement. A company recognized in a respected annual awards program may earn attention from customers who were previously unfamiliar with the brand. It may also attract industry partnerships or lead to additional opportunities through networking and awareness.

For businesses with decades of experience or newer startups trying to build visibility in crowded markets, this recognition can help position the company as credible and established. Recognition can act as social proof, especially when tied to recognizable programs or respected judges.

Preparing a Stronger Entry

A successful entry usually starts long before the submission form opens. Companies that already understand their metrics, achievements, and positioning prepare early and tend to submit stronger applications by:

  • Reviewing eligibility requirements carefully: Some programs automatically place applicants into specific categories based on company size, revenue, or years in business, while others require applicants to select categories manually.
  • Keeping supporting materials organized: Testimonials, campaign results, customer feedback, and examples of leadership or innovation should be easy to access. Some companies even create an internal toolkit to help streamline future submissions.
  • Treating the entry seriously: Awards are competitive because outstanding companies across industries are applying for the same recognition. A rushed submission is easy to spot.

Recognition as Part of a Long-Term Strategy

The companies that benefit from business awards often view them as part of a larger strategy rather than a one-time accomplishment. Recognition can support visibility, strengthen brand awareness, and reinforce market position over time.

It also helps companies showcase what makes them different. Whether that is resilience during change, commitment to sustainable growth, notable products, or a workplace culture that values employees, awards provide a platform to publicly share those strengths in a crowded market where visibility matters.

The company awards to apply for should align with a business’s goals, category fit, and credibility needs. When chosen carefully, awards can help businesses demonstrate excellence, celebrate achievement, and create recognition that lasts beyond a single event or headline.

That is why companies continue to enter them year after year: to compete, to be seen, and to earn recognition through programs that fit their work.

Record Memorial Day Travel Signals Strong but Plateauing Summer 2026 Travel Season for New Yorkers

NY Weekly Staff 2 on May 26, 2026

A record 45 million Americans traveled at least 50 miles from home over Memorial Day weekend, setting the stage for a summer travel season shaped by tighter airline capacity, elevated fuel prices, and consumer spending patterns that suggest demand has reached a ceiling rather than a peak.

The American Automobile Association projected that 39.1 million people would drive, 3.66 million would fly, and 2.2 million would take buses, trains, or cruises between May 21 and May 25. The overall total edged past the 2025 figure by less than one percent, a notable shift after several years of post-pandemic growth that consistently posted larger annual gains.

A Plateau, Not a Peak

The marginal year-over-year increase is what travel analysts will be watching closely through the summer. Demand remains historically strong, but the rate of expansion has slowed to a near-flat trajectory. Stacey Barber, vice president of AAA Travel, framed it as continued prioritization of leisure travel even as costs climb, telling reporters that travel demand remains strong and that travelers are continuing to spend on holiday breaks despite higher fuel prices.

For New York residents and businesses tied to the travel economy, the message is mixed. The volume of summer travelers will likely match or slightly exceed last year, but the easy growth that hospitality, airlines, and roadside commerce relied on in 2023 and 2024 appears to have run its course.

Spirit Airlines Shutdown Reshapes the Air Travel Landscape

Record Memorial Day Travel Signals Strong but Plateauing Summer 2026 Travel Season for New Yorkers (2)

Photo Credit: Unsplash.com

The Memorial Day record arrived less than three weeks after Spirit Airlines ceased all operations on May 2, 2026, ending a 34-year run that included a significant presence at LaGuardia Airport’s Marine Air Terminal. The shutdown grounded the carrier’s bright yellow fleet overnight, stranded thousands of passengers, and eliminated roughly 17,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Spirit’s departure has structural implications for New York travelers heading into the busiest months of the year. The carrier was a primary source of ultra-low-cost fares out of the metro area, and its exit reduces price competition on routes to Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, and the Caribbean. Industry analysts have indicated that fares are expected to face upward pressure throughout the rest of 2026 as remaining carriers absorb displaced demand without immediately adding capacity.

The U.S. Department of Justice noted in 2023, while opposing Spirit’s proposed merger with JetBlue, that the airline played a disruptive role in opening travel to customers who would otherwise be priced out of the market. That disruptive function is now gone, and replacement service from JetBlue, Frontier, and the major legacy carriers will not match Spirit’s pricing model.

For travelers booking summer trips out of JFK and LaGuardia, this translates to fewer budget seats and likely higher average fares than the early-booking discounts that some Memorial Day flyers managed to secure.

Gas Prices and the Road Trip Calculation

Drivers made up 87 percent of Memorial Day travelers, a dominance that will continue through the summer months. Pump prices over the weekend reached their highest level since summer 2022, well above the $3.17 national average recorded on Memorial Day 2025.

Higher fuel costs change the math for the cost-conscious traveler. Road trips remain cheaper than flying for most family configurations, but the gap is narrower than it was a year ago. New York drivers typically pay above the national average for gasoline, which means longer trips upstate, to New England, or to the Mid-Atlantic carry a heavier fuel bill than in recent summers.

The Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee suspended construction-related lane closures on state highways through the holiday weekend under the Drivers First Initiative, a policy that will likely be repeated for Independence Day and Labor Day weekends. Drivers should plan around similar suspensions and the associated traffic patterns for the rest of the summer holiday calendar.

What to Watch for the Rest of the Summer

Several factors will determine whether the summer 2026 travel season matches Memorial Day’s record-setting tone or falls below it.

Independence Day falls on a Saturday this year, which historically extends travel volume across a longer window as travelers stretch the holiday into a four- or five-day break. Labor Day weekend, the traditional close of the summer travel season, will offer the clearest signal of whether the plateau holds or breaks.

Airfare trends in June and July will reveal the full impact of the Spirit shutdown. Early forecasts from industry analysts suggest fares will run higher than 2025 for last-minute bookings, with the steepest increases on routes Spirit dominated.

Gas prices remain the most volatile variable. Crude oil markets have been sensitive to geopolitical developments, and any disruption during the summer driving season could push pump prices higher than the levels already seen over Memorial Day.

For New York’s hospitality sector, attractions, and small businesses tied to summer tourism, the Memorial Day data points to a season of stable but unspectacular demand. Operators that built their 2026 budgets on the growth rates of the past two years may need to recalibrate. Those that priced for steady volume will likely find the summer aligned with expectations, even if the headlines about record-breaking travel quietly give way to a story about a market that has finally found its level.

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