How Gabe Munoz understands the needs of KCK entrepreneurs

It ignited a fire in 9-year-old Gabe Munoz when well-dressed strangers in suits came to visit his childhood home.

He didn’t know them, but he was captivated by the look and presence they brought to his great-grandparents’ home in Mexico City.

“It was the first time I’d ever seen Latinos in suits,” Muñoz says. “I remember asking my mom, ‘Who are those people? What do they do?’ And she said, ‘Businessmen.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, I love the way they dress. They’re cool.’ And I wanted to be a businessman when I grew up.”

Today, Muñoz has landed not far from his childhood dream: He’s the founder of The Toolbox, which calls itself Wyandotte County’s “go-to resource for all things small business.” The nonprofit is dedicated to reducing barriers for Latino entrepreneurs to “create a more inclusive and equitable entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

The Toolbox was born from a marriage of professional research and personal ambition: In 2019, Muñoz was appointed director of the Kansas City ESHIP Community Initiative, funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where he was tasked with identifying barriers to local entrepreneurship, pinpointing existing gaps in services, and brainstorming possible solutions.

Munoz was familiar with these metrics growing up watching his father struggle to keep his small business afloat — so much so that he changed his major in college so he could learn enough to meet his father’s challenges as a small-business owner.

After college, he worked as the sales manager for the Kansas City Metropolitan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“I didn’t take this position with a ‘go out and sell yourself’ mentality, but just to go out and talk to people and listen to their stories, understand the issues and challenges they were facing, and try to see if there was a way I could help them,” Muñoz says. “My end goal was to knock on doors and meet business owners where they are.”

Can entrepreneurship guarantee financial mobility?

In his third grade, shortly after he’d first encountered the men in suits, the school held a fundraiser to sell chocolate bars, which he thought was the perfect opportunity to show off his business savvy.

According to Muñoz, his mother persuaded the school to give him and his brothers extra candy to sell: She placed packs of candy in front of an office building in downtown Topeka, where Muñoz learned the rigors of cold sales.

“On the first day, I approached people and said, ‘Hi, can I buy you some candy?’ And they immediately replied, ‘No, no, no,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, this is difficult,’ but I thought if I changed my approach, I’d get a different response,” Muñoz says.

“I learned it’s important to get the message across, so I started approaching people and asking, ‘Hello, can I help you?’ And they’ll take a moment and say, ‘Yes.'”

Munoz said he sold more chocolate bars than any other school in the country that year, selling 900 in one week. A ceremony was held at the school, and fundraising officials met to present Munoz with a special plaque, which he still keeps.

As a teenager, he helped his father in his family business, which sold Mexican goods, groceries, international calling cards, and was, as he put it, “the first place in the Midwest to get Spanish language music.”

The family of 11 worked cash registers, stocked shelves and even made shopping trips to Mexico.

“We were very proactive kids. We went from living on food stamps to not receiving any federal assistance at all,” Munoz says. “My dad was able to provide for our family quite comfortably. We were one of nine children.”

The Muñoz family realized how entrepreneurship could help improve their family’s finances.

Research suggests that entrepreneurship can be a powerful lever for economic mobility and stability.

A 2020 study from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler School of Business found a significant relationship between entrepreneurship and economic mobility in the United States, tracking an individual’s increased self-directed economic mobility after becoming self-employed.

Additionally, a 2023 report from the Stanford Graduate School of Business characterized Latino-owned businesses as more resilient, noting a national trend that Latino-owned businesses have recovered at a slightly faster pace than white-owned businesses despite being disproportionately affected by the COVID pandemic.

Meanwhile, when a business fails, as Muñoz’s family experienced, it can exacerbate the racial wealth gap: A recent Brandeis University study found that Black-owned businesses are less likely to survive four years after they’re founded, and that this disparity means “Black business owners are more likely to decline economically and less likely to rise economically than white business owners.”

“Like a lot of small businesses, my dad tried to do everything himself, from stocking shelves to replenishing inventory to handling taxes and paperwork,” Munoz says. “Eventually, he had to fall behind and make the decision to close the business and come to terms with the IRS on some kind of payment plan.”

So instead of focusing all of its efforts on increasing the percentage of entrepreneurs, The Toolbox is focused on helping entrepreneurs of color succeed in the long term.

