![Sophomore Pamela Martinez enjoys breakfast with her family at Cafe on 27, a small breakfast spot in Topanga. She said that she found the place while scorlling on the LikeAFriendSaid Instagram page. Photo courtesy Pamela Martinez](https://pepperdine-graphic.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-01-28-a-las-2.47.49 p.m-1024x743.png)
Malibu is home to a variety of shopping centers and retail establishments, many of which are owned by local vendors. The Instagram account LikeAFriendSaid (LAFS) gives local small businesses in Malibu a platform to grow.
Pepperdine alumna Sabrina Canario (’20) started the blog-style account a mere seven months ago, and with its growing success, her purpose for the account stays unwavering.
“We have a distinct purpose to support small business owners,” Canario said. “We want to help give them inside perspective and formulate a community.”
The Start of LAFS
Canario, who abruptly left Malibu when the pandemic started, came back in 2021 after graduation with the idea of starting her own marketing agency, Canario Agency. She said that with her experience in the marketing world, she saw an opportunity to help struggling small local businesses who had been affected by COVID-19.
“I decided to offer marketing services to small businesses only in Malibu,” Canario said.
Eventually, as the company gained traction and bigger clients, she was able to dedicate more time to her passion project: LikeAFriendSaid.
LikeAFriendSaid is an Instagram newsletter that highlights local spots in Malibu, delivered to the audience in the form of a short reel. Canario said that at their core, their purpose is to create a space where small local business owners can reach a bigger audience and community.
“I’ve always felt really attached to small businesses and Malibu,” Canario said. “I’m an authentic customer, so I try to find angles that are newsworthy.”
Canario has made the decision of keeping her identity separate from the account, as she says that LikeAFriendSaid is a project separate from her other businesses, with its own purposes and goals.
“Canario Agency is definitely my background,” Canario said. “But I really want them to be separate brands, different living pieces.”
Expanding LAFS
With the growing success of the account, people from neighboring cities started noticing and asking for recommendations on local businesses to support in their area.
“When it started growing, we had more demand in Topanga,” Canario said. “We want to make sure that when we expand, it makes sense to our audience.”
Sophomore Pamela Martinez, who recently stayed in Topanga with her family, said she used the reels posted on LikeAFriendSaid to find local businesses to support during her time there.
“I took my family to the best places in Malibu where I live, and Topanga where we stayed,” Martinez said. “Casita Basqueria and Canyon Gourmet are some of the places we visited thanks to the reels in the LikeAFriendSaid account.”
Before the Jan. L.A. County fires, the account had been working on their plans to expand and begin covering the Pacific Palisades.
Canario said the future of that reporting is yet to be determined.
“Hopefully we’re eventually going to cover the whole city,” Canario said. “But we have specific focus on hyper-niche neighborhood news, with a distinct purpose to support small business owners.”
LAFS Response To Fires
Although the account intends to remain a newsletter and has no intention of being a news source, as part of the affected community, Canario said she felt the need to step up and use her platform to help during the L.A. County fires.
“We became somewhat of a news source for the fire,” Canario said. “It was challenging to make sure that information was accurate and we were posting the right stuff.”
LikeAFriendSaid remained as a source of information throughout the weeks as the fires unfolded, posting updates, sharing victim relief locations, highlighting volunteer opportunities and creating a compilation of ongoing GoFundMes.
Senior Sofia Hernandez, who said she knew many who lost their homes, reached out to the account in hopes of getting her friend’s GoFundMe page on the ongoing list to get more help.
“One of my friends lost her home and I decided to create a GoFundMe page for her,” Hernandez said. “I reached out to the account because I know how much people in the community leaned on them for information.”
The account itself also began their own fundraising efforts by creating two crewneck designs that feature maps of Malibu and the Palisades.
![The final design of the fundraising crewnecks is for sale on LikeAFriendSaid's page. Canario said she wanted to make a design that highlighted all the affected areas, and make it something she would personally wear. Photo courtesy of Sabrina Canario](https://pepperdine-graphic.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-01-26-a-las-12.32.13 p.m-1024x521.png)
“We were on Google Maps, tapping into streets and making sure we had all the roads in the right spot,” Canario said. “Trying to step up and do it in the right way and in a timely manner was really challenging.”
Canario said that 100% of the proceeds sold from the Malibu sweatshirt will go toward helping small businesses in Malibu, and the proceeds from the Palisades sweatshirt to small business in the Pacific Palisades.
“It can be worrisome to fully trust GoFundMes,” Canario said. “I was donating to the animal shelters and the LAFD so with the crewnecks, I know where the money is going.”
Into the Future of LAFS
The account has big plans for the future, especially trying to focus on event planning, which Canario said has posed some of their biggest challenges.
“It is very hard to get licensing to do anything in Malibu,” Canario said. “That is why a lot of small businesses suffer.”
The brand is also adding a 501c3 non-profit organization under the Canario umbrella, which will allow them to organize more events, as per Malibu’s regulations.
LikeAFriendSaid has hosted multiple successful events in Malibu already, among them a pickleball tournament in partnership with SunLife Organics and a beach event sponsored by Poppi.
![Sabrina Canario (left), owner of LikeAFriendSaid, sits at the beach with her friend at one of the organized beach events in Malibu. She said that due to Malibu regulations, it cost her money out of her own pocket to hold this event at Zuma beach. Photo courtesy of Sabrina Canario](https://pepperdine-graphic.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-01-26-a-las-12.23.15 p.m-1024x779.png)
“Once things start to feel a little bit better, we’re going to do some more events,” Canario said. “We’ve definitely had demand to keep doing them.”
In hopes of expanding further, the account has plans of sharing with its audience a closer look into the experiences of small business owners.
“We have had a few viral videos,” Canario said. “There will be a video up soon with an account of five different testimonials of the business owners we had those viral videos with.”
Canario said they are looking forward to adding an interview-style series to the account, where small business owners will be able to tell their stories more personally.
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Contact Karla Suzuki via email: karla.suzuki@pepperdine.edu