CA

In today’s digital age, it’s nearly unheard of to not have some sort of online presence, especially for businesses that frequently utilize the Internet to market to their customer base and sell their product.  And yet, a vast 52% of small businesses do not have a website.

246 hours. For eight months, Kristine de la Cruz spent one hour each day working on a business plan. After 246 hours, Crème Caramel LA was ready to sell.

Crème Caramel LA, a custard and confection dessert bakeshop in Sherman Oaks, CA, may have only taken 246 hours to conceive, but the notion of owning her own business had been with Cruz for far longer.

Some people are made to be leaders. At the tender age of 25, Ricardo Sibrian has bought into a restaurant franchise and now owns and operates it. He’s lighting his own torch, and looking to carry it forward like the true leader he is.

Sibrian’s Perkos Farm Fresh Café, located in Sacramento, CA, is an all-American diner experience. The man behind the restaurant is a millennial Hispanic entrepreneur, blazing a path toward conquering the restaurant world.

While your typical person may spot a nail salon and think of manis and pedis, Robert Pancoast and Julie Tobias-Pancoast thought of pizza.

The two spent four months planning and constructing in order to transform a derelict nail salon in Walnut Creek, CA into Pancoast Pizza, a pizzeria promising to bring a slice of the East Coast to Californians.

At 1,300 members strong and representing more than 50,000 jobs in the Central Valley region of California, the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce is a heavyweight small business champion.

Since 1920, the Bakersfield Chamber has provided leadership, business education and networking opportunities to ensure a healthy business community, said Cynthia Pollard, president and CEO of the chamber.

With more than 6.7 million young Americans out of school and unemployed, it’s safe to say that youth unemployment is no small matter. With so many eager and talented young workers ripe for the picking, it’s a waste to turn our backs on our nation’s youth when creating jobs and opportunities for them will bolster our economy.

In particular, small businesses are at a unique advantage in mentoring and training the young workers of today to become the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, and small business owner Zach Davis is dedicated to doing just that.

Lorenzo Harris, CEO of Janico Building Services

Lorenzo Harris makes a living sweeping away the dirt. But he certainly is not swept away by the state of our nation’s current immigration system.

As the CEO and principal of Janico Building Services, a full-service building maintenance and cleaning contractor with 40 employees in Sacramento, Harris understands first-hand how undocumented immigrants affect the cleaning industry, particularly when it comes to the hiring process.

From humble beginnings to an out of this world small business, Jay-Mee Del Rosario clawed her way to the American Dream. As the CEO of International Metal Source, a minority and women owned small business that distributes raw metals to the space, aerospace and defense industries, Del Rosario’s launch to the top was one of extreme hardship. 

Born in the Philippines, she immigrated to the United States when she was just 9 years old. Due to her immigration status, she faced obstacles in obtaining jobs and a higher education.