245 - On Start Ups and Entrepreneurship with Nico Estrella

Mar 6

245 - On Start Ups and Entrepreneurship with Nico Estrella

Listeners, we're back this week with Nico Estrella

Entrepreneur. Former professional soccer player in Ecuador. Co-founder & CMO of Waku, a beverage brand that’s creating economic impact in the communities of farmers in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. Waku was considered one of the top 6 most impactful and promising startups of Boston at HUBWeek 2018, and was a finalist in MassChallenge 2019, because of the potential of growth and the social impact is creating in Ecuador. Motivated, optimistic and determined leader with great problem-solving skills developed through a background on business and marketing education, and on the multiple startups founded in the past. Passionate about the power of entrepreneurship and how it can create immense impact in the world.

During our conversation, we talked about:

His professional soccer career
Knowing when to leave soccer.
Starting a business and the process.
Making business decisions during the pandemic.
Persevering despite the odds.
And more...

Hello everyone. This is Pam, de Café con Pam, the bilingual podcast that features Latinx, Latine, and people of the global majority who break barriers, change lives, and make the world a better place. Welcome to episode 245 of Café con Pam. Today we have a conversation with Nico Estrella.
Nico is an entrepreneur, a former professional soccer player in Ecuador and Co-founder & CMO of Waku, a beverage brand that’s creating economic impact in the communities of farmers in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. Waku was considered one of the top 6 most impactful and promising startups of Boston at HUBWeek 2018, and was a finalist in MassChallenge 2019, because of the potential of growth and the social impact is creating in Ecuador. Motivated, optimistic and determined, Nico is a leader with great problem-solving skills developed through a background on business and marketing education, and on the multiple startups founded in the past. Nico's passionate about the power of entrepreneurship and how it can create immense impact in the world.
Listeners, this conversation with Nico was so fun. I know I say this every time. In this case though, I truly enjoyed the conversation that Nico and I had around entrepreneurship and starting a business, and the mistakes and lessons that we learned throughout the process. And he was really candid about their journey with creating Waku. And we even touched on the other companies that he's founded and the other roles that he's taken previously before founding Waku. So this was super, super fun. But before we move on, let's listen from the sponsor of this week.
***
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***
So yeah, Nico and I, we talked about, of course, him arriving from Ecuador, his professional soccer career. I don't think we've had a soccer player in the past. I don't think so. Especially a professional athletes and, and one of my favorite parts, I mean, I had so many, but one of the top parts of this interview is him talking about making the decision to leave professional soccer, his professional athlete's career and moving into business because sometimes it is when we need to make hard decisions, sometimes it is when we have to think about, well, this is what I always saw myself doing, and is this really the path that I wanna continue taking? So I think you'll enjoy that part of the interview. Let me know and there's so much more, so, so much more that we talked about. Pero bueno, sin más, here is my conversation with Nico Estrella.
***
Pam: Nico, welcome to Café con Pam.
Nico: Thank you so much for having me. We're excited to be here.
Pam: Thank you for being here. We always start the show with this one question. What is your heritage?
Nico: My heritage, I come from Ecuador, so I am a Latin, uh, I was born and raised in Ecuador and I moved to the States like, uh, four years ago now.
Pam: Oh, just now four?
Nico: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Pam: Wow! How fun. So you grew up in Ecuador, and then what brought you to the US?
Nico: Actually, I came to start Waku, my company, the company that I am running today. I came four years ago. Uh, my co-founder Juan, came to Boston to do his MBA in Babson College. And then we decided to start this company together. So then I moved to Boston myself.
Pam: Okay. So we're not gonna fast forward that fast. So you grew up in Ecuador and what was your career before Waku?
Nico: So, before Waku, whenever I was very young, I used to play soccer a lot. I became a professional soccer player when I, whenever I was 16 and 17.
Pam: 16?
Nico: I was already playing professionally. Yeah.
Pam: Oh my gosh.
Nico: I was still in high school. So in my last two years of high school, I was already playing professional there in Ecuador. I started to play soccer since I have memory, basically when I was young, soccer was my life. Then I played a couple years. I, I got to play for a first division team for a year when I was 18. I, I really liked it, but at one point I had to decide if I wanted to keep trying to pursue my soccer career or if I wanted to go to college because I was, eh. I was trying to get hired by a team that was outside Quito, that was the city I was living in and where my college was. So I had to decide and then I, I just decided to study business in college and, and go to college. So I, I stopped playing, uh, soccer professionally at that point.
Pam: Wow. I have a lot of questions [laughs] Because you, you loved soccer. Soccer was your life, and it reminds me of Ted Lasso's, cómo se llama? Have you seen it? Have you seen Ted Lasso?
Nico: Yeah, the, Danny Rojas, I think it's his name.
Pam: Danny Rojas. Soccer is life, or fútbol is life, no?
Nico: Fútbol is life, he said. Yeah. Yeah.
Pam: So you're 16 years old, you always played soccer. You become a pro at 16, 17, so that could lead into a great trajectory professionally.
Nico: Yeah.
Pam: Why did you decide to study more so than keep going with what you loved?
Nico: Yeah, so I think two things mainly made, mainly helped me make that decision. So first, playing professionally soccer was a bit different than playing in high school and playing with the friends and playing just for fun. It basically became my job, to play soccer and my job to go training. And whenever that happened and whenever everybody was playing, just because it was their job, it kind of lost a little bit of the magic for me.
Pam: It wasn't fun anymore.
Nico: Yeah. It at some point stopped being just for fun and there was a lot of the power things going behind scenes and a lot of things for the sponsors. And it was like, not all, all the times, um, there will, uh, be players that probably they were not the best, but they had the best manager or the best... So, a lot of those type of things that I, that I started to not like too much about it. There were some soccer players that if they were not getting paid as much as they wanted, they would just like play bad on purpose, things like that, that, that you don't see too much whenever you just like enjoying soccer. So that was one of the things that kind of like started to make me not enjoy it as much. But then other than that was that also it was kind of like a little bit of a self-reflection too, and, and self-awareness, uh, that I was not as good as my peers at that point. I was good. I was probably above average to be able to get, to be, uh, a professional soccer player.
Pam: To land a pro.
Nico: Yeah. But whenever I played in this first division team, I didn't get to play too many games. So I played maybe like three or four games in the whole season. It was super competitive. The, the guy that was playing my position was very, very good. He was my same age. He was playing like for real, like in real teams in like the young divisions of real teams since he was like seven years old.
Pam: Wow.
