These Sonoma County small businesses make it big, closing out year strong
Griselda Mata is quite familiar with what it takes to put food on the table these days.
The Sonoma entrepreneur, who founded the Farms to Table Corp. watermelon import business, began by distributing the melons through her produce company that launched in 2019.
Since then, the operation supplying these summer staples year round to markets in California and Texas has grown 40% yearly. In 2020 the company had $500,000 in gross sales. Mata expects to close out 2023 with $3 million.
The niche family business she shares with her husband, Jose Carrasco, and their two children, Alexandra and Tony, is a success story like many local businesses with humble beginnings.
As retailers were getting ready for Small Business Saturday on Nov. 25, a day set aside to support such businesses, the Business Journal took a look at two different operations with fewer than 100 employees (defined as small) that each tapped into specifically-designed business loan resources.
In 2021, a record-breaking 5.4 million new business applications were filed in the nation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported. Many in the North Bay over the last few years have indicated the pandemic spurred them to launch their own business.
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Mata’s profits speak volumes about her ambition and the ability to make a microbusiness investment loan count.
She wanted to invest in her company’s infrastructure and day-to-day operations. “Because we were so new, banks wouldn’t give us loans. They require two years of taxes,” she said.
Last year, she received a two-year, $50,000 loan through TMC Community Capital, a nonprofit organization designed to support startups with financing. It was spun out of Oakland-based TMC Financing, a top U.S. Small Business Administration 504 lender run by Sonoma’s Barbara Morrison.
“We’re still lending as much as ever,” Morrison said of her flagship company that started in 1981. TMC Community Capital, which was launched five years ago, is seeing a steady flow of applications.
“There’s still a long-standing need and a long-standing gap,” Morrison said of the nonprofit.
With the loan, Mata bought a 3,000-square-foot warehouse on Riverside Drive in Sonoma and offset operational expenses for the watermelons she supplies to 15 stores including Glen Ellen Market in Sonoma Valley and Rancho Mendoza Supermercado in Santa Rosa. Mata works with eight growers, including her husband.
Say hello to help
To high-ranking executives like Morrison and Elizabeth Gore, who make their living offering others a leg up, Mata’s story lines up with the latest findings on the obstacles that define business success and failure.
Gore’s Hello Alice, the online financial technology platform with a Houston headquarters and Sonoma County roots, services 1.4 million diverse, small business owners in all 50 states.
The fintech platform offers business expertise and guidance as well as capital investment dollars in the form of grants and loans. By teaming up with the nonprofit Global Entrepreneurship Network, it has secured a $70 million fund that provides access to credit for small businesses.
“Access to capital is their biggest challenge,” the Hello Alice president and co-founder said, referencing one of the most telling statistics (30.2% of California small business owners) cited by a recent Hello Alice survey.
“Banks have really tightened up, and our economy is not as flush with cash as it was during the pandemic,” Gore said.
On top of that, Gore explained the circumstances are more dire for people of color, who are “twice as likely” to be turned down for a loan.
Over the last 18 months, Gore has discovered that the number of new business startups in the state has increased fivefold.
“People are still going into business,” she said.
Gore said she’s heard that brick-and-mortar shops still have a place in society because a large portion of the population working remotely still wants to get out to socialize and shop.
“The pendulum is swinging. We’ve come to an era of consumer behavior where we crave connection,” she said, adding that translates to more entrepreneurs needing to gain capital to support that presence and those growth opportunities. “The hyperlocal banks and credit unions are doing a better job at catering to these businesses with no credit history. This may (equate to) women in the core economy and returning military (personnel).”
Gore shared findings that “80% of small businesses have a sense of optimism about 2024. This cohort of business will have much less failure because they’ll have the tools they need. As long as you have broadband, you can have a business.”
