The team at the Asian Business Institute & Resource Center (ABIRC) in Fresno help small business owners with resources to keep their enterprises afloat. Photo contributed by ABIRC

Business owners face countless challenges not only when first starting out, but years after that or when they’re expanding.

Fortunately for businesses in the Central Valley, there is a fabric of collaboration between various business resource organizations, chambers of commerce and companies providing an array of services to help maintain and grow businesses.

Local business resources include the Small Business Administration (SBA) branch in Fresno, SBA’s SCORE, Access + Capital, Valley Small Business Development Center, the Fresno Area Hispanic Foundation, the Tulare County Economic Development Corp. and more.

 

One-stop shop

The Valley Community Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at Clovis Community College promotes the development and growth of small businesses and entrepreneurs in Fresno, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties.

Funded by the SBA and grants from the governor’s office, SBDC provides no cost or low cost professional business consulting from industry experts in finance and marketing. It offers expert training, bootcamps and events to help entrepreneurs launch.

Rich Mostert, director of the Valley SBDC, said the business service providers in the region know each other and work well together.

“The beauty of being in the Central Valley for any entrepreneur or small business owner is that we’ve got a diverse and far reaching entrepreneurial business support ecosystem,” Mostert said.

He said people in the technical business service industry do what they do because they want to better the community and lives of the people they work with.

Collaborations with local community colleges, universities and even high schools support job training and education, providing career opportunities for students and a skilled workforce for employers.

This allows students to start their entrepreneurial journey while still in school, Mostert said. 

He added that local governments did a good job in securing CARES Act and ARPA funding, which helped create innovative and unique approaches in helping small business with grants, supporting organizations that provide funding and organizations that provide one-on-one consulting.

While there is no lack of demand for Valley SBDC’s services, the primary challenge of 2023 for service providers or lenders was an increase in interest rates, creating a difficult market to obtain capital.

Even with the challenge of higher interest rates, Valley SBDC still met and exceeded their capital infusion goals for their clients.

“It was never easy, but it certainly was a lot tougher this year,” Mostert said.

 

Got a job

Businesses in positions to expand will have to consider their growing workforce, and organizations like the Fresno Regional Workforce Development Board (FRWDB) help employers by connecting them with potential employees.

The FRWDB provides employers access to their talent bank and connections to incentives to employ them, said Marth Espinosa, marketing and grants manager at FRWDB.

The FRWDB pays local businesses to train its participants and gain work experience.

Its On-the-Job Training program subsidizes up to 50% of the wages for a specified number of hours if the participant is hired.  

This past year saw a significant increase in job placement for the FRWDB, Espinosa said.

“It’s nice that participants are able to select the best fit for them rather than just finding an employer that is offering a position. They are able to look around and compare and make the best decision for themselves,” she said.

This year the team has been busy pursuing grants to address the holistic needs of businesses and provide better support and services, including mileage reimbursement, access to paid childcare and need-based stipends.

FRWDB also provides access to information, whether it’s learning how to start a business, write a business plan, find funding sources and work with different partners to sustain a business.

 

Diverse needs

Founded in 2009, the Asian Business Institute & Resource Center (ABIRC) aims to support and promote strong networks of Asian business owners in Central California.

It originally started in 2008 as a volunteer nonprofit organization that would help Asian business owners find funding to support and sustain their businesses.

Over the years it has transformed into providing workshops and technical assistance in preparing documents, drawing funding and licensing information in the Fresno region.

Vila Xiong, deputy director at ABIRC, said they saw an increase in demand for their services in 2023, especially from the Asian farming community.

The current farm bill, the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, was set to expire this year, but in November President Biden extended it, allowing authorized programs to continue through Sept. 30, 2024.

Xiong said that has created a need for farmers in finding resources, especially after the effects of the pandemic.

“During the pandemic the whole world essentially closed down,” Xiong said. “The world has somewhat gone back to normal for these businesses, but the repercussions of the pandemic remain.”

Most Asian farmers in the region come from Southeast Asia, and many don’t speak English as their first language. The staff at ABIRC are bilingual and help clients fill the language gaps through translators.

Asian farms are typically family-owned, small operations on leased land.

Some farmers form cooperatives where each grows a certain type of crop and are then able to fulfill large orders for larger commercial buyers.

ABIRC recently assisted an entrepreneur in opening up a dance studio and a fish and taco shop.

There has recently been a trend with local Asian entrepreneurs entering the e-commerce market, with many selling homemade items and crafts on sites such as Etsy.

ABIRC will be implementing new farming programs for those seeking sustainability in the ag industry.

While different minority groups might face different challenges in business, such as Latino immigrants who face difficulty because of their immigration status, Xiong said the Asian community’s challenge is that they are not aware of local business resources.

“Our ancestors, our parents before us are familiar with agriculture. We know how to farm. But we don’t know how to run a sustainable business or what it looks like,” she said.

The team at ABIRC will go into 2024 continuing to educate the Asian community on how to be sustainable and market themselves for growth and success.