4B is a Henipin highlight focusing on Small Business Saturday presented by Patricia Fitzgerald, economic development director. And so, welcome Patricia. And I believe you have a couple small business owners with you. Let's see, Jacques Lee and Rajes Svaraj. And so, welcome. that Henipin County invests in and supports their growth. [snorts] Small businesses with fewer than 100 employees make up 96% of businesses in Henipin County. Our small local businesses are centers of community and culture that make places where people want to live, work, play, and build their futures. By focusing on entrepreneurs and small business owners, our economic development strategy is focusing on innovators. Those who grow the economic pie, who solve problems, provide services, and offer new products. We're celebrating our local entrepreneurs who generate revenue that stays in communities, creating value and jobs for themselves and jobs for others in the process. This highlight is before you today in part because this is the season when the county is joined by several city partners to encourage our residents to love their local businesses by shopping, dining, and getting services locally on Small Business Saturday and all through the year. Our talented small business team led by Lily Shaw has been reaching out to local businesses along main streets and business districts throughout the county, handing out love local window clings, expressing appreciation for our small businesses, and letting them know about Elevate Henipin resources. Henipin County shows its support for small businesses by investing in Elevate Henipin, the county's brand of small business support. The value proposition of Elevate Henipin is simple. We provide entrepreneurs with tools they need to succeed, including expert consulting at no cost and access to capital. We make resources easy to find with a memorable brand with our online resource directory at elevatehenipin.org, our one-stop shop. We eliminate barriers to entry, making it easy to get to the right resource with an onstaff business navigator or to connect directly with consultants. And we provide in-depth support at key stages of growth with our cohort programs. Over 15,000 livelihoods in counting have been impacted by the growth and expansion of the over 4,000 unique businesses that have leveraged Elevate Henipin services. Next slide. Thank you. U we gather customer feedback constantly and in our latest survey out to 900 business clients. 98% reported feeling more confident in their ability to start or run their business after working with Elevate and likely are very likely to recommend their Elevate adviser to another business owner. We hear additional positive feedback and success stories from business owners like Annne Andrews for example, owner of Honey and Rye Bake House in St. Louis Park, quoted here. And I'm very pleased uh that two local founders are here with us today to [snorts] share a bit about their experiences. These are just two u of the business owners that are making Henipin County more vibrant, more prosperous. Please welcome Rajes Svaraj, founder and chief pizza officer of Pizza Karma, and Jackie Lee, CEO of Silva Way, formerly Silver Screen Printing. And we'll hear first from Rajes. Okay, >> chair, commissioners, good afternoon. Uh, thanks for the opportunity uh for me to be here to present my story. So, I've been a Henipin County resident for the 17 years and uh I'm an immigrant and I came to the country and I landed in Minneapolis in 2006. So something called back back called me back from Florida to Minneapolis in 2009 and I stayed in Henipin County from there. Uh pizza karma it's a tandi pizzeria. We started in 2018 after two decades of being an engineer and working for a lot of corporate companies around the world. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and I wanted to create a product which is uh uh made with a clean label ingredients and kind of part of the fabric of the community and pizza being a communal food. You know there was a no-brainer and the funny thing is uh I had my first pizza when I was 23 years old. So it means you can understand what kind of knowledge I had on pizza when I started my pizza business. So 2018 a year uh after we started our first location 3 months after was start our second location covid hit I think it was a rough patch for everyone around the country and especially for a business that started just a year before without a lot of clientele you know with a pure determination or a passion for what we do like uh you know that's what this country is standing for it's like you know we made it through the co and uh and the one thing what we realized as we uh started uh getting this business you know during the expansion and everything is we are lacking something. So in a corporate world you always had the tools uh the mentorship and everything what is required for you to be successful along with the cushion if you fail back you know there is someone always there to watch you out you know support you in every step but when you become an entrepreneur you're all by yourself you know you have to take care of the lease you have to take care of the payroll take care of your employees your P&L you're you're an accountant you you have to wear multiple hats along with you know being a dad or a parent you know support your family as well. So being an entrepreneur has its own challenges. So the elevate Hannipin I believe it just bridges that gap right. So it connects you with all kinds of knowledge the uh expertise uh it's not only just you know it provides you the platform for you to validate your thoughts to make sure that am I going in the right path is it the right decision I should make right so that is something it's like you don't have to reinvent the wheel every single time right so that is a strategy we used to follow in the past like iteratively change see if it works if it doesn't work change it again but elevate hannipin I feel it is like a It made us you know save a lot of time and energy as well as the uh dollars you know to make the right decision the first time. So really appreciate uh what the county is doing to support a small business like ours and right now we are operating four brick and motor three in Henipin County and also we have three food trucks that goes all around and we are already looking for one more location in Henipin County. So thanks for the opportunity and all the support you provide for the small business especially the immigrant businesses. