How Sandra Velasquez Went From $100k in Debt to Having Her Beauty Biz in 400+ Stores And $2.5M in Venture Funding
Just two years ago Sandra Valasquez was between jobs, struggling with $100k debt, and raising her child in New York. Today she's the founder of Nopalera, a beauty brand with 400+ stockists (including Nordstrom, Credo and Free People), $2.7M in venture capital funding, and a Shark Tank appearance.
Sandra new she needed to do something drastic if she wanted to change her financial future. At the same time she noticed no one was creating beauty products with nopales (aka prickly pear cactus). This was the a-ha moment that led to a high-end bath and body brand that also pays homage to her Mexican heritage.
Sandra's first step was to study a skincare formulation course with Formula Botanica.
Since day one Sandra's focused on building a luxury Mexican beauty brand—a space where 'luxury' usually means 'European'. She started with the end in mind, and created a competitor analysis of products at Barney's—where she believed her future brand would belong.
Sandra built a pre-launch email list with ads. As soon as she had a logo, Sandra started running Facebook ads to specific demographics in specific cities and built an email waitlist of 800 potential customers.
"Most of our customers are Latina and are like me, they're Mexican American or Mexican. When you look at this logo, you just see yourself in it. We created that intentionally."
When launching Nopalera, Sandra had zero budget. She took on additional jobs, sold clothes, and was extremely scrappy to launch, feeding cash into the business as she earned it.
"I love to be transparent about that, because I don't want people to not begin because they don't have $10,000. If you wait for the money you're never gonna start. It took me over a year to build this brand in the quiet when no one was caring. I had to become a consultant to bring in more income. I lived in a really crappy apartment where the rent was cheap. But I knew that I was building something that was going to be big."
Right after launch Sandra hired a wholesale manager contractor to vet all potential stockists. Five months in, Sandra began working with a publicist. With this support she did over $600,000 in sales during year one. In 2021, the biz was reported to hit $1M in sales. Sandra's first full time hire was a marketing and community manager.
Last fall Sandra raised $2.7M, which she’s spending on more product inventory and to grow her small team. In January 2023, she appeared on Shark Tank. The business is valued at $10M now—and Sandra still owns 60%!
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