Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses

What the program actually is

If you just went "well, that's not me," don't close the tab. Knowing what the best free business program in the country requires tells you what a fundable, scalable business looks like from the outside: two years of survival, real revenue, at least one person on payroll besides you. That's a target worth having on the wall. This article (part of our resources directory) covers what the program is, what it costs (nothing, genuinely), what it demands (a lot), what changed for Chicago, and what to do with the two years between here and eligible.

And if you did answer four yeses: this may be the highest-value free thing available to you as an owner, and the application takes real preparation.

10,000 Small Businesses is a business education program. "100% funded by the Goldman Sachs Foundation – $0 cost to participants" is the exact language on the program's site. No tuition and no materials fee. No "free for the first module." The curriculum was designed by Babson College, which the program calls the nation's top-ranked school for entrepreneurship, and delivery runs through partnerships with community colleges, business schools, and nonprofits, per the About Us page. Two other names matter: ICIC (the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City) runs outreach and selection, and Goldman Sachs itself hosts the national program page.

Why does an investment bank give away business school? Some mix of philanthropy, reputation, and institutional belief that small businesses drive job growth. Whatever the motive, the trade for you is clean: they pay, you show up. There is no product upsold at the end, which alone separates it from most "free" business education, which is usually a funnel for coaching packages.

What you get, concretely: a structured curriculum over roughly three months, one-on-one time with business advisors, a cohort of owners at your stage, and the deliverable itself, a customized growth plan for your business that you build as you go. Per the program's Education page, 96% of participants complete it. That cuts both ways: almost everyone finishes, and the program clearly expects you to.

The eligibility bar, exactly

As of this writing, the eligibility quiz screens on four criteria:

• Owner or co-owner of the business. Not a manager, not an employee with ambitions. An owner.

• Operating at least two years. Not "registered two years ago." Operating.

• Revenue of $75,000 or more in one of the past two fiscal years. Note the phrasing: one of the past two. If you had an $80K year followed by a rough $60K year, the quiz still says yes. (The program's FAQ page phrases it as revenues over $75,000 "in the most recent fiscal year" and says applicants "generally meet" the criteria. If you're borderline, take the two-minute quiz on the official site, because that's the screen that actually routes your application.)

• At least two employees, including yourself. A true solo operation doesn't qualify, no matter the revenue.

Two wrinkles from the official FAQ: nonprofits can apply if some part of the organization generates revenue (board-governed nonprofits are asked for a board letter of support), and previous applicants can reapply through the same application link.

Why the bar exists is worth a moment. A $75K-revenue, three-person business has different questions than a brand-new one. Not "how do I get customers" but "how do I hire without breaking payroll, and what do I do when growth outruns my cash." The curriculum is aimed there. Put a first-year founder in that room and both the founder and the room get less out of it.

What happened to the Chicago classroom

Older write-ups will tell you Chicago's cohorts met in person at Harold Washington College downtown. City Colleges' own page still describes HWC as the program's Chicago home. That era is over: City Colleges announced in August 2024 that the Harold Washington program was sunsetting after more than a decade.

So what does a Chicago owner apply to now? We checked directly rather than guessing: enter a Pilsen zip code into the location lookup on the program details page and what comes back is the National Cohort, the online version of the program. The program's own count backs this up: the Education page lists "19 Program Locations (18 Local + 1 National)," and Chicago is no longer one of the eighteen.

That's less of a downgrade than it sounds. Per the official FAQ, "there is no difference in content between the National Cohort and one of our local programs." The National Cohort runs as ten weeks of online learning followed by a final four-day in-person session in New York, and, quoting the FAQ, "food, travel, and lodging will be paid for by the program." You lose the weekly Chicago classroom. You gain classmates from across the country and a paid trip to close it out.

The time commitment, honestly

The card on our resources page says this program "demands real commitment over several months," and here are the numbers behind that. The Education page describes it as 12 weeks of intensive learning with 10 hours per week of in-class instruction. In-class. That's before homework, before working on your growth plan, before the reading. Budget more like 12–15 hours a week of total attention for three months, on top of running the business that made you eligible in the first place.

Be honest with yourself about capacity. Ten-plus hours a week for twelve weeks is a part-time job, and owners who get the most out of the program treat it like one: delegate before it starts, warn customers things may run a beat slower, protect the class hours like revenue. The 96% completion rate says people manage it, by planning for it rather than absorbing it into an already-full week. If this season of your business can't spare ten hours a week, that's not failure. That's information. The application explicitly lets you target a future cohort.