Nico: I started to do that type of competitive soccer whenever I was 13, that I was like, already, I was all to start at that, at that day, believe it or not. So I knew that even if I was gonna do a lot of effort and I was gonna just train a lot, it was gonna be very hard for me to make a big name and make it into the, into the main teams in Ecuador and probably was gonna have an okay career in playing, second division teams, or, or maybe if I had luck, made it in a, in a big team, but I knew it was gonna be very, very hard for me to do that. Talking with my parents too, they were like, they were always very supportive of me, but they, they were asking me questions like, Hey, remember that the soccer career would last you for 10, 15 years tops.
Pam: Right.
Nico: After that, if you don't have studies and after that, if you're not, uh, prepared, and if you don't have options, it's gonna be very hard. And I saw that reality because in the team was play-- there were players that used to be huge stars in the past, but now they were not doing great. So those two things made me think, okay, probably I'm gonna have an okay 10, 15 years career. It didn't make too much sense for me at the times. And I also liked a lot business and, and I always loved entrepreneurship and I read a lot of, a lot of books about entrepreneurship and all that. I was very interested in careers about that. So yeah, that I decided to just like go for it and go to college.
Pam: How old were you?
Nico: At that point I was 18, I was turning 19.
Pam: Okay. It's great awareness because at that, when you're 19 you're like, you know, it's the fun thing. You know, I don't know. I feel like it's, it's hard to, I mean, I'm not discounting teenagers, listeners, cause I know people are gonna be like, they are smart. They are very smart. But to have that awareness to, to be able to look far into the future so far, to say, well, and to be able to discern that decision of like, if I stay, it's probably going to be okay. It's not gonna be like Cristiano Ronaldo type thing. So having that awareness, I think it's great because then that perhaps allowed you to, to make the other decision, which was to go study. I was a dancer and I resonate with that because when I was in a performance team, I love dancing to this day. I mean, I, you know, you probably still love playing soccer, so, but once it was in a team, it was like, I didn't wanna go to practice. It became work. It was like dragging. And it was rehearsal time and I'm like, Ugh.
Nico: Yeah.
Pam: I stopped performing because it became an additional job that I didn't want. I wanted dance to stay fun. So I respect that. I understand. I resonate.
Nico: Yeah, totally.
Pam: Okay, so you went to college and you studied business. And then what happened?
Nico: And then, well, I was there just having fun the first years of college. Of course. And then..
Pam: In Ecuador, right?
Nico: In Ecuador. Yeah. So one, one of my last years there in college, I started to become closer friends with Juan, with my current business partner. So Juan, it's the older brother of one of my best friends in high school. So I already knew Juan since I was like 12. But he's four years older than me. So whenever you're in high school, that age difference, it's huge. He always jokes that he remembers me as being like just like that kid friend. Yeah, the little kid that came to play with my little brother. So I already knew him, but we were not too close. But whenever we were in college, he was also graduating the same college as me, also studying business administration. So then when we started to talk, every time that we got together, both of us were super passionate about business and entrepreneurship. So we started to become closer friends at that point. By then, I started my first company, a very small entrepreneurship thing. It was called Sax, and we were making, um, bean bags that turned into beds.
Pam: Oh, fun.
Nico: Yeah. And they were cool. They, they, and they were selling good there in, in Ecuador. So at that point, I started that company that I kind of had it like as a side gig. I had a full-time job at that point whenever I graduated from college. But I started to, to fall in love with entrepreneurship. With that, I, I had a taste of it. And after that one, um, Juan called me to work with him. He was being the CEO in a company. It was like an education company for the IT department of big corporations, a completely different industry. He was hired to be the CEO of that company. So he called me to work with him, uh, doing marketing and sales at, in that company. And it had a very startup kind of buy that company. He was part of a, a group of companies and, and the, the owner of the company was very startup minded, and he, he was like, he really believed in us as, as a team. So he was giving us a lot of resources to grow that company. So it, it was fun. So I, I started to work with him and while working that company, we came up with my second startup, kind of like a spinoff of that company. We started to sell the same courses but online and we started to sell in all South America. We were selling already like eight or nine different countries in South America with that company.
Pam: Nice.
Nico: But it was an industry that was too, Uh, specialized. I remember taking one of those lessons. I, I was not understanding anything. It was like about databases and Oracle systems. Like deep tech.
Pam: Wow. Super niche.
Nico: Yeah. Super niche. So I was not very passionate about it. Neither was Juan. All the time we were thinking like, okay, what's the next thing that we want to do? We, we knew that we wanted to be entrepreneurs.
Pam: Perame, what happened with the bean bag company?
Nico: I just like closed shop.
Pam: Así?
Nico: I, as I didn't have, have enough time to keep running it. I just--
Pam: Oh my gosh. ¿Por qué no la vendiste? If it was selling.
Nico: Yeah. I don't know. In Ecuador selling companies is hard. It's it's not as in here. Like, like that happens all the time.
Pam: I mean, there are websites where you can buy businesses. Have you seen 'em?
Nico: Yeah. Yeah.
Pam: I go there. It's super fun. I do, I do it for fun. Like, oh, what could I buy? I was looking at a jukebox company, jukebox business, and it was this 70 year old guy that was like, I've been in this jukebox business for like 30 years. I'm too old to keep it going. Buy it for me. And it was, he was selling it for like $70,000.
Nico: Wow.
Pam: Super fun. Anyway, parenthesis. Go on. Sorry.
Nico: Yeah, no, it's like doing that in Ecuador is hard and, and also we were not doing like a lot, a lot of sales. We just, like, we, we were selling some of those. Some of those things every month. So it was not, it never became like a huge thing.
Pam: Okay. Pero bueno, so you close it and then you start this other one. It's kind of like an LMS system?
Nico: Yeah. It was like an like an online education company.
Pam: With Juan, right?
Nico: With Juan. Yeah.
Pam: And so you're both like, this is kind of like, eh, we're not excited about it. What's next?
Nico: Yeah, exactly. And that's when Juan, uh, decides to go to do his MBA in Babson. And whenever he makes that decision, he quits that job. Because even though we started that company, it was not ours. We had like a very small percentage of ownership.
Pam: You were licensing.
