Immigrant Hustle Plus Strategy Set Business Partners Up for Success

By Nancy Dahlberg

Grit and hustle can get your small business off the ground, but strategic thinking and planning can put the company on a strong growth trajectory and ensure its sustainability. Reliance Contractors is an example of that.

Reliance Contractors is a Miami-based facility support services company owned by Joshua Becker and Erika Lennis, and almost everything that they do is for federal agencies. "We have federal projects in almost every single state in the continental United States. We're also in Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico. We hold a little over 140 federal janitorial, waste management and toilet service providing contracts," Becker said.

The Florida APEX Accelerator at FIU Business and the Florida Small Business Development Center at FIU Business have helped Reliance Contractors in recent years. Becker recalled one of his first meetings with Florida APEX Accelerator consultant Luis Batista, a specialist in government contracting and procurement, who said he was surprised they had made as much progress as they had without having tapped into resources and programs available to them, such as the Small Business Administration's 8(a), GSA and Mentor-Mentee programs. With the help of these programs and certifications, they could reel in much larger contracts, he told them.

"Luis came in, and he really helped us strategize. We literally want to hit every single avenue."

– Joshua Becker

"Luis came in, and he really helped us strategize," said Becker. "We literally want to hit every single avenue."

Becker and Lennis started the company in 2014 with just $500; that money enabled them to register their business on sunbiz.org, put up their website and get a logo designed. A family friend suggested they get into contracting – and that's when their immigrant hustle really kicked in.

"My mother is a Cuban immigrant. Erika was born in Venezuela. It was a matter of us just trying to change where we came from and not go through that paycheck-to-paycheck situation," Becker said.

They started with a small contract, both physically cleaning bathrooms in a small daycare. Then they had a project in Lee County, Florida, cleaning a library for five years and that opened up another door for a regional project with a town in Broward County, Becker explained. "And then our first-ever federal project was in Key West – the United States Army Special Forces Underwater Operations Training Center – and we still have that project. That was our foot in the door on the federal side."

It's been rippling effects since then, including contracts for Coast Guard stations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stations and even miniature detention centers, said Becker. "We also do Mount Rushmore."