That mission has inspired entrepreneurs like Virginia Mercado, founder and CEO of Thunderlite Work Boots in Kansas City, Kansas. She’d been in business for two years when she first heard about the toolboxes, but she says she was initially skeptical of nonprofits because she’d had bad experiences with other aid organizations.

“But after attending their classes, I was pleasantly surprised to see how willing they were to help me, a non-English speaking immigrant and single mother,” Mercado said.

She added that after taking the Toolbox course, she created a business plan that she said was “helpful” in securing grants from Wyandotte County and the Unified Government of Kansas City, Kan. Mercado was also able to create a sales increase plan, which she said helped her secure her first business loan after being rejected multiple times.

“Toolbox’s work to support small businesses like mine has had an incredible impact not only on me but on my community,” Mercado said. “Their tireless efforts to support and uplift small businesses have been noticed and I believe that many others have benefited from their work just as I have.”

Education, not just motivation

When Munoz was appointed director of Kansas City ESHIP Community Initiatives in 2019, he organized a council to survey small business owners in the community and identify the main barriers entrepreneurs face.

Their study outlined four issues: issues of trust in service providers who can meet entrepreneurs’ specific needs, challenges with cultural adaptability on the part of entrepreneurial support organizations, a lack of multilingual programs, and a lack of awareness of entrepreneurs’ existing resources.

“We want to help our clients achieve independence,” says Yvette Solis, director of financial independence at El Centro, The Toolbox’s community partner.

Solis cited culture shock, lack of access to technology and information as stressors for entrepreneurs, who need resources beyond handing over a check.

“We hold financial literacy classes, we teach about credit, home buying, we teach how to budget,” she says. Toolbox offers similar expertise on access to capital, permits and what various levels of government require of business owners.

Toolbox has several staff members who speak Spanish, which Solis said gives entrepreneurs with language barriers confidence and allows them to better communicate their vision and the challenges they face. El Centro and Toolbox regularly introduce clients to each other to build a holistic education.

Muñoz believes language and culture are factors in trust between individuals and organizations: in the ESHIP study, participants admitted to distrusting organizations and believed information about their entrepreneurial ambitions was “selectively released.”

“I don’t think that’s the intention of the organization,” Muñoz said. “There’s no communication, there’s no connection. The lack of communication leaves people feeling isolated and like the ‘other’ doesn’t care about them.”

For example, he says, a significant number of businesses of color were unaware that they were eligible for Paycheck Protection Program loans and similar measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“A lot of people were hesitant and even thought I was trying to scam them,” says Muñoz, who was able to secure a small grant to contract an accountant to help small-business owners get their books in order, which helped him build trust.

Pedro Morales, owner of Quality Framing & Art in the Mission District, credits Muñoz with giving him the skills he needed to start his own business: Muñoz showed him how to apply for a business license, create a website for his shop, pay business taxes and apply for local grants.

“My English is poor, but he helped me understand a lot,” Morales says. “We still have a connection (not like when I first started Quality Framing). He’s a great guy and they’re a great team. Good people.”

“Sometimes when you want to start a business, you panic. You feel scared. ‘What do I do?!'” Morales said. “If there are businesses out there that are struggling in any way, they should talk to Toolbox. They’re a great resource for the community.”

Solis, the El Centro director, said the attention Munoz gives his clients goes beyond the everyday.

“When I can’t answer a client’s question, I say, ‘Ask Gabe! Go to the toolbox!’ The trust he’s built with the community is essential,” she says.

Since its launch, Toolbox has helped 115 entrepreneurs start their businesses, and an additional 225 individual entrepreneurs have been supported, 70% of whom were immigrant entrepreneurs, Muñoz said.

“We’ve had a lot of people tell us they want to do what we do, but I don’t think we have a secret formula. We just go out and talk to people,” says Muñoz. “We started with zero capital and built our brand through word of mouth.”

While encouraging other entrepreneurs to grow, Muñoz said Toolbox also has goals of its own: to open locations in other Kansas cities and expand programs to languages ​​beyond English and Spanish.

Meanwhile, Munoz continues to diversify Kansas City’s entrepreneurial landscape and show others that they don’t have to wait for strangers in suits to validate their dreams.

A version of this article appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of The Journal, a publication of the Kansas Leadership Center. For more information about KLC, visit http://kansasleadershipcenter.org. Order the magazine at the KLC store or subscribe to the print edition.

More stories