Nico: Yeah. We were, eh, the, the owner of the group was the owner of the company, so Juan quits, and then the owner of this group of companies asked me if I want to be the CEO of that company and keep running it. Also I, I was not very interested in, in, in that, so, so I quit as well. There was this period of like six or nine months before Juan goes to his MBA. I just like took a corporate job that I just wanted something easy to do and well paid. So I just like took a, an easy corporate job. But during these six months, we started to just, uh, get together every Tuesday. I remember we, we used to go to the house of an uncle of Juan. He had a pool, like an indoor pool. So we would get together in, in that pool, we will order pizzas and beers, and we would just be talking about the books that we're reading, like the ideas that we're having, like kind of like brainstorming for what's the next company that we want to start. So that's when we start to talk about like a bunch of like super different ideas, like selling shoes online. But then we realized that we didn't want to start something in Ecuador to sell just in Ecuador, because Ecuador is a very tiny country and like the market is not big. You never, you will never be able to build a multi-million dollar company if you stay just in Ecuador. So we started to think, okay, what are the things that we do want to do with this company? So what, there were three things. At first we wanted it to be from Ecuador to the world.
Pam: Nice.
Nico: Anything that we would do in Ecuador, but sell it everywhere else in the world. Second, we wanted something that could allow us to create, um, direct impact in the economy of Ecuador. So, a positive impact. That was, that was the second one. And third, we, we wanted to start something that, that we could have a big differentiation from the rest of the world. And one of the things that's, uh, great in Ecuador, like of course the, all the natural fruits, all the natural herbs that grow in, in the soil because the, the soils so rich. So we said, okay, let's create a brand, let's create a product in this industry that, that we can have a direct impact in Ecuador and we can sell it in in the US. So that was like how the idea was born for Waku.
Pam: I mean, I have a lot of questions.
Nico: Yeah. Yeah.
Pam: I don't think it just kind of happened like that. So from the pool conversations, how long did it take for you to land on an idea and how many ideas did you have of different businesses, do you know?
Nico: Yeah, it was probably a period of six monthsor so,
Pam: Of just like, what about this? What about this? What about this? What about--
Nico: Yeah, we have a, like a dozen of ideas. We, we read a book that's called Sprint. It's a Google methodology on how they test out new ideas. So we are using that book to test out any new idea that we have. We, we probably had like a dozen or so of those ideas. So we will get together, we will apply the methodology that I remember, It was like, for five days you'll be testing it out, just developing the idea, talking with potential customers and whatnot. And we did that a couple times. And that was like kind of like weeding out a lot of ideas that we started, they were not gonna be become as big or they didn't have as much potential.
Pam: I love this because a lot of people that listen to Café con Pam, they are either business owners or starting businesses or looking to start a business or they have started businesses and they didn't work. Or you know, interested, maybe curious. So I love this because a sprint and let us know, maybe don't go super deep into it, but kinda like surface level of what a sprint is to test a business idea because it's really powerful to take a really quick period of time and really kind of intense in a way, like super hyper-focused. And then at the end of that sprint you're able to discern, was this effective? Is this viable? Is there market hunger for this, et cetera, et cetera. Walk us more through that process.
Nico: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So yeah, it's takes five days and on each day you have to do specific activities. So in the first couple days, it's more in the ideation phase. So kind of like give it more form to the idea that you have. So it's like, are you gonna sell these? Are you gonna sell services? Who is your customer? Kind of like a lean canvas type of, eh, business plan. Just like super simple business plan, uh, straightforward. What are you selling? Who are you selling it to? What's the value proposition of it? Then in the next few days, you kind of build, kind of like a mockup. You don't need to build the specific product itself. So for example, for Waku, we didn't need to already come up with the formula or with the name of the brand, but in some way you can give, uh, a taste of the product or service to potential customers. So it can be creating a landing page, creating a small, simple website with that has the main idea there. So coming up with like, kind of like a MVP, like a small version of what you want to do so you can, uh, show it to people and, and gauge the reaction.
Pam: Test it out.
Nico: And then, yeah, the last days, it's just putting it in front of customers. You get people kind of like to do with more focus groups that can be online or you can actually do a focal group in a place so you can show them the product that you created. You, you should just like let them interact with the, with the thing. And then after that you ask questions, how do they feel? What do they think? And the last day is like, okay, gather all the data that you collected do. Do we think this is a good idea, bad idea, it has potential or not. So in five days, basically you can test out if the idea has potential.
Pam: I love this because a lot of times entrepreneurs, business owners, they typically, not always, but sometimes they go into business because there's a problem they're solving. And so a lot of times it's a problem that they were looking for the solution and that wasn't there. So they come up with it. And this testing method is effective when you don't know if you're the only one that might need that solution. You know, I've seen it time-- I mean, I'm a business coach and so I've, I see it all the time where people are like, yeah, I want this. And I'm like, you want it, but do other people want it?
Nico: Yeah, exactly.
Pam: And so a lot of times I see businesses kind of skip the testing phase of it because they are excited, they wanna get started. And also the attachment of the idea, right? So, you two came up with dozens of ideas. But the point is to not get attached until you know it's viable, because that's the name of the game. Otherwise it's a hobby. Go make some crafts, you know?
Nico: Yeah, exactly.
Pam: Okay, so let's take a quick coffee break and then we'll come back to the rest of the story.
***
Pam: Okay. Nico, do you drink coffee?
Nico: Yes, I, I love coffee. Yeah, I, I don't have coffee with me right now, but I, I normally take one cup or two every day.
Pam: Nice. And do you pair that up with Waku after or before?
Nico: So normally I drink, uh, a bottle of Waku with my lunch.
Pam: Okay.
Nico: Yeah, with my lunch or with my dinner I take, uh, a bottle of Waku.
Pam: Nice, nice. Where are you tuning in from today?
Nico: From Boston. I live in Somerville.
Pam: Nice. Do you have a favorite coffee shop that you wanna give a shout out to?
Nico: My favorite coffee shop, uh, I think it's Flower, one of my favorite ones. They have very nice pastries, so I really like it.
Pam: Nice. Do you drink your coffee specific way?
Nico: Normally it's grounded coffee. I have like a coffee machine and, and all that. I, I really enjoy dark roasted coffee. I, I enjoy your medium roasted coffee. I, I also really, really like.
Pam: Black?
Nico: Yeah, just black.
Pam: Nice. I'm a black coffee person too.
Nico: Yeah. Yeah. I, I really like the taste.
Pam: Same, same, same. You know, I think when I meet people that drink black coffee, I'm like, okay, you drink coffee. Some people the café con leche and all that stuff. I'm like, well that's, that's like a fun drink, but like black coffee, it's like you're really drinking coffee, you know?
Nico: I agree.
Pam: Socool. Well, I'm in Denver today. I'm tuning in from Denver and I don't have a favorite coffee shop here yet because I just got here, so I'm going to go check out.
