Opportunity fund helps many start ups in California

 From Sta Cruz Sentinel

Opportunity fund has lent micro loans to start ups and has 92% repayment rate and 95% success rate to the companies it supported.

This is located in San Francisco, San Jose, and LA and has lent more than $45 million more than half of whom are minorities.  This has done more economic miracles than what VCC or US Federal Govt has done.

H Skate owner in Watsonville grateful for Opportunity Fund

By Jondi Gumz

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Posted:   02/10/2014 06:00:34 PM PST

Click photo to enlarge

Watsonville High students walk past Emily Huante's skateboard shop in downtown... ( Dan Coyro )

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WATSONVILLE -- Emily Huante fits the profile of an unconventional small business borrower.

At 31, she was ready to open a skate shop in her hometown but had no retail or buying experience. However, she had taken business classes, learned bookkeeping from her parents, Rodney and Peggy Brooks, who ran an insurance agency, and could speak Spanish, the language spoken by a majority of Watsonville residents.
All she needed was $5,000 to buy inventory.
The Opportunity Fund, a new source for small business loans in Santa Cruz County, saw her venture as a good bet -- one of 1,124 microloans made last year.
The nonprofit, with locations in San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles, has loaned out $45 million to small businesses with a repayment rate of 92 percent and a business survival rate of 95 percent. More than half the borrowers are women or minorities.
For every dollar loaned, according to the fund's website, there is a $2 economic impact. The fund's goal for the next five years: Assist 7,000 entrepreneurs and create or sustain 15,000 jobs.
Among the business owners in this area to be funded are Jose Ponce, owner of Roger's Diner in Watsonville; Gloria and Carlos Gallardo, siblings who own Pancho Villa restaurant in Salinas; and Carlos Hernandez and Manuel Marroquin, who bought Trujillo Tax Service in Salinas.
Ponce and the Gallardos found the Opportunity Fund's "EasyPay loan," with payment based on daily credit and debit card sales, a better option than the more expensive merchant cash advance.
One big bank welcomes Opportunity Fund.
Last year, Opportunity Fund received the Wells Fargo Next Award for Opportunity Finance to expand "EasyPay loans" to business owners in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

MORE THAN A HOBBY

Huante's startup idea came from her husband of seven years, Gabriel, who skateboards, as well as their kids, 2 and 6, who have skateboards, and her skateboarding stepsons, 17 and 20.

She knew from her family's own habits that skateboarders were driving to Santa Cruz to buy stuff.
Ten years ago, skateboarders were a rarity in Watsonville, she said, but "now when kids are out of school, you see a ton of kids skateboarding. It's a normal mode of transportation."
Growing up in Watsonville, she was an independent teen who went from Aptos Junior High to Soquel High to the privately run Traveling School, which took students to Australia, South Korea, Thailand and Hawaii.
"You can't go back to regular high school after that," she said.
She graduated from Beach High School, an alternative school, and then attended Cabrillo College.
She studied the global economy in Grenada, Spain and Mexico and polished her Spanish.
She met her husband-to-be in Santa Cruz, and after they married, she became a stay-at-home mom.
The couple saved $20,000 to start the business by being frugal and selling one of their cars, an Infiniti.

FILLING A NEED

Huante got good advice at the Small Business Development Center from adviser Keith Holtaway, and looked for a downtown space with foot traffic. She found it at Plaza Vigil, 25 E. Beach St.

"I didn't want to worry about overhead," she said. "I couldn't afford shopping center rent."
Her husband, who worked in construction before taking a job at the Homeless Services Center in Santa Cruz, painted the retail space and got friends and family to help. She got fixtures at a liquidation firm, but when she realized she was short of cash to stock the shop, she turned to the Internet searching for microloans.
She found a report in the San Jose Mercury News on the Opportunity Fund and thought, "It has to be legit."
She knows others have been looking for credit, too.
"It's something we really need in Santa Cruz County," she said. "It's the way to turn our economy around."
She's experienced a "crazy" Black Friday, a gift-buying spree for Three Kings Day, and demand from families traveling to Mexico and tourists visiting from Eastern Europe for the Santa Cruz red-dot T-shirts.
"It's an iconic brand recognized worldwide," she said.
In five months, her skate shop has collected nearly 900 "friends" on Facebook, and though it's in a city where unemployment tops 19 percent in the winter, she is undaunted.
"You just work hard every day, it doesn't matter what the economy is, you'll be successful," she said.

Follow Sentinel reporter Jondi Gumz at Twitter.com/jondigumz

AT A GLANCE

H SKATE

WHAT: Skateboards, components, helmets, accessories and apparel, with brands such as Santa Cruz Skateboards, NorCal, Independent, Krux, Creature and Flip.
WHERE: 25 E. Beach St., Watsonville.
OWNER: Emily Huante
HOURS: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daILy.
INFORMATION: 831-239-7484 and Huante.Skate on Facebook. For information on the Opportunity Fund, visit http://www.opportunityfund.org, call 408-297-0204 or email info@opportunityfund.org