Maestro Entrepreneur Center (MEC)

Our solution is a B2B, B2C, B2A Platform that serves as direct resources for small businesses in the community to encourage buying local and supporting local businesses.Our solution tracks local business utilization, job growth, business challenges, and capacity building needed from the local business community and develops an ongoing engagement strategy to cultivate and grow local businesses.Our solution utilizes a centralized website where businesses register and have access to promote their business, have access to a community calendar, can register for upcoming vendor markets, and have access to resources like health insurance,and procurement opportunities to grow their business.Additionally, they can post jobs, volunteers, and real estate buy/sell opportunities.We have focused our solution to incorporate a human-centered design by allowing features for human interaction such as:messaging capabilities between businesses, fostering real time connections between people in business through the platform,and promotion capabilities and free advertisement to incentivize buying locally.

Championed by the Mayor of San Antonio and County Judge,Buy Local-Grow SA has the support of local chambers such as North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, West San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and more.We are proud of the collaboration and partnerships we have made with local agencies to ensure that entrepreneurs all over the city take advantage of this free platform.With Buy Local-GrowSA, businesses are discoverable to not only consumers with their free business listing,but they are also discoverable among a community of entrepreneurs looking to work with local San Antonians.

Local utilization and local dollars tend to leave our community by the outsourcing of services to the lowest bidders outside of our area. Our community needs more local support and more local dollars to stay within our community. Maestro Entrepreneur Center seeks to eliminate these missed opportunities by building a stronger local economy in by organizing the entire buying power in the community to come together and take responsibility for our collective well-being. More than 80% of employers in the San Antonio Community are small businesses, meaning that the support goes a long way and directly impacts local economy. Because of COVID-19, almost 30% of small businesses have closed forever in our community. We need to stop this decline of small business in our city. The City of San Antonio Economic Development Department has highlighted that Black and Latino businesses are disproportionately impacted by these current trends. Business Development Organizations struggle to reach and assist small businesses, while small businesses are unable to access assistance due to a lack of record keeping, technical knowledge or support. While impact varies by industry, it is difficult to measure–data lags. We need to build more resilient, strong businesses and support them through recovery. Many agencies both public and private have increased their percentage goal of investing their procurement dollars into Minority owned businesses. Now is the opportunity to connect the businesses we serve with agencies and provide a platform that's user friendly and connects businesses to many opportunities for growth and financial security.

Our Problem and Solution aligns beautifully with this challenge! We have identified an innovative solution that provides support to grow, develop, and sustain racially diverse and/or women-led small businesses in San Antonio! The city of San Antonio is currently conducting a disparity study to examine its Small Business Economic Development Advocacy Program for disadvantaged, minority- and women-owned businesses. The City is conducting this research to ensure that M/WBEs have equal access to contracting opportunities and that its current program remains legally defensible and administratively successful. Maestro Entrepreneur Center is participating actively in the conduction of the study because we have seen from our stakeholders the huge disparity for our disadvantage, minority and women owned businesses we serve. The lack of trust in themselves, even their Self confidence has a huge impact in how they perform business. Our solution specifically targets the previously mentioned populations in order to bridge that gap and to be able to share all resources available amongst all small businesses. Contracting opportunities is a huge problem for our minority owned businesses. Buy Local, Grow SA is a platform to prepare these businesses through resources and training in order to be ready for these contracts! We also connect these businesses to the opportunities! We provide educational resources through our platform in order to support and foster growth to scale through comprehensive and relevant technical support such as, mastering cashflow, access to capital to scale, goal setting and tracking, cost pricing, procurement and others! 