Nico: Where were you before?
Pam: In San Diego.
Nico: San Diego. And did you have a favorite coffee place there?
Pam: In San Diego? Oh, I have a ton. A ton. A ton. So many to pick one. I don't know. Actually, well, I'm gonna get, this is not a coffee shop. This is a tea shop. It's called Paru. And I've given them a shout out before, but Paru Tea, it's a tea house and they have two locations in San Diego. I love the shops. The owners are amazing. It's a queer couple. And they offer writing workshops in, their, one of their locations and I buy my matcha from them.
Nico: Oh, nice.
Pam: So I got into matcha and shout to Mary, one of my Power Sisters, and I get their matcha from them because they, it's great. It's great. So shout out to Paru and I'll find a coffee shop in, in Denver. Cause I don't have one yet.
Nico: Perfect.
Pam: And I'm still back, back and forth San Diego, Denver. So I can still go back to Paru. All right, let's go back to the show.
***
Pam: Okay, Nico, so you come up with Waku. Did you have the name?
Nico: Not at that point. We came up with the name after we already had the idea. Yeah.
Pam: So you have the idea you tested, that's the one that's the most viable. And then what happens?
Nico: Then Juan goes to do his MBA and at that point I was still working for that corporate job that I hated. Like it was just killing my soul every day. It was like super easy, but--
Pam: What were you doing?
Nico: I was an analyst. Electric service companies--
Pam: Say no more.
Nico: Yeah. I remember that I used to work at until 3:00 PM It was a super easy job. I didn't do much during the whole day, but I was feeling that my entrepreneurial spirit was just--
Pam: Dying.
Nico: Hating me. Yeah, it was dying. At that point Juan goes already to do his MBA. He does, uh, one semester there, and we used that first semester first to start to do some market research. So on the marketing classes of the MBA, every time they were asking like, oh, who has an idea for a company? Juan was like, me-
Pam: Siempre, no.
Nico: Let's use my, my idea. Yeah, that's fine because on his class, all his classmates knew about what could be like from the inception of the idea because they were talking about the idea and the potential, doing financial models for the companies. It was super good for us. And while he was doing that, I was in Ecuador, kind of like developing the, the brand and coming up with the name and finding suppliers for the things and all that. And we got to a point where, okay, we were already a hundred percent sure that we wanted to do that idea.
Pam: A ver, pérame, I have a question. Antes de que se me olvide. So culturally in latinoamérica there is, cómo va el dicho, se me olvida. Is "no saques tus trapitos al sol" Have you heard that one? Or is that very Mexican?
Nico: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, I heard that one.
Pam: So, that idea of don't share your plans with the world because like, te lo van a salar, o el mal de ojo, or all that stuff.
Nico: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pam: It's a very cultural thing, and I see this with my clients, for example, when they have ideas and I'm like, talk to people about it, they're like, no, porque qué tal si me la roban. So I love this example of Juan sharing it with classmates and not really worrying about like somebody taking it and Juan's not here to talk about it, but have you talked about that?
Nico: Yeah. And the thing we learned early on that ideas are a dime dozen. Right now, if both of us stay like talking right now, and we say like, okay, come on, let's come up with the next business idea for 15 years.
Pam: We'll come up with 15.
Nico: Yeah. We're gonna come with 15 ideas. The execution is the difficult part. Like making that idea happen is the difficult part. Probably 99% of the people that's gonna listen to you, they're not gonna have either the time or they are not want to become an entrepreneur. So it's very unlikely that they will take your idea and run with it. Of course, there is some people that could do that. Like if you go and talk with one potential competitor that has a factory and that has access to the market and has capital and you give them your idea. Yeah. That's probably, you should not speak with them too early on because they, they could take your idea and run with it. But in my experience, 99% of your conversations enrich your idea and they're gonna try to poke holes at it and you can, whenever you are defending your idea, you make your idea better.
Pam: Yes.
Nico: And you start to realize also like maybe some things that you were not seeing about your idea. Some, maybe some pitfalls that for me, it's always been helpful to talk with as much people as I can whenever we have an idea because that yeah, that will make the final product better.
Pam: I agree. I love this. And you, and you bring up a really good point, which is do talk to people about it, ask for feedback, and also be aware of who you're talking to. Because this actually happened to one of my clients, she is looking to start a food and beverage business, and she went to an established food and beverage business and was like, Hey, you brown, I'm brown, let's be friends. She went from the approach of like, I wanna learn from you type stuff. And she shared an idea of a product that she wanted to be known for it. And they were like, oh, that's actually, we don't think that's gonna work. We don't think that idea's gonna work. Two weeks later they launched it.
Nico: Yeah. That, that, that can happen. That that's, uh.
Pam: It can happen. But the other thing that you said is, all right. Well, they took it. Ideas are renewable resources that we can come up with them all the time. And so how could we make that better? On the other side of the coin, we don't know if they were already developing it. You know, because if they were able to launch two weeks later, I mean, maybe they were already, something was in the works that on their end they weren't transparent to say, oh, we're actually already working on something. They were kinda like, you know, selfish and be like, it's not gonna work. But that's a whole other conversation.
Nico: And, and also I think that if you come up with a good business idea, it's very likely that other 10 people are already, already have that idea or have that idea and are already working on it. And it's really, you don't know about it. So, yeah. That can also happen.
Pam: Yeah. And when you start talking about it, then you start seeing it everywhere. Okay. Juan starts talking about it, they start kind, like developing in class, which is great. I think it's a great approach, great strategy. You are in a Ecuador, he's communicating with you with all the findings that are happening in school.
Nico: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I am being part of a lot of their, their focus groups too.
Pam: Oh, yeah?
Nico: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pam: Nice.
Nico: So that is happening. And then, I remember that it was December, 2016. I remember I was in the beach, it was at the end of the year. So I was, uh, in the beach with a couple friends. I already had a couple drinks on me, so I was just like feeling extra happy. And I remember calling Juan and telling him like, dude, we, we have the, the idea, let's just, let's run with it. And he was like, oh my God. I, I was thinking the exact same thing. Let's go full, full in with the idea. Let's do it. I'm gonna buy my tickets to Ecuador so I can go and, and we can fundraise a little bit and like make it to thing. And I was like, yeah, yeah. On Monday, I, I remember was like, Friday or Saturday. It was like, Monday, I'm gonna quit my job and let's do it.
Pam: Así.
