Small Business Expo to take place in Milpitas in April

Coming up on Saturday, April 20, the Social Ground Foundation, a Milpitas nonprofit founded and headed by Timothy Alcorn, will be hosting the 2024 Small Business Expo, an event where Milpitas businesses can gather to learn, connect, and grow. 

The Beat spoke with Alcorn by phone. He was openly excited and energized about hosting the expo: “If you look around,” he said, “Milpitas has hundreds of small businesses. Small businesses are the heart and soul of Milpitas…”

Highlighting the fact that this event is “the first of its kind,” Alcorn stated a need on the part of Milpitas residents and workers to support the businesses around them. “At one point,” he said, “Apple was a small business in a garage. At one point, Intel was a small business in a garage…”

He also cited how Elon Musk, long before becoming the world’s wealthiest person, lived in his office because he could not afford to rent an apartment at the same time.

“What future multimillion-dollar small business is here in Milpitas right now, right under our noses?” Alcorn wondered aloud.

Fiona Ma, from the California State Treasurer’s Office, will be in attendance at the expo, as well as representatives from California State Assemblymember Alex Lee’s office. Also on hand will be Vance Roush, Founder and CEO of Overflow, along with key figures from ascending Milpitas businesses Keyes Law Group and Dragon Auto, among many others.

“My goal,” said Alcorn, “is for every single person who attends to leave with a resource that they did not have before that will boost their business.” 

“Without businesses,” he added, “you have nothing, man. You got business and you got religion. Your clothes, your phone – almost everything you own came from a business.” Going deeper, he said that through business “We can express our creativity and our gifts and our talents and our ideas to the world. When you put something out and the world affirms it, that’s such a special feeling.”

The 2024 Small Business Expo will take place on April 20 at 691 S. Milpitas Blvd. Learn more about the expo here.