Around 130 people gathered at the New York Botanical Garden on Wednesday, Dec. 6, for a small business celebratory and networking event hosted by Mosholu Preservation Corporation (MPC) called “Beyond Survival.” Some attendees represented small businesses located in the North Bronx and some represented vendors who were invited to network and see how they might help support the various small businesses grow.

 

According to MPC, the nonprofit provides support to small businesses by connecting them with resources to help their businesses grow and thrive. These resources can include workforce development, local community hiring, access to capital, financial education, storefront improvement grants, and legal services, among others.

 

Through earmarked funding from Congress, MPC created the “Beyond Survival” program to help local, small businesses in the North Bronx not only survive but thrive. Attendees, comprising a mix of small business owners and vendors aiming to support small businesses, gathered for an evening of networking over food and drinks. Norwood News spoke with some of the vendors and small businesses over the course of the evening.

 

Froylan Mendoza is founder and CTO [chief technology officer] of Fulcrum Solutions. “We’re based in New York,” he said. “We all work from home. I’m based in Westchester, Scarsdale. We provide services to small and medium-sized enterprises, start-ups.” Mendoza said his service, which focuses on small businesses in particular, provides technology support and software development.

 

Asked about the range of services Fulcrum Solutions provides, Mendoza said, “Inventory, point-of-sale (POS) systems, website development.” Asked more about point-of-sale systems, he explained, “So, when they swipe it, the magic that happens behind the scenes.” He continued, “Taking out of the actual cost from the payment processing and getting it out on the inventory and then, until they actually ship out the product, anything that has to do with technology or platform, we build that in the back-end,” he said.

Mendoza added, “Some businesses and start-ups require or need help in terms of setting up their system or they have an idea, they want to make that a reality. So, our sort of mantra is ‘from idea to launch,’ and then ‘from launch to scale.’ So, we have clients where they already have an MVP [minimum viable product] or Version 1, but they want to add more features, make it more scalable, and so on. So, we that’s our sweet spot.”

 

We also spoke to business partners and sisters, Lissette Ramirez, accountant and real estate broker, and Leslie Ramirez, tax preparer, with LR Multiservices, located at 2984 Webster Avenue in Bedford Park. “So, we are a family business,” Lissette said. “We’ve been in business for over 22 years, and we’ve been at this particular place for 20 years. We do accounting, real estate as well. We do personal taxes, and we do small business taxes as well.”

 

Leslie added, “So, this opportunity to not only meet with our current clients, but also to focus on new clients, we’re very grateful.” She added, “We have taken it very personally because we are very happy, and we want people [other business owners] to take the opportunity that MPC is giving them through this event,” Leslie added.

Lissette said, “And not just about the event. Like we work very closely with MPC. She said they were happy when the nonprofit mentioned the need to infuse the streets with some Christmas spirit. She also credited MPC with arranging things like cameras for small businesses. “It was an issue and MPC provided, you know?” Lissette said.

 

She mentioned that their street has extra lighting now also, thanks to MPC. “We were very happy about that,” she said. Staying on the topic of security, we asked the business owners if they would like to see more police on the streets. “The police department is doing pretty good,” Leslie said. “I think the issue in the past was the [lack of] illumination on the street. We’ve seen some improvement but still…” She said now that it’s a bit darker earlier, businesses may close a little bit earlier for security reasons.

 

We also spoke to vendor, José Salcedo, about his service offering. “So, the name of the company is “TryyLo” which means “Bring it” [traelo] in Spanish,” he said. “So, Tryylo is a platform where we help local businesses with online ordering. We’re here to kind of help a lot of the businesses compete with Uber and DoorDash. So, essentially, our app allows them to pay for their customers to order on the app, and then also to select delivery or pick-up without being charged the heavy fees [30%] that a lot of the third parties are doing right now.”

Salcedo’s partner said Tryylo works with around 60 restaurants, local businesses, groceries, and meat markets in the North Bronx. “Thanks to MPC, we’re able to give them [small businesses] not a less expensive option, but an option where it is zero cost to them,” Salcedo’s partner said. The partners explained that Tryylo is both a competitor and a partner with the likes of Doordash and other platforms for “last-mile delivery.”