Nico: Yeah. Like that. It was, it was like something that I wanted to do for a while and, and this was like the moment that, that I said like, okay, whenever I do things, I like to be full in, in the, in the like fully committed. So I was like, okay, I have enough savings for a couple months. So I was like, okay, let's, let's do it.
Pam: Vámonos.
Nico: Yeah. So he bought the tickets the next day, got Monday to the office and I was like, Hey guys, I, I quit. I'm gonna stay 15 more days here. And I put my, my notice there of quitting that job. Yeah, that was that. Then Juan came to Ecuador. And we first of course came up with a small business deck. At that point, we didn't have too much experience in fundraising, so we really didn't know what we were doing. We just knew that we, we needed some money to start. None of us had a lot of savings, actually zero savings for investing in the company. So we knew that we needed the outside investors. And the good thing was that whenever we were quitting, the previous company that remember I told you was part of a group of like five or six companies. One of the general managers, one of the CEOs of one of the companies became a very good friend of us. His name is Alex, and I remember that when we quit, he told us, Hey guys, the next idea that you have call me and I will invest in you because I know that you are gonna make me a millionaire.
Pam: Okay.
Nico: He sounded like kind of half joking, half not joking. So we were like, okay, let's, let's call Alex to see what's up. So we got together to grab some beers. [inaudible] He followed, followed through with it. He was like, yeah, guys, I, I. I like the idea. I really like what you're doing. At that point, we already had a, like the early versions of the brand, we already knew what was gonna be the concept of the product. We didn't have the formula yet, so we needed to develop the formula. But he was like, yeah, I, I am in, I'm gonna bring a couple of friends with me, uh, so they can invest as well. So you can start running with it and I will give you the first deposit next week.
Pam: Así. Nice. How did you figure how much you needed?
Nico: So at the first stage, we made a small business plan. Say like, okay, this the minimum amount of money that we need to make the first production runs the, to develop--
Pam: Bottles, labels.
Nico: Yeah, like bottles, labels, all that. Get all the permits to get the product in the US because we manufactured the product in Ecuador, we need to get a lot of approval from the FDA.
Pam: Claro.
Nico: To get the product to the US. I remember that at that point was like 50,000 that we raised in, in that first time between Alex and a couple other of his friends that elieved more in Alex than, than in us because they, they didn't know us. And the, the idea was an idea was a PowerPoint presentation at that point. So yeah, that happened. And with that we started to, to develop everything else, we started to develop the formula, the all, all that. And with the formula ready, we didn't make yet a big batch or we didn't invest in machinery or anything. Again, we've always had this mentality of what's the minimum viable product that we can make.
Pam: When you have to do it with your MVP, otherwise it's a recipe for failure.
Nico: Yeah. And we really wanted to get in, Babson accelerator program that they have every summer. It's called Summer Venture Program.
Pam: Nice.
Nico: They select like 10 to 12 startups, uh, from the students that they, ideas that they have to incubate them and to actually turn them into businesses.
Pam: Nice.
Nico: So we wanted to be in the summer venture program of 2017. So we were like, okay, let's develop everything and let's present it to get in. And I remember that that how we did it was literally, we just bought a bunch of bottles of another product that, we just like, drank them or empty them, I don't know.
Pam: Refilled them.
Nico: Yeah. Printed the labels and just like filled them with Waku and we send them, we, we send those samples back to Juan. We presented that to the judges that were selecting the companies and we got accepted into, into the Accelerator.
Pam: Nice!
Nico: That was like when really the idea took more form and we learned how to talk to investors here in the US. That's when I first came to Boston. My first time coming to Boston was for this program because they house you in the campus for the whole summer.
Pam: Mm, that's nice.
Nico: Yeah. Super nice. They give you office space and you get great mentors. It was amazing. It was an amazing experience that actually taught us how to, how to do business in the US and how to actually start the company from the permits that you need to get, to how to talk to investors, how to bring the product to market, all that. It was very good and at the end of the, that summer program, we launched like the first official batch of, of Waku.
Pam: Okay.
Nico: We, we brought a pallet of of that to the US and we, we started to sell it.
Pam: So. Okay. I have a lot of questions. Obviously. [laughs] Your first $50,000 you raised without a product.
Nico: Yeah. Without a product.
Pam: You, you raised money with an idea?
Nico: Yeah. Yeah.
Pam: Nice. Well done.
Nico: Thank you.
Pam: And then from that idea, from the first 50,000, how did it evolve to the startup? Did it change? Did it shift? Or did you always keep your three principles that you mentioned in the beginning?
Nico: Yeah, it was always those, those three principles. The product never changed. The idea of the product never changed. The strategy of go to market it started to to shift. At the beginning we had an idea that it's gonna be super easy to get into [inaudible] it's gonna be super easy.
Pam: Ok. [laughs]
Nico: Yeah. Yeah. We were having like--
Pam: Wishful thinking. Wishful, I mean, but hey, that kept you going. It's not bad. It's not bad.
Nico: Yeah. So the-- the go to market strategy started to change, but the product remained the same.
Pam: How did it change? So in the beginning you were like, yeah, we're gonna get into Whole Foods and all that stuff. And then you realized, Hmm, it's not that easy.
Nico: We didn't know what we didn't know, so.
Pam: Right.
Nico: We thought it was gonna be way easier. We didn't realize how much capital do you need for, uh, running a CPG company. It's expensive to make one full container of product and bring that to here. So we were making like sales projections based in an an, an Excel projection, basically that Excel you can do magic and dream big in Excel. Then we started to realize that I'm talking also with a lot of advisors and a lot of experts from the industry. They started to give us a, a better go-to market strategy. They, they started to tell us like, Hey guys at the beginning, what the big investors are looking for in these industries, not how many doors are you in, but how well the product is selling in the doors you're in. So you should be focusing in these early days on getting 10, 20 stores in your backyard, there in Boston, become the best selling. Yeah. Become the best selling drink that they have in those stores. Go there, talk with customers, figure out what are the drivers for sell through in the stores. Because if you get all of a sudden in a thousand stores and the product is not selling, it's gonna be impossible for you to know why it's not selling.
Pam: Right.
