OEN Member NewsBreaking Barriers: The Journey of a Minority Business Owner in Portland

OEN partner and founder of XC Design, Xuan Cheng, shared her thoughts on being an entrepreneur and why working with other entrepreneurs is her North Star. 

I’ve been a graphic designer for nearly two decades. I understand the industry in and out but that still didn’t prepare me to run a successful business. Being a business owner, I didn’t realize the amount of time I would spend strategizing and developing the business. I couldn’t fully appreciate that at the end of the day, it’s on me to provide food on the table for my team. I had to learn a tremendous amount to understand how to run a business in a short amount of time.

One of the challenges in the earliest days was realizing that it was not sustainable to run the business by myself. In order to create an efficient business, I needed to hire people to help with things I personally wasn’t good at. Which meant I had to learn H.R. very quickly. When I brought in a co-founder to fill out the different fields, there were so many questions – and answers – I had to seek out myself like employment law, navigating contracts, company benefits, salary negotiations, and so much more on a daily basis. I did not do everything correctly but I learned and grew along the way.

Having a co-founder who understood the ecosystem and had a business background was extremely helpful. We were able to bounce business ideas off each other. In time, my co-founder was able to take meetings when I was overbooked. One vital part of our success was being supportive and having the ability to help others grow. At the end of 2022, my co-founder decided to step down to pursue his own company. The transition was particularly hard for me because I suddenly felt alone. Things that I had depended on my co-founder to fill in, now came back to needing to do and figure out myself. However, the fact that “I couldn’t run the business by myself” wasn’t entirely true. I re-evaluated my situation, expanded my skill set, and picked up the pieces to keep going. We are now still collaborating on a different scale with the same mission to help startups grow.

I’ve grown a lot in this space and really love the relationships I’ve built with the companies we support. Seeing the circular impact my business has on companies’ end users is rewarding. Watching them launch successful products and support their own customers makes me excited. I’ve been in Portland’s entrepreneurial ecosystem for about 5 years now and I appreciate how close-knit it is. We’ve gotten to collaborate with so many different types of companies in different sectors. I’m extremely grateful for the support of Himalaya Rao-Potlapally, Cara Turano, Juan Barraza, Angela Jackson, Ross Barbieri, Arsh Haque, Abigail Van Gelder, Sal D’Auria, Jonah Peskin, and many others – who truly believe in me, and empower and encourage me to keep going.

I’m hoping to create a small impact with my story on all BIPOC women who think they can’t do it by themselves. I am on a mission to help companies amplify their vision with my skills and experience. With this genuine mission, I think I can go far and I hope other women of color feel inspired to launch their own businesses. There is never a perfect time or a stage where you will know all the steps before you start. The important thing is that I took the leap- and through all the highs and lows- it’s been worth it.