Reimagining Main Street

Early in the pandemic, people stuck at home wanted to prepare fresh food, and Jennifer Piette's SBDC advisor helped her rapidly scale her business delivering local produce. But when demand plummeted after the lockdown, the SBDC was there to help again, this time with accessing Covid relief and pivoting to B2B. Now that work-from-home has become the new normal, Narrative Food's founder is helping her corporate customers nurture relationships with their clients and employees remotely. Businesses can order boxes of food curated to communicate a brand message. Along the way, her SBDC advisors have helped with challenges as varied as navigating interstate liquor sales regulations and getting certified as a woman-owned business.

Victor Reyes has been successfully running a restaurant for six years and wanted to buy an additional restaurant. Centro SBDC helped him apply for funding, form an entity, and get his business listed on Google and take-out platforms like GrubHub and UberEats. He hired six employees, and his local chamber of commerce hosted a grand opening for him in June. The business grossed $25K in its first month, and he plans to hire at least four more people.

BUSINESSES PARTICIPATED IN NEW INTENSIVE/COHORT-STYLE (INDUSTRY SPECIFIC) TRAINING, COMPLETING 8-HOURS OF CURRICULUM, RESULTING IN 91 BUSINESS STARTS

Matthew Jané took his experience as an engineer at Disney Imagineering and SpaceX to invent the Skuttlebot. It's a robotic personal assistant that uses AI to develop a custom “personality” over time based on interaction with its owner. His 100K organic social media followers are enthusiastic about the robot, and he's launched a crowdfunding campaign. Jané says: “My SBDC advisor helped me translate my technical description of my invention into everyday language for my elevator pitch.”

Valley Salt Cave is a holistic health and wellness center. Owners Warren and Kari Shulman were faced with a dilemma. They had been rejected for an EIDL because they had started their business so recently. But private loans were inaccessible because they had spent down their savings before applying. With the SBDC's help, they won an EIDL reconsideration and increase in 2022. Their advisor also referred them to several private funders, and the Shulmans successfully accessed additional capital.

Centro SBDC advisor Claudia Shah has a regular program on a local Spanish-language radio station. In December 2021, Shah reminded her listeners to apply for the EIDL before the upcoming deadline. Among her listeners were Gonzalo Ambrosio and Jessica Delgado. Based in North Hollywood, their company, Frutifresca, produces ice cream products for the Latino market. They followed up with Shah, who explained how to apply for the funds and directed the co-owners to Spanish how-to videos that Centro SBDC had produced. Ambrosio reported to their advisor that “gracias a tu ayuda” [“thanks to your help” ] Frutifresca was awarded a loan of half a million dollars.

Veteran Rick Little and Laura Guerrero founded Top Line Automotive in 2006. They first contacted the SBDC in 2012 for help strengthening their marketing and business processes. Over the years, the SBDC guided them on improving their bookkeeping and starting a website. Because the owners already had a relationship with the SBDC in 2020, their advisor briefed them on available funding within days of the Covid closures. They received first- and second-draw PPP loans. The SBDC is now working with Little and Guerrero on a strategy for transitioning their family business to the next generation.

Black business owners face disparities in access to capital and other basic resources. The Los Angeles SBDC created the Black Business Strategies (BBS) series to address these needs. The program includes a series of workshops and one-on-one advising, and opportunities to access funding. Training includes topics ranging from cash-flow analysis and understanding business financials to sales for the non-salesperson and social media strategies.