Unlock stock picks and a broker-level newsfeed that powers Wall Street.
Business Outlook with Kristelle Siarza Moon
Matthew Narvaiz, Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
5 min read
Aug. 12—Kristelle Siarza Moon owns Siarza, a full-service advertising and public relations agency based in Albuquerque, and is the volunteer executive director of the Asian Business Collaborative. She's also an advocate of all things New Mexico and small business.
In July, Siarza Moon traveled to the White House with a group of business leaders from the Southwest, including other New Mexicans Caren Phillips from Ravenna Assisted Living and Eric Renz-Whitmore, an economic development specialist with the city of Santa Fe. There, the group spoke with policymakers about the challenges and opportunities facing small businesses in the region.
Siarza Moon is the first guest of the rebranded business podcast from the Albuquerque Journal — now called Business Outlook — which focuses on small businesses, technology, emerging leaders and real estate.
Siarza Moon talked about her trip and some of the unique challenges small business owners in New Mexico face.
Business Outlook podcasts are released on Monday afternoon and are available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and SoundCloud.
Here's a preview of the conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Tell me a bit about the company Siarza.
"So, in 2014, I woke up on my ex-boyfriend's couch, and I said, 'What did I do?' And yes, this is always part of the spiel of Siarza. I left an agency, and I had been exploring various different ways of where I could take my career, and I felt like it was definitely my time to open up a business.
And so I opened up Siarza, which at the time was called Siarza Social Digital, and we were very focused on social media and advertising and web design and development. And so throughout the years, our agency has grown. And we're about to celebrate our 10th year, which is so exciting.
We have 20 members on our team, here in the United States and also the Philippines. Being a proud Filipino American, my mission is to help create jobs. So it was great to really support my home country or my roots.
During the pandemic, I said to myself, 'Well, we had a good run.' I thought the business was going to close. We had such challenges. Small businesses were challenged at that point. Every business owner really showed their true colors at that moment in time.
And then all of a sudden, I just worked my network and got the support that I needed. ...
But I looked around the corner, and I looked around at various different businesses, and I realized that a lot of Asian-owned businesses didn't have the resources that I did. So from there, the Asian Business Collaborative was born.
The Asian Business Collaborative really focuses on case management, education and advocacy, wrapped around language access, social justice, economic development — all of those different elements really bring the Asian Business Collaborative to life.
So I've been really privileged to have this nonprofit now for four years. And it's not my nonprofit; it's the Asian community's nonprofit, especially since they really didn't have a voice in the business community for quite some time. ..."
You were in D.C. last month talking small business and the economy, and you were representing the Asian Business Collaborative. What took you to D.C. and what was the focus?
"ABC is actually has an MOU — a memorandum of understanding — with the national (Asian Coalition for Equity). ACE is an Asian entrepreneur and commercialization organization — basically, they are the national Asian Chamber. And because we've had a good relationship with them, they were looking for business owners and multicultural Chambers of Commerce to actually represent in D.C.
... So the White House invites us over for the White House Southwest regional business briefing. And the business briefing entailed a really aggressive but really small business-friendly agenda of just highlighting the various different departments and initiatives and milestones that they've done for small business owners. ...
One of the things that they talked about was these massive sweeping changes to (the Small Business Administration) — making the website more family friendly, expanding departments — so that way they really touch small business owners. ..."
What sort of federal initiatives or state initiatives are out there that maybe a company like Siarza has used or maybe something you learned on your trip to D.C.?
"It was great to have the emergency disaster loan team there. We needed it. During the pandemic, an (Economic Injury Disaster) Loan helped us float by, and my profit and loss statements were negative during the pandemic.
Because rather than not paying my employees, I kept them on board. But I also knew that other businesses needed us, but they just couldn't pay us. But they needed our help. And they paid us back.
But the EIDL was a really, really great resource that not many people realize. The folks in Ruidoso — immediately, I thought about them. Their businesses are impacted on top of the fires, and now, the flooding. ...
CDFIs are recognized as Community Development Financial Institutions, and I was fortunate enough to be funded, not by a CDFI program, but a lender that has a CDFI. ... There's a lot of institutional racism behind the credit system. ... How do you expect a person to come to America, open up a business? How do you expect them to understand the credit system if it's a system that's specific to America?
So those were some of the challenges that the SBA, the U.S. Treasury, various different institutions have started to recognize. But while they can't dismantle the credit system, or make it more inclusive quite yet, they can at least provide immediate access ... (and) give the funding to CDFIs.
So access to capital was the No. 1 complaint from any business owner five to 10 years ago. Now, you can go to a CDFI, and you can have access to capital."
