Event brings three successful entrepreneurs together to share the lessons, challenges and decisions behind growing their businesses
One helped turn a modest family restaurant into one of the Sacramento region’s most recognizable dining brands. Another started as a solo entrepreneur before building a five-location medical aesthetics practice. The third spent 24 years climbing the corporate ladder at Intel before taking her experience into a decidedly different world as a fitness and wellness entrepreneur.
Wednesday morning, those three very different journeys will come together in Folsom, where business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs and others looking to grow an idea will have an opportunity to hear firsthand about the successes, setbacks and decisions that come with expansion.
Choose Folsom will bring Kotaro “Taro” Arai of Mikuni Restaurant Group, Shawna Chrisman of Destination Aesthetics Medical Spa and Michelle Watts of YogaSix together for its latest Folsom Focus program, “Business Over Breakfast,” beginning at 7:45 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 890 Glenn Drive.
The program will go beyond the success stories to explore what happens behind the scenes when an entrepreneur decides it is time to take a business beyond its first location. Building the right team, maintaining company culture, navigating growing pains and learning when to let go of responsibilities are among the topics on the table.
It’s a subject each of Wednesday’s panelists knows firsthand.
Arai, known as the “Chief Dreaming Officer” of Mikuni Restaurant Group, has a business story that began long before Mikuni became a familiar name across the Sacramento region.
Born on the Japanese island of Kyushu, Arai came to the United States as a teenager after his father moved the family to America to pastor a Japanese-speaking Christian church. In 1987, Arai’s parents opened a modest Japanese restaurant in Fair Oaks called Mikuni.
The road that followed was not always easy, but the family business ultimately grew from five family members serving about 30 customers a day to a company with approximately 1,000 employees serving an estimated 1.8 million people annually. More than three decades after that first restaurant opened, Mikuni has become one of the region’s most recognizable restaurant businesses.
Arai, a master chef known for putting his own spin on traditional Japanese-style sushi, has helped lead that expansion while developing a menu that includes hundreds of original creations. Mikuni has also made philanthropy part of its identity, raising more than $4.5 million for local charitable organizations through its charitable efforts.
For Wednesday’s audience, Arai’s experience offers a real-world example of how a small family operation can become a major regional brand while maintaining the culture and identity on which it was built. Mikuni’s Folsom restaurant also gives his story a direct local connection.
Chrisman’s entrepreneurial journey began in a very different setting.
A board-certified nurse practitioner, Chrisman founded Destination Aesthetics Medical Spa in 2011 as a solo venture. She had previously built a career in hospital medicine before entering the medical aesthetics field and starting a business that would grow far beyond its beginnings.
Destination Aesthetics now has five locations across the greater Sacramento area and grew into one of the nation’s fastest-growing medical spas, reaching a Top 10 Allergan account ranking in the United States within eight years.
Chrisman has also developed a national presence in the medical aesthetics industry. She is an Allergan Medical Institute educator for injectables and SkinMedica, an active industry speaker and panelist, and serves in advisory roles focused on medical aesthetics and business growth.
Her business accomplishments have included recognition as a Sacramento Top 100 Business Leader by the Sacramento Business Journal in 2021 and the publication’s Women Who Mean Business award in 2019.
In 2023, Destination Aesthetics joined Advanced MedAesthetic Partners, where Chrisman continues as a managing partner and chief aesthetics officer. Her role now includes financial strategy, operational efficiency, expansion and scalable growth — many of the same challenges at the heart of Wednesday’s conversation.
Watts brings yet another perspective, one that could resonate with many professionals in a community with deep ties to the technology industry.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Watts spent 24 years at Intel in a global career spanning finance, sales and marketing leadership roles in England and the United States. She led global teams, spoke before thousands of employees and customers and became active in women’s leadership and mentoring efforts within the company.
Watts was recognized as a CRN Power 100 Woman of the Channel and spent several years on the Women of the Channel Leadership Board.
Eventually, she traded the corporate world for entrepreneurship and a longtime passion for fitness and wellness. Watts owns YogaSix El Dorado Hills and the new YogaSix Folsom location at Palladio. Her studios rank among the top 10 YogaSix franchises nationally.
Her life outside the office also reflects that focus on performance and endurance. Watts has run the Boston Marathon and previously taught dance, blending those experiences with the leadership skills developed during more than two decades in corporate America.
Together, the three speakers offer three distinctly different answers to a question familiar to entrepreneurs: What happens after the first idea works?
Arai brings the experience of transforming a small family restaurant into a regional brand. Chrisman brings the perspective of building a solo venture into a multi-location company and eventually becoming part of a larger national organization. Watts offers the transition from longtime corporate executive to entrepreneur and multi-location franchise owner.
The discussion will focus on the lessons, challenges and decisions that shaped those journeys, including recognizing when it is time to expand, assembling the right team, maintaining company culture and managing the inevitable growing pains that accompany taking a business from one location to several.
The program is geared not only toward established business owners considering their next move, but also aspiring entrepreneurs and those in the early stages of building a company. Breakfast and networking are also part of the morning program.
Folsom Focus: Business Over Breakfast begins at 7:45 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 890 Glenn Drive in Folsom. Tickets and additional event information are available at ChooseFolsom.com.
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