Socialist critiques of small owner-operated businesses, and possible alternatives

I’m looking for good-faith socialist critiques of a situation I’m personally part of, and I’d appreciate theory-informed perspectives rather than moral judgments.

My partner and I operate a very small food-production business that grew gradually from a home operation through unpaid development work, financial risk, and physical labor. We now employ a small number of part-time workers who are essential to the business’s operation. We aim to provide a safe work environment and pay as competitively as we can within our constraints.

Politically, I’m critical of contemporary capitalism and broadly sympathetic to socialist analyses that view capitalism as structurally exploitative, while recognizing that our business necessarily operates within market relations.

I’m interested in three questions: 1. How does socialist theory critique small, owner-operated businesses like this? How are small proprietors who also work in their businesses understood within class analysis, particularly in relation to wage labor? 2. What practical changes at the individual business level do socialists commonly suggest to better address capitalist power relations? For example: worker ownership, cooperative structures, democratic management, or surplus sharing. How is founder labor, risk, and startup investment typically treated? 3. How are small food or craft enterprises imagined to form and function in a socialist economy? Who provides startup resources? How is non-physical labor (development, planning, coordination) valued? How are managerial decisions allocated?

I’m not asking whether individual ethical behavior can resolve systemic problems. I’m genuinely seeking to understand how socialists analyze situations like this and what alternatives are proposed in theory or practice.