How the application works

Applications are open year-round, per the FAQ, and the mechanics look like this:

1. Apply roughly three months before your cohort starts. As of this writing, the program details page shows the next National Cohort applications due by October 2026 for the February–May 2027 session, with another window (apply by May 2027) for September–December 2027. Dates change; check the page. 2. Written application. Expect essay-style questions with 500-word limits (the FAQ troubleshoots its own word-counting bug: avoid special characters like # and $ in your answers, seriously). 3. If you meet the minimum criteria, you'll be invited to interview and asked for additional business documents. That's the FAQ's own phrasing: meeting the bar earns you a conversation, not a lottery ticket. 4. Documents mean real documents. The program wants profit-and-loss statements with a full list of income and expenses, and the FAQ says outright that the P&L on your federal tax return is not sufficient. Most applicants pull these from QuickBooks; if you can't produce a P&L today, that's the first gap to close, program or no program. 5. Decision within 6–8 weeks of submitting.

How competitive is it? Goldman Sachs doesn't publish an acceptance rate, so we won't invent one. What the official pages do say is who they're looking for: "applicants who are poised to grow and create jobs in their communities." That's the grading rubric. A strong application is a credible story about growth you intend and jobs it would create, not a polished essay. If your honest plan is "stay comfortable at current size," this program isn't aimed at you, and the application will feel like it.

What you learn, and the growth plan you leave with

The curriculum (all on the Education page) covers seven areas: Vision & Strategy, Money & Metrics, Leadership & Results, Management & Hiring, Marketing & Sales, Operations & Technology, and Planning & Forecasting. Alongside those run four practical clinics: Financial Statements, Negotiations, Legal Considerations, and one called "You are the Lender," where you review small-business loan applications to see the red flags a lender sees. If you've ever wondered why your loan application went nowhere, an afternoon on the lender's side of the desk is the cure.

The through-line is the deliverable: by the end you've built what the program calls a customized growth plan. Not a certificate. A written plan for your company: where the growth comes from, what it costs, who you hire, how it's financed, pressure-tested by advisors and classmates as you build it. Most business programs send you home with notes. This one is structured so you leave with a document you can hand to a banker or work through quarter by quarter.

A note from Lobi Space management

That growth plan deserves a minute, because it lines up with something we say constantly. Over twenty-plus years in business, Lobi Space management has sat through a lot of business education, from free SCORE Chicago seminars to hundreds of meetings with mentors, and the lesson never changes: the class only pays off if there's a road map for it to attach to. You can be overwhelmed by all of it without a strategy, a goal, and a plan. A program built so you leave holding a written plan for your own company has its priorities in the right order.

The other thing we'd tell a young owner: don't apply just because someone in your network raved about their cohort. People trade recommendations and jump right in on them. But not every business is designed to be the same. Apply because, two years in, you know your business well enough to want a real plan for the next two.

The cohort is the other half of the product

Our card copy says the cohort is worth it alone, and the program's own numbers explain why we say that. Per the program details page, the alumni network is 17,000+ graduates across all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, collectively employing 347,000+ people with $29.3B+ in revenue. Per the About Us page, 84% of alumni collaborate with other alumni and 65% mentor other businesses.

Discount those numbers however you like. They're the program's own. The structural point still stands: twelve weeks of working sessions with owners at your stage produces relationships you cannot buy. Peers who will read your growth plan and tell you which page is fantasy. Owners who've already survived the hire you're scared to make. The curriculum ends in twelve weeks. The group chat doesn't.

The program's own numbers, read like an owner

The outcome statistics, clearly attributed: these are Goldman Sachs' own published figures on the program's site. Revenue: 66% of alumni report increased revenue within 6 months of graduating, 70% within 18, 74% within 30. Jobs: 43% report creating jobs within 6 months, 50% within 18, 53% within 30.

Read them the way you'd read any vendor's numbers. These describe businesses that were selected: already two years old, already at $75K+, already employing people, then hand-picked for growth orientation. Some of that growth was coming anyway; the program doesn't claim otherwise, and neither should you. What the numbers do tell you: if you get in, you're joining a population with good odds. Partly the education, partly that getting selected means you already looked like the kind of business that grows.

Apply now, or bookmark for later?

Apply now if: all four eligibility answers are yes; you can actually protect 10+ hours a week for twelve weeks; you have (or can build) real P&L statements; and you have a growth story you believe, a specific expansion that would create jobs, not a vague desire to be bigger. Applications are open year-round and can target a future cohort, so "now" can mean "apply this month for next year's start."

