InfuseSA in the Community: The Maestro Entrepreneur Center
Did you know that small businesses are the backbone of the economic engine in our country? Their value is two-fold. They drive the US economy, but they also help keep the American Dream alive.
According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses of 500 or fewer employees make up 99.0% of all businesses. And of the new jobs created between 1995 and 2020, small businesses accounted for 62%.
This background underscores the huge importance of a “brainchild” that exists right here in Bexar County – The Maestro Entrepreneur Center.
The Maestro Center is a 501(c)3 organization that exists to help creators of small businesses succeed by helping them with every aspect of their creation and growth. A local friend observed that surviving past the first year for every new business is an extraordinary accomplishment. The challenges are many and the experience of each new business owner is so limited.
This was what the creators of the Maestro Center also realized.
So, in 2016, Julissa Carielo bought an old elementary school on the West Side of San Antonio. Along with three additional founders, Willie Ng, Leslie Garcia, and Chris Martinez, she established a place where small businesses could access resources needed to transform their dreams into successful realities.
The Maestro Center provides resources and tools to aid entrepreneurs in every way possible. Their mission, “to support local and small businesses by accelerating their business growth beyond the $1 million revenue threshold,” has already been achieved in many instances.
As a result of this, beginning September of this year, they added a second level to their mission. This program could be referred to as a “Million Dollar Accelerator”.
These businesses are required to meet three main prerequisites: have $1 million and $50 million in revenue yearly, employ 10-100 full-time staff members, and have the urge and willingness to grow. CEOs and executives of these companies then come together and learn to handle issues that are unique to them and to businesses of similar size.
For businesses that are getting started, they offer a double-pronged approach: “incubate” and “accelerate.”
Through “incubation,” they offer a place where any small business can rent office space relatively inexpensively and have access to many resources a small business might need. The next step, “accelerate,” offers a 12-week program for minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses. This program addresses varied aspects of the management of a business.
And most impressive? It is taught by experienced business owners who “give back” by allowing the center to connect them with other small businesses who benefit from their knowledge and success.
Our Outreach Director Suzie Bayne spoke with Executive Director Geremy Landin, who told her that a total of over 600 businesses have used the services of the Maestro Center. He gave her an even more compelling insight into what he sees as his mission.
“It is to help another generation escape a very possibl(y) bleak future. To help someone learn how to fish can offer them a very promising way out of poverty … among many other things that small business ownership can solve.”
He shared his own personal story.
His mom owned a small business and provided for him growing up. Then as a college student, he began freelancing as a photographer. With no formal training, he learned as time passed. This became his ‘small business,’ and it provided enough income to pay for school.
His final words were words of wisdom: to start, everyone needs only to see possibilities and to have a willingness to learn and to do.
He is now in a job where he can help make dreams come true, and better futures a real possibility for countless others here in Bexar County. We have deep gratitude to him, and even more to Julissa Carielo and the others who joined her in creating such a unique and profoundly important “incubation” center for our city. They definitely ‘saw possibilities’ and a whole city has been blessed.