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Hennepin County highlights Elevate Hennepin program and showcases two entrepreneurs
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Summary
Hennepin County officials presented the Elevate Hennepin small-business support program and heard testimonials from two local business owners who credited the county program for helping them navigate growth and the pandemic recovery.
Hennepin County officials on a county briefing highlighted Elevate Hennepin, the county’s small-business support program, and invited two local entrepreneurs to describe how the county’s services helped their businesses.
Patricia Fitzgerald, economic development director, told commissioners that small businesses with fewer than 100 employees make up 96% of businesses in Hennepin County and said the county is promoting Small Business Saturday with city partners to encourage residents to shop locally. Fitzgerald described Elevate Hennepin as a one-stop brand that provides no-cost consulting, a business navigator, cohort programs and access to capital, and directed listeners to the program’s online resource directory.
“Elevate Hennepin, I believe it just bridges that gap,” Rajesh Silvaraj, founder and chief pizza officer of Pizza Karma, said in his remarks. Silvaraj, who described arriving in Minneapolis in 2006 and opening his first location in 2018, said COVID posed a “rough patch” for a business that had started only a year earlier. He told the board Elevate Hennepin connected him to expertise and helped him avoid costly mistakes: “It made us, you know, save a lot of time and energy as well as the, dollars, you know, to make the right decision the first time.” He said Pizza Karma now operates four brick-and-mortar locations — three in Hennepin County — and three food trucks, and that he is seeking another site in the county.
Jackie Lee, CEO of Silver Screen Printing, described participating in CEO Next, a county-linked cohort program. Lee said she was initially skeptical but that the free program exceeded her expectations: “I could not have been more wrong.” She credited the program’s speakers, cohort structure and expert connections for helping her company complete an optimization project under budget and ahead of schedule and for positioning the business more competitively in the supply chain.
Fitzgerald cited program metrics to illustrate impact: more than 4,000 unique businesses have used Elevate Hennepin services and “over 15,000 livelihoods” have been affected, and a recent survey of about 900 clients found 98% reported increased confidence in starting or running a business after working with Elevate advisors. The presenters encouraged residents to support local businesses year-round and noted county outreach efforts such as distributing “love local” window clings and making Elevate Hennepin resources easier to find.
The briefing concluded with praise from meeting hosts and a photo opportunity with the presenters. No formal actions or votes were recorded during this highlight.