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Um, madame chair, commissioners, my name is Jackie Lee. I'm the CEO of Silver Screen Printing. We are a high volume direct to retail screen printer. We decorate apparel that ends up in the supply chains through distribution channels. uh our company located and many of them in the middle of US are responsible for product that gets distributed out to retail stores kind of nationwide. I've been with Silva Screen Printing since 6 months after they opened in 2001. It is a family-owned business. The Silva family operates the production arm. My family operates the executive arm. 2003 I was invited to participate in CEO Next. Uh I came into it skeptical. I'm going to be honest because I had participated over a number of years in a significant number of peer groups and at the cost of thousands and thousands of dollars. This is something that is a very expensive process to go through. When I was approached by the wonderful folks at the uh county here, they had a free option and I was like, well, what am I going to get for that? [laughter] Uh, so my expectations were really low. I could not have been more wrong. The program that was all-encompassing between the speakers and the cohorts was so incredibly wellthought out and and well built that it offered more than those paid services ever offered. I'm still with that same group. We still meet uh three years later. they're going to be at our office on Thursday. Something that we found that was really important through the group of CEO uh folks that participated in this organization was that idea of stewardship of our community. We were investing as much in each other as we were receiving in return. For our company specifically, I went into it with one project. We were in the middle of coming out of the COVID situation. Precoid between us and our end buyers like a Walmart of the world there would have been eight to nine middlemen all sort of taking little chunks out of the pie. Postcoid that middle market shrunk substantially. Uh as we all kind of went through this process we realized that it was fraught with waste and abuse. it wasn't sustainable and the middle market of this imaginary service of transferring data or transferring product um really needed an overhaul. So I came into this program thinking um [clears throat] I'm going to figure out a way to optimize our manufacturing process to facilitate an outcome to position ourselves better in the supply chain. It was a big ask and and I came to Art and I said, "Hey, this is what we need out of this." He's like, "I got you. I I got something for you." The speaker groups came in. He connected us with some experts. Our specific cohort were people that had compatible businesses that had similar problems and were all approaching it from different solutions. The immediate result for us was we comp completed our optimization program under budget and ahead of schedule coming out of that and positioned ourselves farther forward in the supply chain than we were ever uh expected to be. It became a more transparent position. So, as a result of that, our business grew. Well, then I went back to my cohort of CEO Next folks and said, "Hey, I'm I'm growing. Help me here." And and again, that support structure was there. There's a really deep interest in the success of small businesses in Henipin County. And I think that it is really important that programs like this get much more credit and and become really appreciated for the fantastic opportunity uh opportunity that they are. I cannot thank you enough for offering it. I am so glad that I let my skepticism go and went to it because I I really I really came into it thinking I was going to get a little and received so much more. I am hopeful now and continue to stay involved in organizations like this uh with the ability to give back because of of what we've received from you. So, thank you very much from my heart, from our family. This was something that was really really valuable and and I hope other people get the same experience out of it. Thank you. [applause] We're going to take a photo here a second, but just want to You can sit down for sure. you get uh but just want to express uh gratitude to both of you and really the program areas that you uh represent. Um Jackie, you are correct that uh the founder community and the entrepreneur community is vital to uh to the health and vibrancy but doesn't have that same level investment. So um a nocost program for you is really an investment from our perspective because you all are taking the risks of uh you know building a real livelihood for your workforce and really building a community asset that that can far kind of exceed any single person's vision or imagination. And so same thing with you uh Rajes like I I know it sounds like no no no cost consulting no cost program to you. It is an investment because of the ways in which small business aggregates its impact uh for our local community. And so we extend our gratitude right back to you for the ways in in which you invest in Henipin that you are likely of course um hiring people that are in Henipin and really just contributing to a community that we can all be proud of. And so I wanted to ensure that you uh felt the gratitude kind of mutually uh and I think we should all take a photo.