MEC is located at the heart of the west side of San Antonio in a 100-year-old former elementary school. Historically, our zip code is considered the poorest zip code in our city. Since the center was created, our target population has always been minority and underserved populations. We want our business owners to thrive and to hire more and more individuals from our side of town to generate wealth within our communities. Most of the businesses we currently serve are smaller than $250,000 in revenue, are female-owned, Hispanic and Black businesses in the ages between 25-56. During the pandemic, we identified a huge gap between our targeted population and that was a language barrier. We strived to implement most of our training and education both in English and in Spanish. Our Spanish-speaking population was requesting it, and we made it a reality. We have made great effort to be able to provide our solution, the Buy Local, Grow SA program, both in English and Spanish as well. We always include our small businesses in conversations so we can truly understand their needs. Our board is mostly made up of established small business owners. We also have a programs committee in which several of the businesses we serve are a part of so we can have clearer understanding of their business’ needs and adapt our services to better assist them. Our solution is addressing their needs by 1: providing a user-friendly platform as a one stop shop for small businesses 2:providing resources in both in English &Spanish 3:providing technical support for their advancement 4:connecting our small businesses to procurement opportunities as well as connecting them to their community 5:building an ecosystem to encourage peer to peer support. 

Texas

Our mission is to serve as a steward for economic impact by providing targeted programming, resources and education to underserved small businesses.We empower entrepreneurs to expand their networks through lasting connections and generate knowledge to help their business thrive.This increases their revenue,facilitates job creation and gives them more opportunities to secure contracts and funding,ultimately leading to a healthier,more vibrant business ecosystem.

MEC aims to address economic growth for underserved businesses by making resources and networks accessible to all.We connect businesses to opportunities,train for financial growth and sustainability,and provide office space for incubation at our multi-industry business center.Our holistic approach fosters entrepreneurial collaboration and peer mentorship while providing access to education and programs led by industry experts.The result is true economic impact in the form of job creation and business acceleration.

Currently we have a total of 711 businesses registered in our platform Buy Local, GrowSA. In one year we are planning on increasing that to more than 2,000 and in 5 years we would like to see 10,000+ 

Below you can find the stakeholders(small Businesses)involved in our solution:Our categories are:Corporation at 16%,Limited Liability company at 42%,Sole Proprietorship at 33%,Non-Profits at 5%, General Partnership at 2% and our last category being In process of setting up at 2%.

On average, most business owners fall under 1-5employees category with 67%average out of 700+businesses. 

Alongside our key stakeholders which are our small business community, we work really closely with Government agencies such as The City of San Antonio and Bexar County.We also engage very closely with several CDFI's including Lift Fund and Raza Development Fund.One of our largest advocates and supported are corporations such as HEB,Wells Fargo,Woodforest National Bank,Frost Bank,PNC Bank just to name a few.We invite all of our partners and key stakeholders to have a seat at the table and its important to work alongside with them and bringing all of their perspectives into consideration. 

Maestro Entrepreneur Center is leading this effort with support from SA2020 and utilizing an advisory board made up of one person representing each of the local chambers, local trade organizations, and any local organizations supporting economic development. Each area of town is represented. SA2020 is providing support for the initiative, including: facilitation, training, data analysis, ongoing assessment, environmental scan, and development of impact report. Our solution provides our local businesses with a place to register for free and be a part of a city wide centralize database for all to use when searching local businesses, posting contract opportunities, posting capacity building programs available to help them, and create a database.  We rely on our Community, City and County Leaders to help support and lead this effort by championing this initiative of putting San Antonio’s economy First.  Encouraging all participants to commit to buying local and committing the business community to start reporting. It takes community leaders, public agencies, private sector, local government, nonprofits and individual entrepreneurs to work together to improve the quality of life in our great city.  To start telling the story of what is really happening in our business community and what we can do together to improve it.  

We have had amazing programs, have been giving out grants and free resources and we found out through door-to-door outreach that several of the business owners we interacted with did not trust what we were bringing to them.Since then we have invested extra time and resources to get to know these businesses, build a relationship with them so we can become a trusted partner and resource to them. 

Currently, we are engaging our community through door-to-door, we have a campus that's opened 24/7 to our business owners so they can feel at home.We engage our participants through our social media networks and weekly newsletters to keep them updated on what's happening at the center.We also work directly with our community partners and other BDO's(Business Development Organizations)doing similar work as us.We work closely with BDO's in the community to share all resources available amongst our populations to have a further reach. 