 

“There’s a technology that we use where we partner with DoorDash to help the local businesses with last-mile delivery without having to pay the 30%,” Salcedo said. ‘It’s more….you could just pay $2 and then you’d be able to have the delivery, and it’s cheaper for the customer to order direct.” He said what they learned during COVID was that customers preferred to support small businesses, but the technological set-up required for delivery was not always in place to allow small businesses to compete with the giant chains.

 

“I think that, now, if we can empower these local businesses with the technology to compete with the big box stores, that’s what’s been missing and, obviously, being able to learn what it is to compete in the digital world,” Salcedo said.

We also spoke to small business owner, Zahkiya Brown, who owns Vibez N Juice Café, located at 754 East 233^rd Street in Wakefield. Asked about the main challenges faced by small businesses post-pandemic, Brown said it was a bit difficult for her to say as she opened her business during the pandemic.

 

“Some of the challenges are dealing with the influx of pricing and just adapting to the consumer, and how the consumer is spending their money, right?” she said. “But I think it’s also this education piece of sustainable living, healthy consumption, and making that affordable for, especially, Bronx residents. So, how do we still make profit and maintain our small business, and be able to sustain?”

 

She continued, “Just finding creative ways to market the business to the community, and be visible to the community as well, and then be in need, so I started doing workshops in schools around smoothie-making, and ice-bowl making with students.” Asked what an ice-bowl was, she said, “It’s like a smoothie in a bowl but it’s more with different toppings and things like that. I’m educating middle schoolers and elementary school students on healthy consumption and what that option looks like for them.”

Later, we spoke to Samuel Berkoh who was in attendance with his mom, Tina, business owner of Tina Fabrics & Accessories, located at 3752 White Plains Road in Williamsbridge, near the 219th Street subway station serving the 2 and 5 trains. “Tina Fabrics & Accessories has been in the community for almost 10 years now,” Berkoh said. “It really started as, like, a passion project of my mother’s. Ever since I was a little kid, she’s always been doing some type of selling: African fabrics, make-up, little knickknacks here and there; her whole thing was to sell.”

 

Berkoh continued, “I think a lot of that’s with her upbringing in Ghana.” He said his mom would always tell him stories about how her mother, Berkoh’s grandmother, would always have her and her siblings go out and sell water or delicacies from Ghana to passing cars. “So, from a young age, she’s always had that hustle,” he said. Berkoh concluded, “So if you just so happen to be in the neighborhood and are looking for the Shiki traditional African wear, even just things from back home, cocoa butter, sponges, things of that nature, come on by.”

 

Edwin Reyes, community outreach coordinator for MPC, who was behind much of the organization for the event, encouraged vendors, while setting initial appointments with prospective clients, to have fun in the process. Meanwhile, Daniela Beasley, executive director of MPC, encouraged the vendors to get to know each other as well as getting to know the small businesses they might eventually service.

“So, all of the businesses that are in this, we want to make sure that there’s a sense of community [among you],” Beasley said. “So, we want a sense of community between you guys as well, because each one of you is touching on a different part of their business [small businesses]. So, meet each other, get to know each other, because you’ll be going through this whole process together.”

 

Last month, NYC Small Business Services launched the “My City Business Site” a one-stop, online portal for businesses which includes the MyCity Chatbot, “a cutting-edge” AI virtual assistant to help businesses quickly find information, NYC Funds Finder, an online lending marketplace for small businesses, Step by Step Guides to find the licenses and permits that a specific business needs, and Emergency Preparedness Resources to ensure a business is ready for anything, including floods and fires. More information on this service can be found at https://nyc-business.nyc.gov/nycbusiness/.

 

Summing up the evening, Beasley thanked everyone for attending and thanked the various business merchants for being a part of the program. “We are so excited to bring you all of the wonderful services that you just signed up for in the other room [with the vendors],” she said. “Additionally, everybody else that came out, we love that you came out to support all of our merchants in all three of our corridors in Wakefield, Norwood, and Bedford Park. All of you guys are so important to us.”

She added, “This is really the start of a program that we can continue on in the years to come, and all of you guys will be a part of that, you know, showing that this program is beneficial to you in meeting you where you are, and hopefully bringing your businesses to a place where you’re not just surviving from COVID, but you’re thriving, and that’s why we named this program Beyond Survival.”

 

Editor’s Note: MPC is the publisher of the Norwood News.