LOS ANGELES – The Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program (API SBP) and Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA) welcomed three different small businesses, all recent graduates of its entrepreneurship training program, as top winners of the Citi Business Plan Competition being presented at the Asian Small Business Expo in Alhambra on Saturday, Sept. 20.
Sponsored by US Bank and over a dozen other bank trusts and media sponsors, the 15th annual Asian Small Business Expo takes at the Almansor Court Conference Center in Alhambra. Featuring a panel of speakers, free counseling and workshops, and over 30 different vendors for networking, the Expo is designed to help current and future entrepreneurs get their businesses on the right foot.
The one-day event stresses the importance of networking and making connections to create a working, collective relationship that can help small businesses thrive.
For the Citi competition, 10 entries were selected from among the five different organizations that make up API SBP, a collaborative of various Asian-American groups like SIPA that assist the development of businesses, communities, and new immigrants.
“It’s great to see that several of these [winning businesses] are participants of SIPA’s workshops/individual counseling,” said Anna Marie Cruz, a small business specialist at SIPA. The LA-based non-profit offers free counseling, workshops and panels that help small businesses that are just starting out.
The top three winners include an up-and-coming artisan coffee shop, a boutique bar in Historic Filipinotown, and a downtown Los Angeles dog-walking service. The owners are all females who, with the sound help of API SBP and SIPA, turned their dreams of managing a business into reality.
“All for the dogs”
Fil-Am Irene Sucio Soriano had the idea for the DTLA Small Dogs Club (DSDC) after volunteering in the dog rescue community for over seven years. “My personal dream has always been to work in downtown LA and be around dogs all the time in a fun and active context,” she said.
DSDC is a “premier dog walking service created for the Pampered Downtown Dog,” which guarantees a one-to-one dog walking ratio, personalized care and attention with a “concierge” trained and certified dog-walker, a wireless GPS app for clients to track their pets, an option to create your own walking route, and many other unique premier services that cater to both the owner’s and dog’s need.
“The idea for DSDC came from my desire to find a way to marry this passion for dogs and creating a sustainable business that would target and provide services for the existing and rapidly increasing influx of upscale residents coming into downtown LA’s current development boom,” Soriano shared.
The service is still in its beginning stages, but Soriano has already put in a lot of work to get the business going; including researching the pet services market, finding a good legal and accounting team, doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis as well as figuring out a budget, and investigating how to raise capital to get DSDC off the ground.
“One thing I’ve discovered is the pleasure in meeting interested investors who can see the growth potential for an exciting business like DSDC,” Soriano said.
Her role model is her father, Jun Soriano, who was also an entrepreneur involved with business partnerships in the Manila corporate world. “He instilled in me the idea that owning your own business is really the key to financial independence and increased job satisfaction,” she said. Soriano quit her day job earlier this year and got involved with SIPA’s small business workshops. The program, she said, helped move her past the “thinking” stage and pushed her towards the “realization” stage.
“[My counselor] Anna Marie Cruz became my personal cheerleader, and the workshops that she arranged for participants helped me crystallize my business idea for a dog-walking service into something concrete and obtainable,” Soriano added.
Soriano and the DSDC placed third in the overall small business plan competition, an achievement for which she is forever grateful. The cash prize, she says, will go towards a fundraising plan to raise capital “all for the dogs.”
Not just for coffee, but for community
Born-and-raised Angeleno Annie Choi has always loved telling stories. As someone working in Hollywood, she loved to share her own voice through the stories of others on TV shows. For a little over a year, she edited videos and episodes until past two in the morning, but she knew that she was lonely and unhappy with her career. What she really wanted to, she soon realized, was make coffee.
“Even while I was working in the entertainment industry, I always wanted to open a coffee shop in Los Angeles,” she said. “A coffee shop is a place filled with stories: the baristas’ and customers’ personal life stories, the spirit of the neighborhood the coffee shop is located in, and even down the coffee’s journey into the customer’s hands itself. And in the lonely place that Los Angeles can sometimes be, stories amongst community are essential. LA is such a big place now. The local coffee shop—the local watering hole—is where people find connections and create community.”
Choi, the daughter of Korean small business owners, inherited her parents’ entrepreneurial spirit and after being fed up with her stressful job decided to start up a business of her own. She had worked at a Little Tokyo coffee chain, Demitasse, and moved her way up from intern to barista to store manager in just 4 months.
“It was my boot camp,” she laughed. “Since I didn’t go to school for business or anything, it was like my grad school. It gave me real-life experience of running a shop.”
