Bond built over shared background

BY MARY MACDONALD | MacDonald@PBN.com

(Editor’s note: This is the seventh installment in a monthly series speaking with minority business owners and leaders. Each will be asked their views on minority-business conditions in the state and for ways to improve those businesses’ chances for success.) JESHUA ZAPATA MET JUAN and Jairo Gomez when they were teenagers participating in the Upward Bound college preparatory program. Zapata grew up in Central Falls. The Gomez brothers, who are twins, grew up in Pawtucket. The three boys connected over a shared culture: their parents had all immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia.

Within months of graduating from their respective colleges –Zapata from Bryant University and the Gomez brothers from Rhode Island College – they launched a marketing and webdesign business.

Now based in Johnston, Xzito Creative Solutions LLC – a play on “exito,” the Spanish word for “success” – has expanded into sales growth and development, working primarily with midsize companies that employ an external sales force. The business employs 11 people, in addition to a stable of 10 regular contractors.

The three co-founders are bilingual and Xzito has worked with a variety of Latino entrepreneurs and businesses over the years, but the company’s target market is much wider.

The founders’ approach has mirrored their early rise. They seek out new opportunities and forge relationships that will both help them grow and give back to the community, including by advising young entrepreneurs and helping to break the stereotyping they sometimes encountered.

When asked if he had encountered racism as a business owner, Zapata said it sometimes came in the form of questions. “You have a portion of the population who doesn’t look at that,” he said of judgments about age, nationality or gender. “Another portion of the population, the questions they might ask you, the comments they make, the facial expressions they make. Some people clearly tell you.

“I had a situation where a gentleman, you could clearly tell he felt uncomfortable. I had to tell him, look, just because I’m 24 years old doesn’t mean I don’t have experience solving the problem. I don’t want to say it was because we were just Hispanics, but it was because we were young entrepreneurs.”

From modest beginnings, a small office in a shared building in Pawtucket, to their current offices, which the company purchased, Xzito has grown steadily over the past 17 years. When the business was started, each partner joined full time only when the business would support them. The lean attitude has continued throughout the years.

The only debt Xzito took on was the U.S. Small Business Administration loan the owners used to buy their building, at 2820 Hartford Ave. in Johnston. “It’s primarily been self-funded,” Jairo Gomez said. “We didn’t really need a lot of capital.”

Along the way, Zapata and his co-founders have consistently given startup advice to other entrepreneurs, using the platform of Social Enterprise Greenhouse and other business development organizations. Soon after they started, they connected to business development programs at what is now R.I. Commerce Corp., after being encouraged by an acquaintance who worked there.

“One of the things the three of us did is we would actually host a lot of public speaking at the start of the company,” Zapata said. “Every single month, we presented to small-business owners.” They have also given back to the program that was their beginning, bringing on high school interns from Upward Bound.

Zapata said he can see himself in some of these young business owners.

“Whenever someone is an entrepreneur, they’re trying to be a creator,” Zapata said. “I can see someone’s passion in trying to build something, and that’s very exciting to see.”

BUSINESS BUILDER: Jeshua Zapata and his friends Juan and Jairo Gomez started a marketing and web-design business when they graduated from college. Seventeen years later, Xzito Creative Solutions LLC is still going strong.

PBN PHOTO/ELIZABETH GRAHAM

Jeshua Zapata

Xzito Creative Solutions LLC co-founder

1Do you believe racism is keeping minorities from starting businesses in the Ocean State or from succeeding when they do? I believe everyone has a fair opportunity at exploring a problem within a customer segment and creating value in the marketplace. No institution was like, “Hey, just because you’re Hispanic-owned, we’re not going to give you an opportunity to do business with us.” But I could certainly see that for some people, being Hispanic and being young – we were 22, 23, 24 years old – that was something they were not used to seeing. We had to break the stereotype.

2How dependent is your business on the support of other minority groups? Is that a sustainable business model? I think that goes for any entrepreneur. When we first started, there was this vision and this desire to provide value to our customers with what we offered. But we turned to different groups. We turned to Commerce Rhode Island, [and asked] how can you folks help us? What kinds of programs do you folks have? They referred us to the [Rhode Island Small Business Development Center], which got us coaches. 3 What could Rhode Island do to help minority-owned businesses succeed? The state could help individual entrepreneurs based on industry, the maturity of the firm and language of preference to ensure that they are aware of programs, opportunities and laws.

4Are you aware of any minority-owned businesses that have been forced to turn somewhere other than a bank for a loan? Do you believe the state’s lending institutions generally treat minorities fairly? From our experience, we have never had any problems obtaining a loan or any assistance programs for banks or other institutions.

5If a minority entrepreneur asked you where they could turn to for support for their business, where would you direct them? I would direct them to all the different resources that I took advantage of when I started our company, Small Business Development Center, Goldman Sachs [10,000 Small Businesses], Social Enterprise Greenhouse, etc. n

I had a situation where a gentleman, you could clearly tell he felt uncomfortable.