At Rockland Trust, helping existing and aspiring small business owners start and grow their businesses is part of our foundational DNA. By supporting those across Massachusetts — from the North Shore to Worcester to the Cape we believe in giving business owners the best chance to shine. When businesses thrive, our communities thrive.
We’re in the 7th year of our annual Small Business, Big Dreams contest. Each year, we narrow down hundreds of submissions to three finalists for the ultimate prize — $20,000 to support and grow their dreams.
Meet Our 2024 Rockland Trust Small Business, Big Dreams Finalists
- Alexandre (Lex) Daluz is the owner and founder of Marvelous Cuts and Marvelous Barber Lounge, located in Brockton and downtown Boston. Offering hair services and hair care, Marvelous Cuts is a barbershop renowned for its unique hair art that specializes in a personal, relationship-oriented experience.
- Christina Herald is the owner and founder of Fall River Vision, located in Fall River. While Fall River Vision has a brick-and-mortar location focusing on dry eye and ocular disease, Dr. Herald’s true vision is focused on a mobile optometry service that provides personal care to local residents who are unable to visit a traditional office.
- Oscar Zepeda is the co-owner and co-founder of Real Zepeda. Bringing the exquisite taste of genuine Mexican tequila to America, Real Zepeda provides consumers, restaurants and liquor stores in Massachusetts, and several other states, with quality products while embracing Mexican representation.
Building Relationships Builds a Business
Though our finalists offer different products and services, they all embody the fact that small, local businesses bring people together. Each of the three finalists understands the significance of creating relationships with customers and partners to drive success and enrich lives.
Dig deeper into each finalist’s story to see how they leverage relationships and plan to grow their entrepreneurial endeavors.
Fall River Vision: Bringing Care to People
For Dr. Christina Herald, a tragedy transformed into a passion when the death of a family friend due to a vision-related accident inspired her to become an optometrist. The illness of a relative then challenged her to take that dream one step further by providing mobile services for those who aren’t able to visit a traditional clinical facility.
Dr. Herald doesn’t underestimate the impact of her business and its unique model, which aids underserved patients through at-home visits. “When you go into someone’s home, it’s really special,” she said. “We’ve had patients say we’ve changed their lives completely.”
Aside from serving more patients with these specialized services, Fall River Vision providers can help fix issues that a traditional office provider may not catch. For example, Dr. Herald explained that home-bound patients sometimes have issues watching screens or using devices to communicate, but the problem can be solved with the relocation of the screen or device.
Between her mobile services and brick-and-mortar office, Dr. Herald and her staff provide comprehensive vision services including lid-cleaning, front-eye function tests, dry eye and ocular disease prevention and treatment. She works with primary care physicians to ensure full-body health care and prides herself on her long-term solutions and preventive care efforts.
In the future, Dr. Herald hopes to continue growing and transforming her mobile services to better treat and educate those who need help, but may have issues with access. “The most important thing to me is making sure people are being met where they’re at and things are being explained in a way that people can understand.”
Marvelous Cuts: Turning Haircuts Into Community
When Lex first began cutting hair at just 12 years old, he didn’t think it would become his entire life. The son of a barber himself, Lex once dreamed of designing cars — he ended up taking his love of art to the barber’s chair instead.
While Marvelous Cuts’ two locations (and third on the way) offer a variety of hair care and services, the business struck gold by providing customers with unique hair art alongside the kind of customer relationships that can only be formed in the barber’s chair.
You might have seen some of Lex's work on ESPN or The Kelly Clarkson Show, or even on the court at a Celtics game. Even with these achievements, he prides himself most on his business’s ability to bring people together.
“Barbering is therapy for people,” Lex said. “We have conversations. Our clients become friends; they become mentors or mentees. We have amazing conversations. I often think, ‘Wow. I wish I’d recorded that conversation.’”
That may just be in the cards for Marvelous Cuts, which has a studio space Lex plans to use for recording a podcast, tentatively titled “Barber Talk.” This is only one of many growth plans he has for the business, including the imminent opening of his third location in Watertown and a line of beard care products.
In the meantime, he’s committed to using his current spaces as a lounge and safe haven for customers: a barbershop that provides more than just a haircut. “We want it to feel like a place where everybody can gather, everybody can feel safe, everybody can feel proud to come into. It’s a place you want to remember. You have that memory for a lifetime.”
Real Zepeda: Bringing Representation Across the Border
When Oscar moved from Mexico to the United States on a college soccer scholarship more than a decade ago, he felt disheartened by the common misconception of his beloved Mexican spirit.
“Tequila has this big reputation that you’re going to have a crazy night, or you’re going to have a very rough morning, and now you hate tequila,” he said. “And that’s very unfair. Tequila is something you can savor, something you can experience.”
Alongside his father, he founded Real Zepeda to change the perception of tequila and combat another rising challenge: lack of representation of the people behind the spirit itself.
Noting the rise of celebrity-backed and internationally-owned brands crowding the market, Oscar and his father created Real Zepeda to put ownership back in the hands of those who share their heritage.
“The big companies and big players in the industry aren’t Mexican-owned,” he said. “That’s shifted the focus on who really needs to be highlighted, which is our jimadores, our agave farmers back home, our workers, our immigrants who are consuming the product and doing the hard work. So that celebratory cultural representation was very important for us.”
Oscar and the team at Real Zepeda have made community a pillar of their organization, not just in Mexico but also in the U.S. with their Massachusetts-based packaging facility.
Real Zepeda specializes in high-quality products that reduce methanol and ethanol content beyond industry standards to create a more enjoyable spirit for consumers. They offer products including blanco, reposado and high-end tequilas in restaurants and liquor stores across several states. Real Zepeda aims to similarly reach consumers who want to balance quality mixed cocktails with an affordable premium drink option.
As they grow, Oscar hopes to bolster their marketing efforts to compete with bigger brands while continuing to share his cultural pride with tequila fans throughout the U.S.
Key Takeaway: People Make the Business
No matter the type of business or industry, relationships are key for a successful small business. The people around your small business make the difference — from customers who bring in joy and profits, to the employees who help the business function, and the advisors who support you along the way to reach your dreams. Taking your passion and turning it into a chance to connect with those around you is critical to forming a long-standing operation that continues to grow and flourish.
If you’re interested in turning an idea into a business, it’s also important to build relationships with the right team. Those partners can inspire you, support you and help you navigate roadblocks so you can achieve success.
