Ascend LA: Increasing Revenue and Efficiency for Diverse Small Business Owners
10.05.2021
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LISC StoriesEconomic Development
In honor of Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month, we sat down with one of our Ascend LA graduates, Frankie Casillas, Vice President and Owner of Intermex, to discuss how the program has helped his business thrive even during a pandemic.
Intermex Inc. is a family-owned and operated charter bus and tour company based in Los Angeles with a second office in El Paso, Texas that provides comfortable and reliable transportation to a variety of clients. Intermex currently owns and operates 16 buses and 2 vans and works with universities, casinos, sports teams, wedding planners, tour companies, and small, medium, and large corporations.
Intermex Inc. was one of the 23 businesses chosen to participate in our 2021 Ascend LA Summer Cohort. Supported by JP Morgan Chase and led by LISC LA, Ascend LA brings together a network of non-profit lenders, education providers, and B2B market makers to provide diverse entrepreneurs with the resources and market access needed to grow their businesses—all in an effort to build the next generation of $1M+ businesses owned by women and people of color.
The free business accelerator program doubled its capacity from last year, selecting 23 businesses to undergo a management education program, obtain certification and bid preparation support, connect with regional and national supply chains, receive 1-on-1 advising with loan and procurement specialists, and access flexible capital resources.
Frankie Casillas’ father started Intermex back in 2015. Before he started his own company, Mr. Casillas was a driver for a bus company here in Los Angeles, and he saw that there was an opportunity for him to do his own thing. After acquiring his first client, the business took off.
He started with one bus, driving a route from El Paso to LA. Meanwhile, Frankie and his brother were away in college. As the business grew, Frankie’s dad saw an opportunity to expand into the military base in California. Because he didn't speak any English, it was hard for him to get the contract necessary to do business there, so he asked his sons for assistance.
In 2017, Frankie and his brother joined the family business. By that time, they both had jobs with Frankie working in marketing and his brother working in the entertainment industry. They decided to quit those jobs and focus 100% of their time and energy to Intermex, which was in an industry neither of them had experience working in.
“We knew at one point that we wanted to be CEOs or business owners, so we thought, ‘What better way than to do it with our own family members?’”
With the family working together, they were able to grow and get the contract their dad had been pursuing but was never able to get due to the language barrier.
“We got the contract, so since then we expanded to Arizona and New Mexico, and now we operate 16 buses and two sprinter vans.”
Intermex has since been contracted by large corporations, like Amazon, Coachella Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, Amazon, and Microsoft.
One of the strategies we pursue here at LISC LA is equipping talent in underinvested communities with the skills and credentials to compete successfully for quality income and wealth opportunities. This is where Ascend was able to come in and help Frankie with the tools needed to grow Intermex even more.
One day, Frankie got an email from the Latino Chamber of Commerce about the Ascend program. “I’m always interested in networking and learning. Nobody taught me how to run a business, not even my dad. My dad is still trying to learn as we go. I've always wanted to get an education, kind of like an MBA education, but as a business owner sometimes it's very difficult to spend two years of your life trying to learn how to run a business when you already have a business.”
After researching Ascend, he saw that this program was exactly what he was looking for. Reviewing the curriculum and the professor that was going to teach the program, he felt like he was going to get MBA material in this program. It was a perfect fit for someone like him actively running a business with limited time to sit in a University classroom. With this program, he could learn what he needed to grow his business and network with other business owners, especially in the LA area, which was very important for him. “For family businesses like ours, sometimes we do things the only way that we know how to do them and it's really important for us to get different perspectives from other businesses to maybe implement new strategies, ideas, and more efficient processes.”
The Ascend program connected Frankie with CMG Alliance, an agency that helped him create a template to be able to bid on government contracts. “That was one of the most helpful things that I was able to get from this program. Because in the two, three months that I was part of this program, we submitted three contracts that I would not have submitted if I were not in the program.”
“It's just my brother, my dad, and I running the company, so bidding on a contract and completing an RFP sometimes requires a full week of work to get all the questions answered. It's a lot of writing and involves putting a 70 page presentation together. Prior to the Ascend program, every time that we would get an invitation to bid, my brother and I were lost on how to start. Now, after going through the Ascend program, we know how to create a template with all the information needed to put together a strong proposal in less than 2 days.”
The Ascend program helped Frankie and his family come up with an organized and more streamlined process to submit bids that win contracts.
Frankie’s company was awarded one of the three contracts which excited him because it gave him an immediate return on investment of time in the Ascend LA program.
