What used to be a hair salon, and one of the United Cambodian Community’s (UCC) small business clients, was recently transformed into a business incubator after years of planning.
The newly formed Khmer Town Samaki Center plans to incorporate arts, collections (as in goods or physical items) and cultural activities, as well as function as a business incubator space. The space will help small business owners and entrepreneurs who are looking to start up a business but can’t afford a full-time location.
The Program Manager for the UCC’s Economic Inclusion Department, Don Pin, said they initially didn’t have space for the center, but after Sophie’s Beauty Salon moved locations, they decided to purchase the property and start there first instead of waiting for a new center.
“We’re going to start and try to incorporate that — bring the culture in, but also support entrepreneurs, whoever that may be, that want to utilize the space and kind of provide [for] the underserved community that can’t afford the brick and mortar,” Pin said.
They also plan to lease the space, whether a wall or a corner, for vendors or small business owners to operate inside of the Samaki Center either on an hourly, daily or monthly basis.
Pin said the maximum number of vendors the center can have at one time is three. Ideally, they want the vendors to operate in person so they can interact with the community and learn how it feels to own a brick and mortar.
“The rent increase is pretty high right now, if they were to just try to lease a space … they can probably rent for the weekend for a few hours and instead of paying 1,000s of dollars on monthly rent,” Pin said.
Pin said the Samaki Center’s public business incubator program will be limited and said they may have a cohort of five vendors training entrepreneurs on formalizing a business and navigating the process of selling inside a brick and mortar. He envisions that if a business completes the program, they will receive a free month of incubator space inside the Samaki Center towards the end of the incubator program.
“Why jump into a space where you’re gonna be in the negative already if you feel like your product isn’t ready yet? Let’s test it out here first and then we can continue … whether build on their success or maybe they can learn from their mistakes before they jump out here,” he said.
The Samaki Center will also host book readings, open mics and anything that can shine a light on talented artists in Long Beach. They also plan on doing an art exhibition every quarter — four exhibitions per year — allowing artists to sell their work, with the center taking a small commission to keep the space open.
The center will be hosting its second exhibition, titled, “Identity Through Life Experiences,” from July 1 through Sept. 18 as artists explore the theme of identity through personal, cultural and relationship challenges.
“Art plays a big factor in creativity… in order to sustain themselves, to continue doing art, you have to earn some kind of money to do it and we want to recognize that,” Pin said.
The overarching goal for the center is to become a place where visitors can learn more about Cambodian culture and locals can safely hang out.
“If they [community members] were to have a center where they can meet up, discuss ideas, read books and actually learn about new makers and small businesses out here that they can support, that could be great,” Pin said. “So it’s a place to learn stories but also it’s a place for a community to come together.”
According to Pin, this version of the Samaki Center is temporary, as they’re still building out the temporary structure. They’re also planning on building a larger permanent space in the next few years that has room to build things like a commercial kitchen.
Pin said they plan on opening the center to vendors in August on a semiweekly basis from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
To learn more about the Samaki Center, check out their Instagram for more updates.
