With National Small Business Week starting Sunday, Apple profiled three small businesses Wednesday, describing how they harness Apple products to grow.
In addition, the company will feature “Grow Your Business with Apple” Today at Apple sessions next week in select U.S. cities.
How Apple empowers small businesses to grow
In Apple’s small business feature story, “the founders of Kids of Immigrants, Señor Sisig and Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo share how they’ve harnessed the Apple ecosystem to grow their companies over the years,” the company said.
The piece describes how those three businesses, among others, use Apple hardware, software and services from the inception of a business idea all the way through opening their doors, serving customers and expanding to new levels.
3 small businesses rely on Apple for growth
Here’s how Apple briefly describes the three featured small businesses and their reliance on its products and services:
In Los Angeles, streetwear brand Kids of Immigrants uses iPad and Apple Pencil to bring its colorful pieces to life, and Mac to bring them to the world. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Señor Sisig, originally a small food truck business powered by iPad, has expanded into a local Filipino street food phenom using Apple Business Essentials and a fleet of Apple devices. And in the Philadelphia suburbs, Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo uses Tap to Pay on iPhone to speed up its checkout process and keep customers happy, and Apple Business Connect to manage its presence across the Apple ecosystem.
Kids of Immigrants
Photo: Apple
Living in Los Angeles’ Pico-Union district, just west of downtown, inspired Daniel Buezo and Weleh Dennis to start Kids of Immigrants, a streetwear brand. Pico-Union is a nexus of LA immigrant communities.
They stated with an iPhone and a friend’s MacBook Pro as they upcycled vintage clothing from thrift stores. But soon they added iPad (10th generation) and Pencil as they featured colorful items through drawings and animation with community-driven messaging.
The growing company is now powered mainly by Mac mini with Studio Display and a MacBook Pro.
“Mac mini and Studio Display serve us phenomenally in two separate areas of our business: product and design, and logistics and fulfillment,” said Christian Gray, director of operations. “Thanks to the technology and improvements Apple is consistently making through understanding its consumers, we’re constantly finding cool shrtcuts that help us be more efficient and dial everything in.”
Señor Sisig
Image: Apple
Señor Sisig is a Philippines-focused food truck operation in the San Francisco Bay Area that brings sisig, a spicy minced pork, to the masses in handheld forms like burritos and tacos.
The fledgling business relied on iPhone at first, but then turned to iPad when it first came out.
“I think iPad was really the thing that allowed us to grow as a mobile business; the timing of it was just great, because we were able to take payments on the go without having to rely only on cash,” said cofounder Evan Kidera.
Subsequently, Señor Sisig saw success using Apple Business Essentials, a service that combined device management with support and iCloud storage.
“We’ve been lucky enough to have some really good relationships with Apple business partners at different stores over the years,” Kidera said. “It feels more like a partnership than us just going into a store. We have a direct person we can talk about the new technology with as it comes out.”
The Sisig team also turned to Apple Business Connect, a free tool that lets businesses customize how they look and how they can be found across Apple apps.
“The goal is to ensure that people know they can use our place cards in Apple Maps not only as a way to get to our business through navigation, but also to order their food and complete their payment right from the Maps app,” Kidera said.
Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo
Photo: Apple
Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo started modestly in 2013, when married couple Franco Salerno and Wendy Ianieri-Salerno drew up a plan on the back of a napkin. Now it has a 3,500-square-foot showroom in a suburb north of Philadelphia.
What helped them expand? Here are a few key points:
- Employee scheduling requests are sent and approved using the Square Payroll app on iPhone.
- The team uses the LiveHelpNow app for iPhone and Mac to communicate directly with customers by text.
- Salerno logs into Apple Business Connect to update Darianna Bridal & Tuxedo’s place card with fresh photos, and uses the Showcase feature to promote upcoming events.
- While iPad with Square served as the store’s first cash register, now employees can use Tap to Pay on iPhone with the Square Point of Sale app to complete sales using just an iPhone.
Special Today at Apple session: ‘Growing Your Business With Apple’
Learn more about Apple’s special session for National Small Business Week, April 30 to May 6:
Select Apple Store locations in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Chicago will host Today at Apple sessions titled “Grow Your Business With Apple.” These free sessions offer small businesses expertise on how to make it easy to customize their presence across Apple apps with Apple Business Connect, accept payments with Tap to Pay on iPhone, and get support and manage devices with Apple Business Essentials. Businesses can also sign up for a virtual session scheduled for June 14. To learn more about Apple’s small business tools, visit apple.com/business/small-business.
