How a Small Business Grows

Raul Castro and his family emigrated from Cuba to the United States when he was just 11 years old. In the mid-1980s, Castro was working as a waiter at a high-end New Orleans restaurant when he bought a lawn mower and began cutting grass on weekends to earn extra income.

“My wife thought I was crazy for spending so many hours on a lawn mower,” Castro recalls. “But within a few months, I was making more money on the mower than I was at the restaurant.”

In 1995, Castro turned in his waiter’s uniform and dedicated himself full-time to his thriving landscaping business, Sun Tropic Landscape & Garden Center, Inc., which employs six people.

“I needed a line of credit for working capital, but I ran into problems with the paperwork,” Castro says. “That’s one thing about small business owners – we can be very good at the work we do, but we might not be familiar with the financial work needed to run the business.”

Castro found the solutions he needed at Hope Credit Union. Castro enrolled in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative (10KSB), which provides businesses with access to education, capital, and support services designed to help them grow.

HOPE, the 10KSB lending partner in Mississippi and Louisiana, introduced Castro to 10KSB and provided him with a line of credit that has given Sun Tropic the working capital it needs to compete for larger landscaping contracts.

“The 10KSB program helped us double our revenues,” Castro says. “I knew how to plant the plants, but I didn’t know much about how to manage the business. The program gave me the tools I needed to see what I was doing wrong and how I could improve.

“My relationship with HOPE is great,” Castro says. “A lot of the big banks don’t want to take a chance on a smaller business. I knew we could be one of those bigger businesses in the future if someone would give us a chance today. We didn’t need a handout, we just needed an opportunity. I’m thankful to HOPE for giving us the opportunity to compete.”