Bookmark for later if: you're under two years, under $75K, or solo. No shame in any of those. Every business in that 17,000-graduate network was once all three. Treat the quiz as your two-year roadmap: survive to year two, build to $75K, get a second person on payroll. Those milestones are worth pursuing whether or not you ever apply.

While you grow: free help you qualify for today

The gap between "just started" and "10KSB-eligible" is exactly the gap other free programs exist to fill, and unlike this one, they'll take you now.

• SCORE Chicago pairs you with a volunteer mentor, often a retired owner or executive, free, one-on-one, as early as the idea stage. The closest free substitute for 10KSB's advisor relationship.

• Illinois SBDC offers no-cost advising statewide, including help with exactly what 10KSB's application will someday demand: financial statements, business plans, loan readiness.

• The rest of our resources directory covers the tool and service decisions along the way.

One more thing that belongs in the "grow toward eligible" bucket: looking like a real business while you get there. Lenders, program applications, and bigger customers all read the surface signals: a business address that isn't your apartment, a Google Business Profile that checks out, mail that reaches you reliably. That legitimacy layer is what a virtual office is for; current plans are on our pricing page. It won't make you eligible for 10KSB, only revenue and hiring do that, but it's the same project: building a business that outside institutions take seriously.

The short version

Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses is free business education with no catch we could find: funded by the Goldman Sachs Foundation, curriculum by Babson College, $0 to participants. The bar to enter: owner or co-owner, two years operating, $75K+ revenue in one of the past two fiscal years, two employees including you. The cost is time: 12 weeks at 10+ hours a week. Chicago's in-person classroom at Harold Washington College ended in 2024. Chicago owners now join the National Cohort, ten weeks online plus a paid four-day finale in New York. You leave with a written growth plan and a 17,000-owner alumni network. If you qualify, it's hard to name a better use of a free application. If you don't yet, SCORE Chicago and the Illinois SBDC (both linked above) will take you today, and the eligibility quiz doubles as your roadmap.

Either way, keep the order of operations we keep coming back to. Programs, workshops, mentors, software: all great. But without a goal, a plan, and a road map of your own, you're chasing a dream and shooting in the dark. The best thing about this program is that its entire curriculum is aimed at putting that road map in your hands, in writing.

About this write-up: our team did the research, we used AI technology to help organize what needed to be covered, and every opinion and piece of advice in it comes from us directly.

Blunt questions, straight answers

Is it really free, or does "free" hide something? Really free. "100% funded by the Goldman Sachs Foundation – $0 cost to participants" is the program's own language, and for the National Cohort even the New York trip is covered. No paid tier, nothing sold at the end. What it costs is time: call it 120+ hours across three months. That's the entire price, and it's not small.

My revenue is too small. What do I do instead? Get free help that takes beginners: SCORE Chicago for a mentor, the Illinois SBDC for advising and loan-readiness help, both covered in the section above. Then treat 10KSB's quiz as your roadmap: two years operating, $75K revenue, a second employee. Apply when you clear it.

I'm solo. Does my part-time helper or a 1099 contractor count as my second employee? The quiz asks for "at least two employees, including yourself," and the official pages don't define whether part-timers or contractors count. Don't guess on an application. Ask the selection team directly through the contact form on the support page or at 10ksb@icic.org before you apply.

Do I really have to go to New York? For the National Cohort, which is what Chicago owners are routed to, the program culminates in a four-day in-person session in New York, with food, travel, and lodging paid. The official pages describe it as part of the program, not an optional add-on, so plan for four days away from the business.

Can I do this with a full-time day job? The math is rough: 10 hours a week of instruction plus homework, on top of a job, on top of the business. And notice what eligibility implies: two years operating, $75K+, employees. Most owners at that stage are the business full-time. If you're still split between a day job and the business, you're probably earlier than this program's target anyway. That's a bookmark-for-later signal, not a character flaw.

What are my honest odds of getting in? No acceptance rate is published, so anyone quoting one is guessing. What the official FAQ does say: meet the minimum criteria and you'll be invited to interview. Past that, selection favors what the program says it looks for, owners "poised to grow and create jobs." Clean P&L statements and a specific, believable growth story are the strongest levers you control.

I applied and got rejected. Is that final? No. The FAQ says previous applicants can reapply through the same link. A year of revenue growth, a new hire, or cleaner financials makes you a different applicant. Businesses change fast at this stage, which is the program's whole premise.

Why it made our list

• The cohort of owners at your stage is worth the price on its own; most members keep the relationships long after the program ends.
• You leave with a written, defensible growth plan rather than a folder of notes you never open again.
• It asks for a real commitment over several months, and that is exactly why the outcomes hold up.