Nico: So it's easier for you guys to figure out that parting, like small is just a bunch of companies. So yeah, that, that, that was actually great advice because that helped us to shape the brand a lot. At the beginning the brand concept that we have was very,social mission driven. Of course, coming from Ecuador, we didn't know the US market yet. We didn't know the American consumer. I'm not sure if this is very common in, probably it is common in in our countries in South America, but we're very proud of the country, right. And we're very proud of the things that we grow in the country. So we were like, oh my God, like Ecuador, it's the best country in the world, and the things that we grow here are the best in the world. So of course whenever we bring something from Ecuador, that's a place that, probably the only Americans that we know by then was like the tourists that came to Ecuador and fell in love with the country. Of course, like Americans would love every, anything that comes from Ecuador because it's so exotic and so unique. So we're, we're gonna just drive with the, with the fact that it's made in Ecuador, has great ingredients, and that we're helping Ecuadorian farmers to improve their livelihoods. It was a very social driven company. And then whenever we started to just sell, sell the product and try to sell the product, we started to come up with that with a lot of consumers here didn't even know where Ecuador was. We're like, uh, it's that in South America.
Pam: Oh my gosh.
Nico: Yeah. It's uh.
Pam: Yeah. A lot of people think Mexico is Latin America and that's it. It's so sad.
Nico: Yeah. We, we start to, to realize a lot of things from the market that it is what it is, you know? And of course here in the US it's a such a big and competitive market. It's not only that you have things from Ecuador, you have great things from all over the world. You have things from Vietnam, you have things from uh, South Africa, you have things from Mexico, you have things from Brazil. You have like, the best things from a lot of different countries in the world are sold here. [inaudible] So like that differentiator of just like coming that from something unique from, from our country, because all of these things are unique. All of these things are great. All of these things have amazing ingredients. That was not a strong enough differentiator for us in the, on the shelves. So we started to realize that by just doing demos ourselves, I've done thousands of demos in the stores, like pouring Waku and talking with the consumers to see what they think about it. So people was not sure, what was it. We were calling it a herbal infusion. That's it's, it's a very complex product. Waku is a very complex product because it has a blend of 20 different herbs, comes from that traditional drink from Ecuador. That's only known in Ecuador and the, the name of the drink is, or horchata lojana.So we couldn't name it or horchata, because whenever we were saying horchata here, they, they were thinking the Mexican horchata.
Pam: Right. It's very different.
Nico: Yeah. Rice based drink. So it's completely different. We struggled a lot with the positioning of the, of the product at, at the beginning and how can we explain such a complex product in three seconds on the front of the label. That's basically the, the main problem that we had. Because after when people already tried the product and failed the benefits of it, they were sold and they were hooked on the product because it's such a great product that they, they just love it. But that first very was the one, most difficult to, to overcome. So then we also started to realize that most of the consumers do care about social responsible companies, but that's normally not the main driver, at least in our experience, was not the main driver of purchase. That that creates fidelity in the customers and it creates, creates loyalty. But the main driver is always gonna be taste. And what is in it for me? Like what are the benefits of buying your product. [inaudible] Yeah, so the functionality and the taste, what is the main thing? And then of course the social mission is very important for us and it's our why and it's our, what motivates us to keep doing the company and that for the consumer, uh, it becomes a thing like, oh, this drink is taste good and actually delivers on the functionality and oh, it's so cool. They also are helpingEcuadorian farmers, so that's kind of like a bit secondary in the mind of the consumer. So then we had to shift the brand positioning, shift the, change the labels, redesign the labels, redesign the messaging. So we started to tweak that out and then we started to try to get into more stores with a better product that was gonna have more chances to sell throughout the stores and more chances to get more customers without us being there and selling the product in, in every store.
Pam: For sure. What was your first store?
Nico: Cambridge Naturals was our first store.
Pam: Yeah?
Nico: Yeah.
Pam: How was getting into it? How, was it hard?
Nico: Actually to get into that store was very easy for us. Uh, I love that story. I am still very good friends with the, with the owner of the company. Her name is Emily Kanter, and they have very curated products, so they only getting in products that are socially responsible and that are, have great ingredients and are kind of like, it's a niche store. So everything that we, that we are would just like, fit perfectly in the type of product that they accept. So for us was uh, easy. We just got in to the store with the product. We talked with the buyer, they talked with Emily and they were like, oh, let's give it a try. And they just, they just bought a couple cases to see if it will sell.
Pam: Nice!
Nico: Yeah. So it was, it was actually easy for us to get, to get in, but I know that they are very particular about the products that they accept. So it's not, I don't think it's gonna be easy for anyone to, to get there.
Pam: And then once you got the first one, then was it easier to just go to the next one and then the next one?
Nico: Yeah. At the beginning it was us going to the stores. So at the beginning it was me and Juan biking around Boston with a cooler of Waku in the, in the bike and just going and knocking doors. Whoever wanted to carry the product. To some stores, probably the first five to 10 was easy. Then it started to get the hard. Cause there are such a new brand that a lot of people was not sure about it. Like a very complex product. They were not sure if they was gonna, was gonna sell or not. So it took us a while to build distribution at the beginning because we, the beginning, we were not doing e-commerce or anything, we were just focusing on, on building retail presence in Boston. My role at that point was knocking on doors, uh, biking around Boston to, to get Waku in stores.
Pam: How many stores are you in now?
Nico: Right now? Actually, we stopped being in, in stores for a little bit after, whenever the pandemic started, we moved the business to be a hundred percent online. So we still have, like, we we're still on Cambridge Naturals, and we're still in some few select stores that we know that the product sells good, but now we're mostly focused on, on Amazon and our website to grow those channels.
Pam: Nice. I, I don't think people realize when you retail with other people, they give you like huge POs and the deals are sometimes that, it depends on what contract you get into, but sometimes it's like whatever doesn't sell at the end of the year, at the end of the quarter or whatever, you take it back.
Nico: Yeah. And the biggest, uh, chain of stores that we got in was Market Basket. It's a big chain in, in New England. And the other POs were big and we were super happy because before the pandemic, the strategy that we had for making the product sale was with a lot of, we, we call them brand builders. So it was a lot of people kind of like how what Red Bull does that has a lot of people giving away products, making like the brand known. So we will send a lot of them to the stores. It was a lot of in-store activations, eh, going to events and making people try the product in the events. So that was making the product sell a lot there in Market Basket. But then of course the pandemic starts and they don't allow us to go in anymore. We can't do anymore demos and all that. So the sales went just like plummeted and they are very strict, so it's super hard to get in. Like it will take you eight to nine months to get in.
Pam: Yeah.
Nico: A retailer like that. And then first month they give you a warning like, Hey, hey dude, your product is not selling enough. Like first notice. Then next month it keeps not selling, out of the shelf. So it was, yeah, it was like a huge blow for us at that, at that point. It was, it was awful at that point because we were running, we've made a lot of mistakes, uh, on all these four years as, as business owners of Waku. We've learned a lot. I think one of the things that the pandemic did to a lot of businesses was to accelerate whatever thing you had going on.
