At UnidosUS's annual conference in Las Vegas this year, LTL's Juleyka Lantigua moderated a keynote conversation with the founder of the award-winning beauty brand during the event's Latinas Luncheon. Sandra opened up about the creative transition from rock musician to lifestyle entrepreneur, the business acumen and personal evolution required to grow Nopalera, and the powerful ways our choices as Latina consumers can generate community wealth.
Juleyka Lantigua: Hi everybody Juleyka here. Most of you know me as Alicia’s behind-the-scenes partner. But sometimes I get out of the studio and have some fun. This year, I had the absolute pleasure of moderating the Latina’s Luncheon at UnidosUS’s conference in Las Vegas. UnidosUS is the largest nonprofit Latino Advocacy group in the country. Rooted in decades of impactful programs they gather leaders from across many fields to empower Latinos. For the key note conversion I spoke with trailblazer entrepreneur, Sandra Velasquez, founder of beauty brand, Nopalera. We talked about many things: her pivot from rockera to jefa, the vision and courage that made Nopalera possible and the importance of Latina’s supporting one another in taking risks. Hope you enjoy our chat.
Please help me welcome our truly special guest, Sandra Velazquez.
All right, so how does one become a rockera? Tell me about this. We all need to understand because we're all bad asses, but you took it to the next level.
Sandra Velasquez: Well, my parents forced me to play the piano when I was five. Because my mother came from Mexico when she was an adult, she never had piano lessons or dance lessons or anything, so she wanted to, like many immigrant parents, give her children a better future. So I was forced to take piano lessons. I hated it. They forced me to practice. And then, when I was 13, they let me quit piano and play guitar, so then I could learn all my favorite rock songs. And then, eventually, I wanted to go to music school. And so I was grateful, obviously, that I had to audition, so I had to audition with the piano.
Lantigua: All right, so I'm starting to see a theme of reinvention here. We're going to come back to that. So you've evolved into a different type of creator now. And I think that a lot of people who see businesswomen don't really understand that there is so much creativity behind that. Can you talk about the thread between being an artist, performer and, now, a businesswoman and a business leader?
Velasquez: Yeah. Well, I think the common thread is that you have to have a vision. I used to be a songwriter, so you have to have an inspiration, an idea, something that you want to create. And so that's really the throughline is that I am still an artist, I'm still a creator, but now I've created a business and, instead of selling music, I'm now selling a physical product.
Lantigua: Yeah. I mean, and, also, part of it is telling a story. Right? You are, through the products that you're creating, telling the story of the nopal itself both backwards and in its history, but also looking forward at what it can be. You and I talked last week to prepare for today. And, like a lot of entrepreneurs, you were broke and in debt and feeling really guilty because, "At 43, I didn't own my house." Right? I started my company at 42 and in very similar circumstances. But you did not let any of that distract you. How did you find that resilience?
Velasquez: Well, I think all of us have experiences of peaks and valleys in our life. Right? And it's in those valleys where we get to really understand what we're really made of. We've all fallen down. So, when you're down, you either stay down or you get up. And so, in those moments, kind of like when you have nothing to lose, you have nothing to lose. Right?
Lantigua: Yeah.
Velasquez: I think a lot of people are scared to start a business because they already have a job, they have a house, they have a car. I'm like, "What am I going to lose," so I can truly just start again and build something from the ground up?
Lantigua: A hundred percent agree. The other thing that I really respect about that driving philosophy that you started with is that you were absolutely willing to learn. And I think that a lot of us get really comfortable in our career, a lot of us follow a particular path, and we check off all of these boxes. But you said, "No. No. No. No. I am prepared to learn what I need to learn." Talk to me about the things that you had to learn to literally start from scratch.
Velasquez: I had to learn everything. I had to learn how to make soap. I had to learn how to start a business. I had to learn how to become a leader of a team. Fortunately, I had been a leader of a band, so I did have experience rallying people. And, as a leader of a band, I rallied audiences, but I had to pretty much learn every... I'm still learning, by the way.
Lantigua: Yeah.
Velasquez: So, just so we're clear, it's not like I learned and now I'm good. No. I'm learning every day. I'm exhausted every day because I'm learning every day that you have to learn the law, you have to learn inventory, you have to learn cashflow management. So much goes into starting a business from the ground up.
Lantigua: Yeah. The other thing that you said was that you can always have another good idea. Right? And I think that that is so important, when you are daring greatly. Shout out to Brene Brown. Because a lot of us fixate on, "Here's the one idea," and, "If this fails, I'm done." That's not your attitude.
