Media Garcia, a Hispanic-owned marketing-tech consultant, has tripled its staff in the past year and expects double-digit growth in 2023 sales thanks to a refocused business strategy.
In the early days of St. Paul-based Media Garcia, Founder and CEO Louis Garcia faced the challenge of keeping his business profitable while wanting to “liberate small business owners from inefficient marketing and sales processes.” He learned that in order to accomplish his mission, he had to take a step back from small businesses that couldn’t afford his services.
Media Garcia has taken on larger clients to increase its bottom line and expertise. Currently, many of Media Garcia’s clients are midsize companies with revenues ranging from $3 million to $30 million across the country. Also, most of Media Garcia’s clients are in manufacturing, technology and software service industries. To handle the company’s growth, the firm has expanded from a team of five to 16 employees in the past year and is on track to beat last year’s revenue by 40%.
Garcia first launched the firm as a side hustle in 2009 as a web development company. At the time, he was working in the IT department of Minneapolis-based Target Corp.
After taking the plunge into full-time entrepreneurship in 2016, Garcia realized that many of his clients needed assistance in marketing processes. In 2017, he focused his company solely on marketing.
Now, Media Garcia’s real bread and butter is helping companies efficiently utilize technical marketing tools.
Garcia’s career got to a slow start. He dropped out of his first college enrollment, and his attempt at starting a computer repair business didn’t get far off the ground. However, he caught a break when he landed a job at Target in 2005. While there, he received training in the IT department and taught himself to code. He also continued his education at Concordia University to earn his bachelor’s in information technology management. He spent nearly 12 years at Target in various job roles including engineer, business analyst and lead project manager.
A catalyst to his company’s growth, Garcia said, was his relationship with Meda, a Minneapolis-based organization that helps diverse entrepreneurs grow their businesses. The organization’sguidance and support was pivotal for the company’s survival, he said. Garcia participated in a number of Meda programs, including its mini MBA and grant programs. There, he learned how to implement and maintain the mindset and behaviors of entrepreneurship, which he says is the most challenging aspect of owning a business.
Garcia is planning to target even larger companies in the future. And he’s still growing his team, as he needs experienced partners take on the next stage of growth.
Despite taking on larger companies, Garcia said small businesses are still at the heart of his mission. He resonates with risk takers and hopes that by expanding he can lower the bleak failure rates among small businesses.
Garcia’s mission-driven business is, in many ways, following the footsteps of women in his family, he said.
“I had matriarchs in my family who were resilient and hardworking and looking for ways to provide value to their communities,” Garcia said. He gave the example of his abuelita who supported her community through starting a micro-finance lending business that she launched after teaching herself a basic education.
“Now, I do it with computers and tech,” Garcia said.