(Editor’s note: This is the 33rd 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.)
Franchesca M. Fernandez is a trained civil engineer and an elite project manager, but her heart was always in graphic design and advertising.
Fernandez is the proprietor of MakServi Craft & Print LLC in Cranston. Though her business is officially only 2 years old, she wants to grow MakServi into the leading advertising company in all of New England.
Fernandez was born and raised in the Dominican Republic where her father, Francisco, ran a printing shop in El Cibao. As a child, she was immersed in the trade. For 15 years, she gained extensive experience in graphic design, screen printing, textile ink transfer and industrial-scale embroidery.
Fernandez later became enchanted with building things as a teenager. She majored in civil engineering at Universidad Catolica Nordestana in her home country, worked for a general contractor, then earned a master’s degree in project management at International Iberoamerican University in Puerto Rico.
“That’s how I grew up in business,” she said. “I started making small projects step by step, then focused on bigger things.”
In 2015, she moved to Providence with her Rhode Island-born husband. They met when he visited his mother and father on the island nation.
Though licensed as a civil engineer in the Dominican Republic, her license was not recognized in the United States. She needed to find another line of work.
Trained to solve problems, Fernandez did small jobs creating customized coffee cups for church groups out of her home, using a method called sublimation printing.
She discovered she still loved creating advertising products, loved the interaction with customers, loved collaborating with clients on their designs and loved producing tangible goods.
“It’s in my blood,” she said. “I always enjoyed it. So, I decided to take it full time and build my own business.”
Customers – mostly Latinos hailing from Central and South America – wanted more services. In October 2022, she moved her operation to a one-story building with a red awning at 1102 Pontiac Ave. in Cranston.
The relocation did wonders.
“A lot of our work comes through word-of-mouth,” she said. “The embroidery is a big part of the business. We create custom uniforms at a reasonable and very competitive price. People heard about us, could see us and started coming to us.”
As a minority business owner, Fernandez says she has had few problems with racism.
“The hardest part is trying to get the trust of every customer,” she said. “But that’s a problem every business owner faces. Sometimes people say they don’t understand my accent, but most people are fine with it. Sometimes people can be unintentionally offensive.
“There are always going to be certain cultural differences that you have to overcome.”
1. Do you believe racism is keeping minorities from starting businesses in the Ocean State or succeeding when they do? No, I don’t believe racism is keeping minorities from starting their own business or succeeding. However, I do think that the fear of being judged and discriminated against does keep minorities from offering their services and offerings to people who they don’t commonly associate with.
My major customer is currently Hispanics because I know where they are and how they like to be treated. It’s easy to serve them. Recently, I decided to move to a location that exposes me to people outside of my normal. Per my experience, it is challenging even to answer the phone now as I need to carefully pronounce every English word to ensure the person on the other end is able to understand me and choose me for their embroidery and/or printing needs.
2. How dependent is your business on the support of other minority groups? Is that a sustainable business model? Minority groups account for 95% of the sales generated in 2021-2022. I’m grateful for the support they have given me. As the name itself says, minority groups are the minority. If I want to grow my business and generate more sales, I need to break the barrier to serve more than the minority.
My dream would be to be able to hire employees in production and sales, buy a commercial space and purchase more equipment to generate more revenue and bring it back to the community by supporting other small businesses and sharing my knowledge with others to help them start their own business.
3. What one thing could Rhode Island do to boost the odds for minority-owned business success? Provide more information and reasonable requirements for minority startup businesses to apply for microloans. As a startup, the process to obtain funding is difficult because of the requirements of years in business, proper documentation and collateral. The state could encourage the connection of entrepreneurs, small businesses and successful businesses to share knowledge in different languages by organizing panels, discussions and conversations.
Lastly, the state could invest in educating minority groups on important topics such as state tax deductions, sales and use tax, legal information, and so on. This will allow minority groups to take the right steps to build and implement good business practices.
4. Have you had to turn somewhere other than a bank for a loan? Do you believe the state’s lending institutions generally treat minorities fairly? Yes, I have had to turn somewhere other than a bank. After understanding how credit cards work and their promotional offers, I chose credit cards as my lender of choice. At the time when I was starting my business, I remember looking at the interest rates; the personal loan rate was 6.9% and the company I used had a promotional offer of zero interest plus a 3% transfer fee. To me, this meant that using credit card offers and their flexibility was the way to go to make the necessary investments in my business. I wasn’t able to obtain a business loan because I didn’t have the business record requirements such as documents, years in business and collateral.
In my perspective, lending institutions generally treat everyone fairly. The requirements they have in place were created with the lending institutions’ interest in mind. Now, we minorities may not fit into their checklist, as we may not have the knowledge and the necessary support to meet those requirements in due time.
5. If another minority entrepreneur asked you where they could turn for support for their business, where would you direct them? I would direct them to the Center for Women & Enterprise. This nonprofit provided me with the help I needed for my business through courses, workshops and boot camps. Help is available in English and Spanish.
I’m so grateful for the help they have provided me with that I have offered myself to volunteer at the center as a QuickBooks facilitator and as part of the Strategic Planning Committee 2023.