Velasquez: No. Listen, as I say, ideas are cheap. It's about the execution. Lots of people have ideas, but not everyone acts upon them. So the difference is that I had an idea and then I went and I registered the trademark, and then I went and I opened the LLC, and then I went and learned how to make soap and I just kept taking action. So there's always... I still have lots of ideas, but not all of them are going to get executed upon.
Lantigua: That's so funny. Starting your LLC cost under $200, just putting it out there, but it's really important that you give your idea like a presence, that you plant your flag. I think that that's really important just to get you started.
Velasquez: Trademarking. I can't-
Lantigua: Oh, yeah.
Velasquez: No one wants to talk about the boring operational stuff, but let me tell you.
Lantigua: I do.
Velasquez: I've already had two people try to sue me. Yeah, someone registered for the Nopalera trademark in China. I had to fight that. That was thousands of dollars. That's how you know it's a good idea. Right?
Lantigua: Yeah. Exactly.
Velasquez: Because other people are like... They want some of it.
Lantigua: So that's also stuff you had to learn?
Velasquez: Yes. Yes. I have three lawyers now.
Lantigua: Wow. You've been warned. Okay? You've all been warned. Three lawyers. All right, I want to talk about something that's very sensitive, because Nopalera is valued at $10 million, but you and I know that... Yes. Give it up. Give it up for the valuation. Yes. That is not an easy feat. However, that is the market taking its best-educated guess. And you and I both know as businesswomen that there is a real gap between the market valuation and what's happening on the ground. Talk to us about that.
Velasquez: I think the easiest example is to think about real estate. Right? I live in New York City. Someone says, "This apartment is valued at a million dollars." Says who?
Lantigua: Says the guy selling it to you. Yeah.
Velasquez: Says the market. Right? So the market is just the people who are deciding the value. That's it. I'm actually hoping that Nopalera will be valued at a hundred million.
Lantigua: Yes.
Velasquez: Right now, we're just getting started. But when you raise institutional capital, which I did in 2022 after bootstrapping for two years, the market decides, which is the investor that's writing you the checks, says, "Okay, your company is worth 10 million post-money valuation, which means we're going to give you 2 million, and then two plus eight is 10." So that's how valuations work in the institutional raising world.
Lantigua: So it's more about the risk they're willing to take on you?
Velasquez: Yes. Everyone's taking a risk.
Lantigua: Right.
Velasquez: I'm taking a risk. They're taking a risk. Yes.
Lantigua: Wow. So, I mean, this is stuff that, again, we don't talk about enough so that we can really understand what you need to do to be successful. Right? So let's talk a little bit about you're in it. It's been four years. Right?
Velasquez: Almost four years, yeah.
Lantigua: Almost four years. You've learned a ton. What are the things that you still feel are in front of you that you have to power through, because now you have a much better sense of what those are?
Velasquez: Yes. So I think it's important to remember that there is no arrival. You just keep going. You get to this top of the mountain and you're like, "Oh, there's the next top," and then it just keeps going. You don't ever arrive. I just want to put that out there because I think people see me, they're like, "Oh, you've done it. You've raised money. You've been on Shark Tank. You're successful." I'm like, "And I'm still scared." Right? It's still scary to continue to go to the next level. And I think that that is why my story has become an example, because I didn't just stop at, "Okay, we made a hundred thousand dollars. We're good. We'll just stay here. We'll stay small." I'm like, "No." We did 2 million in revenue last year. We're trying to do three this year, and we're trying to do 10 following year. And I just want to be clear. That doesn't mean profit, people.
Lantigua: Right. Let's be sure that we understand that's not 2 million in her bank account-
Velasquez: No.
Lantigua: ... personally.
Velasquez: No. No. No. I still have my student loans. I still don't own a house. Right? So I like to be very transparent about that because it just... We have to tell the truth to each other.
Lantigua: Yep. So, when you think about your personal goals and your goals for your company, where's the overlap?
Velasquez: Yeah, that's a good question. So I tell this to my team all the time. I say, listen, because they've been with me since the beginning, so they have experienced the growth. We've all kind of lived it together. And I say, "In order to really scale our company, we have to scale ourselves." You don't grow a company and you get to stay the 2023 version of yourself. Sorry, everyone. You have to evolve. You have to change. If you think a million dollars is the ceiling of the amount of money that you could ever possibly see or make, then it will be.
Lantigua: Yep.
