By providing tailored mentorship, program participants will feel more confident with their entrepreneurship skills, build stronger relationships within the Little Saigon neighborhood, and benefit from local small business support resources.

Access to local small business leaders, resources, and events will help mentees deepen their roots in Little Saigon. Program participants will transform public spaces with their services and goods and add to a more vibrant, culturally significant, and welcoming neighborhood for all. This program aims to increase economic activity in the neighborhood and get small businesses on the path to opening a brick-and-mortar in Little Saigon, and fill vacant spaces in the community.

Equipping entrepreneurs with the knowledge, connections, and tools for long-term viability and growth encourages a healthy level of economic activity in Little Saigon’s commercial core.

My name is Bảo (he/him) and I love a good question. Precise. Expansive. Fearless. A question like that requires some skill and patience. A question like that takes us where we truly need to go. My questions are shaped by Viet Nam and Seattle, war and immigration, catfish and salmon, temples, beaches, Little Saigon, chemistry at UW, masters in leadership at UVM, rain showers, rituals, stories and songs, meditations.

I currently operate Phin, a quiet cafe, and co-operate Dragonfly, a Vietnamese waffle mix producer. Through these spaces I explore entrepreneurship as a vehicle for personal development and social change by redefining success to not only include the financial but also the personal and the communal. As a mentor, I support mentees in developing and leveraging their unique and whole selves in their work in order to create something meaningful and sustainable.

I’m Sophia Trịnh, and I believe in the power of art to heal. I’ve loved painting for as long as I can remember and often say art was my first language—I could understand color and images before I could fully speak words.

As a mentor, I focus on helping artists build confidence while navigating both the creative and practical sides of sustaining an art practice. My experience bridges corporate and creative spaces, including over a decade working as a program manager in design and marketing before pursuing art full-time. I also bring hands-on experience running an online art shop since college, where I’ve learned how to grow a creative business, connect with customers, and adapt continuously.

I’m passionate about supporting the local creative economy by working with local printers and partnering with neighborhood shops to sell and display artwork. I now teach watercolor workshops from my Capitol Hill studio and help individuals identify their intrinsic motivations as a certified Reiss Motivation Profile coach.

I am an artist and educator exploring photography, typography, mixed media, and multimedia. My journey in the arts and culture industry began as a high school yearbook photographer in Little Rock, Arkansas, leading me to launching a photography business for advertising and magazine commissions while attending college in Austin, Texas. After relocating to New York City, my creative role evolved into a designer and art director for unique projects. Moving to Seattle, I transitioned into a tenured instructor position for a visual communications program in higher education. Outside the classroom, my current studio practice involves collaborations with nonprofits and municipalities, which guided me to co-found a cooperative art gallery centering BIPOC artists and to focus on producing site-specific public art installations. These combined lifelong experiences have led me to become a mentor with a Washington state mentorship program and other learning opportunities to motivate the next generation of creative entrepreneurs.

Hong and his family have been in the retail food and beverage business for decades, and they currently own and operate King Donuts in Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood. As refugees from Cambodia, Hong and his family see entrepreneurship as a path toward self-sufficiency. King Donuts is proud of being a family-owned and operated enterprise, and its multi-generational ownership structure has made it possible for the business to evolve and adopt modernized tools like online ordering and payments, social media marketing, and websites. Hong’s primary contributions to the business include administrative and financial oversight, marketing and brand development, media and external relations, and leveraging small business funding opportunities and technical support. He can sometimes be found behind the counter serving customers, and loves being a taste tester for new donut flavors and creating additional offerings for our beverage line-up.