Deb Clendening, the manager of Salon 1322, opened up a community event to help women promote and support their businesses. These small marketing pop-ups include fashion, bakery sweets, and spices.
Some women are starting with their business, while others have years of experience. Many of these women struggle to start up with a storefront franchise due to the high expenses of the Bay Area.
They all strive to get heard or grow their business. Many of the business owners decided to start their own businesses because they wanted to give back or empower women.
“My main goal for this business is to empower single women by fairtrade…I support women by hiring women in Mexico to handmake jewelry, and I pay them seven times their minimum wage,” said Gaby Ghorbani, the founder of Love You More.
Seven times Mexico’s minimum wage is about $48.27 per day.
Many women have different approaches to starting their businesses.
“I decided to start a business about fashion since it was my hobby and my passion,” said Priscilla Contreras, who runs 1ovakind Stilo, a fashion shopping website. “I wanted to bring fashion to the community and hoping to empower them.”
While some people started their businesses to empower women, others wanted to turn their hobbies into jobs.
“I started my work because I had a hobby that got out of hand, so I mind as well sell them,” said Erin Sly, who runs the booth called, Knitting by Erin. “I’ve been knitting since high school but never really started some sort of business. I’ve knitted all these beanies by myself by hand; I tried getting fancy, but it didn’t work.”
Some markets were started due to hobbies and the desire to give, but the founder of CurrySutra, Teena Arora, is destined to be in the culinary industry.
“I was cooking since I was three, and I officially started a business in the 90s,” Arora said. “I have had a lot more experience than just spices. I had run steakhouses and many other restaurants with different cultures like Mediterranian, American, Indian, Asian, and Italian foods.”
Clendening’s marketing pop-ups allowed these women to reach more people with their businesses.
“It was hard to live here so I had to someway expand my income… I try to give women access to affordable fashion and my goal is to run a storefront business.”
— Priscilla Contreras
“My clients had troubles starting a business sense of the outrageous prices in Belmont. So I decided to open a community event for my clients and help support them,” Clendening said. “I wanted to start one of these events earlier, but due to [the COVID-19 pandemic], it was very difficult. I have done several similar events like this, such as helping the homeless; I do these things because of Christian beliefs and how I was raised.”