Velasquez: And so that's... you have to... You have to commit to your own evolution so that, when you get to that destination, the next milestone, it's familiar, it feels normal.
Lantigua: Yeah. So I want to talk about that because one of the things that, when you are in the business sphere you recognize is that there is so much capital out there. And this is one of the things that you and I talked about last week, that a lot of women starting out think that there's a very finite amount of capital and then that 0.02% of VC money figure gets thrown around, it's so discouraging, but that hasn't been your experience.
Velasquez: I mean, my mind was blown when I learned about the whole venture capital world. But it's true there is so much capital. Right? Money is not a pie. It's not a pizza. It's not like I get a slice and now there's one slice left less for you. No. There is an endless amount of capital. And, by the way, money means nothing without us. If we all disappeared off of the face of the planet, money has no value whatsoever. But it is endless. There is so much. It's constantly regenerating like air. Do you feel bad that you're breathing air and you're taking air away from someone else?
Lantigua: No.
Velasquez: Does that ever cross your mind?
Lantigua: Never.
Velasquez: Never. So I think just to even wrap your brain around that, I think, is one step first.
Lantigua: So come on. Speaking to that, I asked you a really deceivingly simple question on our call. What is wealth to you? And you said, "Wealth starts in the mind," and I had to take a beat because I was feeling, oh, like, "Oh, she's going to come up with some elaborate answer," and you were on it. How did you recognize that, and how does that play out in how you're growing this company?
Velasquez: So the way I want to answer that question is, when I went out to raise institutional capital in 2022, what I learned from that experience is that money begets money. People want to give you money when you already have money, which makes no sense because you're like, "I need the money because I don't have the money." But it's like confidence. Confidence begets... Other people want to be near it. It's like this energetic aura.
And so money is the same way. Money is just like this energy that, once you have money, people want to give you money. So when I was raising capital, I realized that I had to show up with a confidence like I already had money. I couldn't show up to the Zoom meeting and be like, "So I don't have any money. Can you please give me some so I can continue my Latina business?" No. I had to show up like, "I have this opportunity for you. Do you want to be a part of it? I will let you know if you can or not."
Lantigua: Right, so create FOMO.
Velasquez: Yeah.
Lantigua: So, people, the key to a good pay is create FOMO.
Velasquez: Yeah.
Lantigua: I love that. Yeah, it's like I'm going to be in this room for now. Either you're on or you're not.
Velasquez: Right. Well, so this is this thing of you have to become the money. You bring that money energy. That's the key.
Lantigua: All right. So, fair warning, we're about to enter the self-help portion of the conversation, because you said something really profound, which is that you believe that many of us are carrying around money wounds. Please elaborate.
Velasquez: Yes. I first learned this term money wounds from my friend Linda Garcia, who is now a representative in the State of Texas. She used to teach. Does anyone know Linda Garcia? She wrote a book called Wealth Warrior. She used to teach a class on the stock market to Latinos. And I took her class, and I was ready. I had my pen and paper. I was like, "Tell me what stocks to invest in." Right? And I was ready, and she was like, "We're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about our money wounds." I was like, "What?" And she says, "You can't start investing if you do not first address your own relationship with money."
And so I want to give her credit because she's the one that really taught me about this. And I really had to come to terms with my own relationship with money. And the first money school that we go to in our lives is our family.
Lantigua: A hundred percent.
Velasquez: We're born in our parents' house. We were raised by our family. And how they interact with money is how we learn what money means. Is it bad? Is it good? Are rich people bad? Are rich people greedy? All of these things we learn so young that we don't even know that we're learning them. And I learned through starting my business that I had money wounds, that I used to be mad at money.
Lantigua: Oh.
Velasquez: I used to be mad, like, "Oh, this bill is here. Let me pay this bill." I was mad that I had debt. I was mad. Money felt like this thing that was always over there, I couldn't get it. And so I had to address that because how am I ever going to grow my company if I'm mad at money? The point of a business is to make money. Right? You can't be mad at money. You can't hate money. I think that it's something that, honestly, I wish I could teach a high school class on it because we have to unlearn those things. Otherwise, we're just going to stay where we are. And more of us Latinas need to succeed, and not just a little bit, but wildly succeed, because it's going to be all of you that write the checks for the next Latinas.
Lantigua: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Velasquez: And I just want to add to that that the first people that wrote me checks were, guess who?
Lantigua: Latinas.
Velasquez: They were Latinas.
Lantigua: Same for my company.