One of our dreams would be to implement this initiative and solution in many cities beyond San Antonio. We are currently working with the City of Pleasanton to develop a tool similar to the one we are already utilizing in San Antonio. It would be our goal to take this solution beyond our city and implement it in larger city that need the support for small businesses. It will take strong solid partnerships to make it happen so it's a goal of ours to develop those partnership in order to make it happen! 

Our leadership team is a multigenerational group of individuals who are a part of the veteran, immigrant, latinx, elder, trans, and entrepreneur communities, respectively. Our team similarly reflects the diverse community MEC serves, and they bring with them first-hand knowledge and experience that offers a unique perspective on how MEC can handle various challenges and solutions facing small business while empowering them to grow. Mariangela Zavala joined MEC in January2019 as ProgramsDirector and became the ExecutiveDirector in February2020.Under her innovative leadership, she has implemented programs and has partnered with key players in the community to provide assistance to the small businesses in San Antonio.In 2019 she Increased the number of participants attending events, reaching 3359, increased the number of businesses incubating to 142, launched the Buy Local Grow SA database in partnership with the City of San Antonio and Bexar County.Throughout Covid-19,Mariangela continued to advocate for small businesses by partnering with BexarCounty to provide 56 grants of $15,000 for small business owners.Her strategic approach is elevating Maestro’s work to make an impact in the economy. Mariangela holds two Bachelor’s degrees–in Corporate Finance,and Finance&Risk Management-and completed her MBA from St. Mary’s University in December 2017. From her upbringing in Honduras, she brings in a global perspective as a call to action at the local level.

Brian Wells-Client Management Director, Myrna Sanchez-Finance Specialist, Michael Hinojosa-Programs Coordinator, and Laeree Lepovitz-Community Engagement Coordinator, all have the necessary passion and experience to support our solution. All having backgrounds in small businesses and supporting our local community.  

We are beyond excited for the opportunity to apply to Truist Foundation Inspire Awards. We are looking forward to building a relationship with MIT Solve and the Truist Foundation. 

Since MEC was founded, we have been supported only at the local level. Now it's time to take our resources beyond the SA Community! We are devoted and dedicated to supporting as many business owners as we can. This is an amazing opportunity to meet amazing individuals from across the nation and learn from bigger organizations that are doing similar work to us. 

We are also excited for the capacity building opportunity that the finalist will have the chance to participate in! For non-profits like us we value each and every one of the resources provided to us. MEC, being an educational organization, we value capacity building, and we take any opportunity to learn possible. 

If we become one of the winners and receive financial resources that would highly impact our Buy Local GrowSA solution, and it will allow us to market it properly to reach as many underserved businesses as possible. It will also give us the opportunity to hire a full-time staff member dedicated 100% on these resources so we expand it and support more and more businesses as they come in. This will really impact the San Antonio economy by supporting local businesses and creating consciousness on how important it is to circle back our dollars into our community. 

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Human Capital (e.g. sourcing talent, board development, etc.): We need support in developing a strategic plan to better suit the everchanging needs of the community we serve. We also need support in board development, many of our board members are small business owners and advocates in the community that have never served on boards. it will be extremely helpful and beneficial to invest in further education for our board members. 

Public Relations (e.g. branding/marketing strategy, social and national media): Marketing has always been a challenge for our organization. We hear all the time "you are the best kept secret in town" We don't want to be a secret anymore. we need to be known by all so we can expand our services and serve more underserved and minority business owners. 

Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
Product / Service Distribution (e.g. expanding client base): We need a client management software to better serve our clients across multiple resources in our community. We need to keep track of referrals and data that show us the small business owner's advancement. By investing in a CRM tool we will be able to assist and support our businesses. 

We would like to partner with multinational organizations that do similar work we do. By partnering with them we will be able to learn best practices and share knowledge amongst markets. it would be extremely beneficial to learn from larger organizations that have been doing similar work for more time than us. We shouldn't be working in silos, it would be an advantage for all to collaborate and share resources to have a greater impact in the US economy as a whole.