Pam: Yeah.
Nico: So if you had good business foundations, it accelerated those. And there was a lot of companies that did great during the, during the pandemic.
Pam: Yep.
Nico: But if your fundamentals were not there, it would just crash you. And our fundamentals were not there. So it almost make us go out of business, eh, in the first three to four months, we were seriously considering just like closing shop, and we were already thinking on, okay, what, what's next? What, what should we be doing next? We, we had to lay off the whole team. It was like, it was difficult, difficult times [inaudible] were, were over those difficult days and now the company's, eh, thriving and we're, we're doing great. But it took us a good six to 12 months to get out of that hole that we got ourselves in.
Pam: Oh my gosh. We're running outta time and I have so many questions still. [laughs] So the pandemic hits, your street team is no longer promoting and, and building awareness. It is a product that, when you see it you're like, I don't know what this is? Until you try, I agree. Cuz I've tried it. Thank you for sending me some. It's delicious. But it's one of those things that when you see it, you're like, mm, I don't know. Is this kombucha? I'm like, because there isn't enough knowledge about the horchata lojana.
Nico: Yeah.
Pam: I could see totally how it could be a kind of like a hard sell and like the first hookis not the easiest. Once you get it, it's like, yeah, send me more. This happens. You lay off your team because I'm assuming revenue's not coming in. How long did it take to make that decision and what happened that you were like, okay, is it a a a closing stage or is it a, a shifting, pivoting, ugh, I hate the word pivot, but is it one of those that we take things off the shelves, we move fully online, we bring back the team. What happened? [laughs]
Nico: Yeah, so that's a good question. And to be honest, the, the decision of having to lay off the whole team was a very difficult one, but it was one that we knew that we needed to, uh, do fast because it was not gonna be fair for a team to get one more month at the end of the month. We were gonna be just like, yeah, we were just dragging them and we were not gonna be able to pay them their salaries, so. It was awful because we were already like small family, right? Uh, we were super, super close with each other, so we had to lay them off. And then at that point, it was only me, Juan, and my young, younger sister, Sophie that works with us too. She was working from Ecuador, so it was just the three of us. We were running out of money from the investors that we've raised. Of course, at that point, we went to all the investors telling Hey guys, we need this amount of money. Everybody was like, no, it's too risky right now. We don't know what's going on in the world. So all the investors were just like, not, not gonna put in more money. But at that point, I remember clearly there was like a conversation we had with Juan in June of 2020. And whenever we have to have these type of like, tough conversations, we like to go for a road trip, just like drive anywhere. That helps us a lot.
Pam: Nice.
Nico: Yeah. I, I don't know why, but it just helps a lot to be in the car going to the same place, uh, together. So we started to talk about it and we, we knew that we, that we wanted to keep going. We, it was gonna take a lot and I had a lot of faith in the e-commerce business and the Amazon business that we've never tapped into. I had a lot of experience with that, with the previous company. So I knew I was gonna be able to build the online store. But the main reason on why we decided to keep going was that at that point we already knew what changes we needed to make yo the formulation and to the branding. So the current branding, the one that you tried, it's like our fourth or fifth iteration of the, of the brands, but we know that it's not ready to scale, so we knew that we needed to invest in a better packaging. We know that the, the positioning had to change. We've never like made any changes in the formulation. So after talking with hundreds and hundreds of consumers, we were sure that the changes that we are making right now to the product, that new formulation and new branding is coming on. We're launching that at the end of this month. We already knew that we needed to do that. So it was first reducing the amount of sugar. So it has nine grams of sugar per bottle. Now we're making them zero sugar.
Pam: Nice.
Nico: But we are making them a little bit sweeter, with the sweetener in the monk fruit. So it has zero calories. And for making it easier for consumers tounderstand the gut health benefits of the product because the main thing that, one thing that the customers love about Waku is the gut health benefits of it. It actually makes your digestive system feel better, feel lighter, and it's because of all the herbs, uh, and the functionality of the, of the herbs that we use. But a lot of consumers, whenever we talk with them, They thought we have prebiotics in it, or probiotics in it, even though we don't have them.
Pam: Como tipo kombucha, no?
Nico: Yeah. So we decided to add the formulation prebiotic fiber and the positioning of the product now it's gonna be called a prebiotic herbal tea. That's just like calling it that way. Whenever you read--
Pam: That's clear.
Nico: --immediately say like, yeah, it's super clear, you know what is gonna taste like, you know, it's good for the gut health. And then after that you can get into the, the complexity of the product. Right. And you can go to the website and learn about the ingredients and learn about the horchata lojana and all that. But we're living with that and we're living with, uh, kind of like more mainstream flavors. So we're gonna launch pineapple peach. We're launching a blueberry flavor, so like flavors that are more easy to, to understand, and more popular for American consumers. So we knew that we had to do all these changes back in 2020, and the plan was to make those and invest in the reformulation and invest in new branding in 2020. So I told Juan because Juan was already like, Dude, it's, it's gonna be too hard. We, we were super stressed as well. And, and of course the, the stress of the, of the beginning of the pandemic was the anxiety everywhere.
Pam: It was a lot.
Nico: On top of that, the business was crumbling and yeah. And I was like, Juan, you know, I'll use a lot of soccer phrases in my life. And there is like one, one soccer phrase that, that you have to play the game until the game is over, right? Until that, and you have to give your everything in the game until the referee stops the game. So I was like, I think we still have something to do. Like we still have these iteration and these, it's kind of like we're calling it Waku 2.0. And I think that until we launch that into the market, we still have that card.
Pam: Game's not over yet.
Nico: If we don't play that, we're gonna, I think, regret my whole life saying like, oh, but that was the idea that was gonna make Waku actually take off and make it grow faster. So I was like, let's just keep going until we're able to Launch these and developed these. At that point, we didn't have a lot of cash, but we had a lot of product of the old brand, so we, we had to sell through all the product that we had. That took us like a year to sell through all that. And I was like, if we launch that and that doesn't take off and that doesn't work. Maybe the market is not ready for this type of product, or maybe it's just like a thing that's just a thing in Ecuador and it's gonna be hard to scale if, if it doesn't work after we launch this. Okay, we.
Pam: Ahí sí, tiras la toalla.