Velasquez: Yes. And why? Because people help people that they see themselves in. Please see the rest of the country and all the venture capital. White men help other white men. "Oh, I see myself in you." You hear this on Shark Tank. "Oh, I see myself in you." So, when you think about making a lot of money, being wildly successful, it's not just for you. It's for everyone else. That's what we need.
Lantigua: Yep. Yeah. So I want to add to that because, when I talk to aspiring Latinas who to start a business, I remind them that money amplifies who you are. If you are a leader, if you're a creative, if you are someone who multiplies opportunities, money is going to give you the ability to do that even more on a different level. If you are not that person, then money is going to give you the opportunity to show that you are not that person.
And I think, in your case, the way that you have come out not only as an example, but as a true leader in the space has really amplified your ability to touch so many more lives. Tell me what it's been like to be on the receiving end of the admiration, of the respect of people wanting to learn from you.
Velasquez: I mean, from the beginning, I have my own podcast, the Nopalera podcast. I have a newsletter. I really just tried to share a lot of information because that's the gap that we need to close. Right? The more we can give people the resources, the information, the truth, it's great that people think I'm inspiring, but I also want to tell people the truth. I give people my contacts. I'll give them investor lists. I'll recommend my lawyer. All of the operational stuff of running a business is the unsexy stuff that no one wants to talk about. Everyone wants to talk about marketing. Marketing, who did your logo, it's like that's not... That's not it, y'all. That's not it. Okay, let's talk about how many lawyers you got.
Lantigua: We know you got-
Velasquez: Let's talk about your money market account. Don't let your money just sit in a checking account. Put it to work and grow. So, yeah, I mean, how does it feel to be on... I don't know how to answer that question. I was a musician for so long, so I've been on stage for 20 years. You know what I mean?
Lantigua: So you're just used to the adoration?
Velasquez: I guess so. No. I mean, I just try to be transparent. I just try to be transparent. I think that's also why people are attracted, because they feel like, if they ask me a question, I tell them the truth.
Lantigua: Okay. So there's something else that we talked about as Latina business owners, which is the circulation of the Latino dollar, because there's a lot of myth-making around the sleeping giant, the fifth-largest economy in the world, all of these headline grabbing things that they say about us. But, in fact, we need to do it on a much more granular level. Tell me what you want us to do with our dollar, with our Latino dollar.
Velasquez: Well, obviously, go to nopalera.co and add three things to your cart. That's number one. I also think it's Amazon Prime Day today. I think there are some things on sale there, but... So, aside from that, no, I think, in all honesty, what's super important is that we all understand the power of our choices. I think this is why I love my friend Linda who teaches about the stock market. Because I'm sure everyone here has an iPhone, I'm sure you all shop on Amazon and I'm sure many of you have Nike shoes, other people are profiting off of the fact that you made those decisions. Right?
So, ownership. Ownership. We opened up a Wefunder community round recently. It's closed now, but we allowed our customers to invest in Nopalera because this idea of ownership is so important.
Lantigua: I invested.
Velasquez: Oh, thank you. And so just being really intentional with your choices. I know it feels like it's not moving the needle, but it is. If I come to your bathroom and I see... What am I going to see in the bathroom? Am I going to see Dove? Am I going to see Aveeno? Am I going to see... These are all Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever-owned brands. But if you switch those to brands that are Latino-owned, you really are changing the economy. And it's already a fact that Latino business owners hire more Latinos, so we create jobs for the community, et cetera. So it's like these little decisions that have these ripple effects.
Lantigua: Yeah. So I was talking actually to Lydia behind the stage, and she buys them and she keeps them at home as hostess gifts, and she makes little baskets. And I was like, "I'm totally stealing that idea." It's a perfect hostess gift-
Velasquez: Yes, it is.
Lantigua: ... for when you come over.
Velasquez: It is.
Lantigua: Well, Sandra, you're amazing. I'm one of your biggest fans. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Velasquez: Oh, thank you.
Lantigua: Thank you.
Menendez: Thanks for listening. Latina to Latina is executive produced and owned by Juleyka Lantigua and me, Alicia Menendez. Virginia Lora is our producer. Kojin Tashiro is our lead producer. Tren Lightburn mixed this episode. We love hearing from you, email us at hola@latinatolatina.com. Slide into our DMs on Instagram or on Threads and TikTok @latinatolatina. Check out our merchandise at latinatolatina.com/shop. And remember to subscribe or follow us on RadioPublic, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Goodpods, wherever you're listening right now. Every time you share this podcast, every time you leave a review, you help us to grow as a community.