Helping Small Businesses Dream Bigger in Texas

Business, Growth, & Entrepreneurship

Small business is the engine that drives every level of the American economy—national, state, and municipal. In Dallas-Fort Worth, 99.6 percent of all firms are small businesses.

Dallas consistently ranks among the top U.S. and global cities in fostering entrepreneurship. In the second half of 2024, DFW ranked first among all U.S. metro areas in small-business job growth.

JPMorganChase is among the local companies that have helped to make this possible. Not only a major local employer and longstanding member of the city’s business community, we have also served as the banker for a quarter of a million local small businesses. We are supporting our clients with the financial investments, tools, resources, advocacy, training, coaching, and philanthropic capital they need to grow.

“We try to make things as fluid as possible for every stage within a company’s life cycle,” says Christie Douglas, a JPMorganChase Vice President in Commercial Banking in Dallas. “What’s great about Chase,” Douglas says, “is that we’re large when we need to be, and we’re small when we need to be.”

Realizing a Vision

La La Land Kind Cafe opened in Dallas in 2019 with a remarkable mission: To provide 360-degree support—including on-the-job and customer-service training, mentorship, job placement, housing, schooling, and therapy—to youths transitioning from foster care to adulthood.

Since then, La La Land, with JPMorganChase’s assistance, has scaled up, with 17 locations in Texas alone and twenty-three locations in total. As it has grown, the company has relied on its relationship with JPMorganChase for everything from mentorship to financial services.

Francois Reihani, the founder and CEO of La La Land, attests to the importance of the relationship with JPMorganChase. “On an everyday basis, people don’t understand how having the right people there makes a massive difference,” he says. “For any small business, having a great banking partner is critical.”

Redefining Banking in Underserved Communities

In addition to the commercial banking services that help La La Land Kind Café grow, JPMorganChase also engages local entrepreneurs and small business owners in historically underbanked neighborhoods at 19 Community Center Branches nationwide, including two in Texas.

The Community Center model seeks to transform community banking into community building: a network of relationships at whose heart is the one between a JPMorganChase Community Manager and a client.

In 2021, JPMorganChase opened a Community Center in Dallas’s underserved Oak Cliff neighborhood. “Our Community Managers are a bridge between the community and the bank,” says Omar Monsivais, a Community Manager at the Oak Cliff center. “We’re connectors.”

Community Managers build and nurture relationships with community leaders, nonprofit partners, and small businesses at the neighborhood level to mobilize all of JPMorganChase’s human and capital resources for the benefit of our clients. They also provide free coaching and workshops on topics like wealth-building for entrepreneurs, pitching a start-up, and managing business finances; host events, leveraging JPMorganChase’s networks across the local small-business ecosystem; and, they make introductions to senior business consultants, who can offer additional insight and assistance.

Regional directors, marketing directors, bankers, and associate bankers regularly take part in the Oak Cliff Community Center’s events, seeking out opportunities to make themselves available to, and support, emerging entrepreneurs.

“We've got a ton of phenomenal small businesses,” Monsivais observes, “but they often close within the first few years—not because they're not good at what they do, but because they don't have the right team to support them.”

The Community Center helps diverse-owned businesses grow, scale, and create new jobs. It improves access to home ownership and other wealth-building resources. And it overcomes another barrier—what Monsivais refers to as banking’s “intimidation factor.” He recalls a local event at which a JPMorganChase small-business specialist spoke. “Afterward, folks all came over and started asking questions,” Monsivais says. “I think it just kind of brought that wall down for them.”

JPMorganChase has supported upwards of 780,000 small businesses in Texas at every step of their journey to grow and scale. Through our 485 branches across the state, we’re working with local organizations and accelerators that provide resources and funding in Fort Worth to minority entrepreneurs and businesses owners. Small businesses are the backbone of Dallas-Fort Worth’s economy. When JPMorganChase can help them flourish, the ripple effects—an increased tax base, new jobs, philanthropy—are outsized, with benefits that extend beyond a single community.

“People go to the bank to open up a checking account, not necessarily to get help or education around their business,” says Monsivais. “Chase Community Centers show communities and their small-business owners that JPMorganChase is much more than a place to open a checking account: We can help them succeed.”

Learn more about how JPMorganChase powers economic growth in Dallas-Fort Worth at https://www.jpmorganchase.com/communities/dallas.

The testimonials are the sole opinions or experiences of those featured and not those of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. or any of its affiliates. These opinions or experiences may not be representative of what all may achieve. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. or any of its affiliates are not liable for decisions made or actions taken in reliance on any of the testimonial information provided.