Found Coffee, Choi’s artisan coffee enterprise based in Eagle Rock, CA, was inspired by her vision for a comfortable, vintage antique-style store where people can “find” both coffee and community.
“I’ve left the entertainment industry and am finding myself in coffee, and am really enjoying it too,” she said.
Last year she was connected by a friend to the entrepreneurship training program (ETP) through SIPA and API SBP, and took the 6-8 week program which connected her to a counselor, Anna Marie Cruz, who aided Choi in learning the ropes, the logistics, and the formalities of operating a small business.
“She [Cruz] has been really instrumental in coaching me and helping me get started,” Choi said.
She also met Ron Fong, director of the API Small Business Program, who assisted her with her first loan. She was able to fundraise on Kiva Zip, a crowdfunding website for micro-entrepreneurs, and raised $5,000 in a record 16 hours through her social media marketing campaign, which she believes is essential for business.
“I was really fortunate because API SBP gave me the loan, and it really helped me to get the word out and propel forward my business,” Choi said. With the money, she was able to purchase essential coffee shop equipment; two Espresso grinders and an under-the-counter refrigerator. Once she found her location with a need for “specialty” artisan coffee, Choi signed a lease and soon she was ready to go.
Found Coffee won second place and a $500 cash prize in the small business competition at the Expo, which will go to more equipment and publicity opportunities.
The ETP program is similar to taking a three-month business course at a community college, providing useful resources and strategies. It connected Choi to not only future business partners and customers, but also gave her an important connection with the Asian-American small business community.
“I’m seeing so many more Asian American restaurant owners, which is becoming a trend, and people up and changing careers—that camaraderie of people who understand and know what you are going through is kind of nice,” she admitted. “Opening up a restaurant or coffee shop kind of business is pretty tough in a place like LA, but to bounce ideas off of each other and have that support is really important.”
Promoting cultural heritage and investing in themselves
Red Capiz Partners, Inc. (“RCP”) was formed by three Filipina young women who were friends in college at UCLA and got the idea to open a boutique bar in the Historic Filipinotown area of Los Angeles. Roselma Samala, Christine “Tinette” Sumiller, and Patricia “Trisha” Perez all came up with the idea after realizing they each wanted to break away from the typical 9-to-5 job and had a common appreciation for food, drink, music, and creative fun.
“We wanted to capitalize and re-invent the speakeasy trend and vintage-inspired cocktails, as well as promote our cultural heritage as Filipinos by infusing these cultural elements into the food, drinks, services, and ambience,” said Perez. “We are a work in progress, still starting up our business.”
So far, they have secured a location in the Rampart Village neighborhood, and working with API SBP has guided them with funding options and appropriate timelines.
“API SBP has been a solid creative collaborator,” Perez said. “The process has already been a valuable learning experience, especially for some of us who have never opened a restaurant or bar business. For example, finding a space that would help us make our dreams come true was tough to find and even longer to negotiate. Our supports also brought us out of our comfort zones, because it pushes us to take the risk to invest in ourselves as Filipino women entrepreneurs.”
As partners, RCP prepared for the Citi business plan competition and Expo, granting them an opportunity to refine and strengthen their business plan and open up further support from the community. They placed first and earned a cash prize of $1,000.
“The more we immerse in the execution of this vision, the more we see and know that pursuing your dreams is not chasing pavements. It is tangible and real.”
Find community and discover your passion
All three winners of the competition will accept their awards and cash prizes on Saturday at the Expo, and will be recognized for their success and achievements. They each have advice for other small business owners and future entrepreneurs, whom they encourage to connect to the community with resources like SIPA and the API Small Business Program, and to attend workshops and events like the Small Business Expo, which can become important avenues of communal support.
“There are wonderful and helpful resources in our communities available to us; make use of it!” Soriano encourages. “With the help of organizations like SIPA, API SBP and Citi, you can make your business ownership dreams come true. Take that first step and then the next; start that business you’ve always wanted and only ‘thought’ about!”
First-place winner RCP also advise to business owners: “Be vocal, be fearless, and be able to speak outwardly about the business and all its tenets—to your partners, your investors, and anyone who will uplift you in achieving your goals. Also make time, follow up consistently and follow through thoughtfully…a little goes a long way.”
Found Coffee’s Annie Choi believes the most important thing in pursuing your goals is to have passion.
“As Asian Americans, we are told to follow one career path and to succeed. If you are not passionate about where you’re at, and your career path is not congruent with who you are, just take the leap. Yes, it’s scary in this economy, but you have to take if you want to better your life.”