Nico: Yeah, we, yeah. I, I, yeah. That's like we gave it everything. There's nothing else we can, we can give and let's do it. And we can sell all this product. I can, I know that I can build a, a base of fans, that we know that we have, that there's a lot of customers that still like this product. And if you do good ads and if you do good things in the, on the internet, you're gonna make them wanna try the product. And you can explain it easier online. So the, the plan was sell through that product. Build a base of, the goal was always to build a base of at least a thousand fans of Waku. And once we developed the new formula and the new, the new idea we launch to our fan base and we see what's their reaction of the new formulation, we see that attracts new investors. Because the previous investors were like, okay guys, you, I remember one investor telling us like, guys, I love you and I know that you're amazing entrepreneurs. Maybe this is not the idea that you're gonna become big with, but I think like now you have 80% chances of not, not making it and just 20% chance actually doing it.
Pam: That's rough!
Nico: And he was one of our most important investors, so I was like, yeah, 20% I will take it. Yeah, we, we can do it. So then yeah, that happened. And, and Juan was like, okay, I got your back. I'm gonna try my best to raise a, a little bit of money for you to be able to build the online business. Uh, so that's what happened. Juan raised a little bit of money and we started to build the online company and the, the online business and the Amazon business, and we started to, to sell through all the products, started to sell through, we started to grow again, and, and the company started to become in a, in a better place. And now that we have. The, the new formulation and the new branding and everything. We're starting to see already that there's a lot of interests from BC funds and bigger investors, so we've been able to raise enough money to, to get into a growth stage again. So we also launched a crowdfunding campaign that is helping us to, to bring more awareness to the brand and bring more smaller investors that are fans of the brand or are that really believe in a, in a product like Waku, that's like good for gut health or natural social mission in Ecuador and they love the product. Now they can become, uh, investors too in this crowdfunding campaign that we have going on. It's gonna close at the end of April. Actually, right now, we just closed a, a big investor last, last week, and we're starting to feel again that it feels like 2019 [inaudible]
Pam: Back into it.
Nico: We were like, yeah, we're back into it. We're, we're getting our mojo back.
Pam: Nice!
Nico: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We took a toll. Like I, I think I'm, I'm becoming bald and I think I, I've aged five years in the last two years.
Pam: I know. I feel like it's a decade.
Nico: Yeah.
Pam: I've aged like a decade in the last, you know, since 2020.
Nico: Yeah.
Pam: We arrived immediately at like 2030.
Nico: Yeah.
Pam: So tell me where we can find you, where we can find your crowdfunding. So your investor campaign. That's great. I saw it. Super awesome. How does it work? Tell us all the things.
Nico: So we are doing this in a platform called Republic and this type of platforms right now, this type of investment is, it's a little bit new, but there was like a new law that got approved, like I think it was in 2018. Because before, um, the only way you could invest in a private company like Waku, you had to be an accredited investor. So an accredited investor means that you have to have more than a million dollars in assets. Or have, I think above you should be making more than $200,000 per year in your salary. So it was hard to be, uh, an accredit investor. Right. But with this new law and with this new platforms, it allows you to invest in private companies, even though you are not an accredit investor, so you can invest in, in a lot of different companies. Right. Waku is there, but there's a lot of tech companies and a lot of different type of companies in this platform that the minimum investment normally is a hundred dollars.
Pam: That's great.
Nico: So for a hundred dollars, yeah, you can become an investor in, in Waku, there you can see all the, it's very transparent, so you can see how much sales you've done, like what's, what's the plan, what's the plan for the future, how many investors you have so far. So for anyone that's listening, I would, I would like to invite you to check out our website there, our campaign in Republic.
Pam: We'll have it linked in the show.
Nico: So you can check it out and you can reach out directly to us if you have any questions about the company and all that. But yeah, I would, I would encourage you to do that right now because I, I am feeling that this is gonna be the best..
Pam: You're gonna blow up?
Nico: Yeah, it's gonna blow up.
Pam: So what's the RI for someone who invests in Republic?
Nico: Normally it would be like us with all the investors, how all the investors will make their return is in the future. We know that this happens in the industry and whenever you become big enough, you'll get acquired by a bigger player that wants to put you in their distribution. So you can get acquired by Coke, by Pepsi, by Dr. Pepper or Nestlé, or like one of these big CPG players. So normally all the investors will make their return whenever this happens. And of course it's hard to know what's gonna be the amount of money that we were gonna be able to exit, but we expect to give back our investors from 5x to 6x the amount of investment they put in.
Pam: Nice.
Nico: Of course, that's, if everything goes as planned, uh, we hope that that can happen in the, in the future.
Pam: Nice. And I say this because, especially for folks who are like, well, this sounds interesting, but I don't know how it works. It's a long-term game, so don't expect that you're gonna throw in a hundred, 500, 1000 bucks or whatever, and you're going to see a return immediately. I mean, it's, it's an investment. That's why it's called an investment. It's one of those things that you let them simmer for a minute and then it's like, well, here you go. Rememberone time?
Nico: Yeah.
Pam: But it's fun. It's super fun. Cuz I did, I did something for real estate, for a commercial building and it was like $5,000 that my sister and I invested in. And I mean, it took like a few years. Ya se me había olvidado, and so then my sister was like, oh, here's some money that we're making now every month.
Nico: Oh, that's amazing.
Pam: Yeah. And it's one of those things that it's, it's a long-term thing, so keep that in mind, listeners, when you invest, it's a long-term game. It's not, it's not a quick gain immediately. It's not immediate gratification. Super fun. Where we can find you, tell us all the places and spaces.
Nico: Yeah, so you can learn more about Waku in our website. That's livewaku.com. If you want to reach me, my, the, the best place is Instagram, so my, my Instagram handle is nicoestrella7.
Pam: Awesome.
Nico: I have a, a podcast too that the link is in my, my Instagram handle, so you can, you can hear some of the conversations that I also have in the, in my podcast called Sunrise on the Inside.
Pam: Nice. What is it about?
Nico: I normally have guests of leaders in, can be entrepreneurs or leaders in the health and wellness space, in sports, and, and I just, we talk about tactics and routines they have that help them stay calm, feel revived and rebalanced in their everyday lives. That's part of like the new branding of Waku too. The sunrise on the inside concept. It's, it's gonna be, be bigger right now with the new branding.
Pam: How fun. So exciting. I mean, we can stay talking. I have so many more questions, but we'll leave it here I guess. Last two questions. Do you have a remedio that you wanna share?
Nico: Yeah, actually, the inspiration of the recipe for Waku is that since I was a kid, I remember that every time I had a stomach ache or I was feeling bad in my, in my stomach, my mom would brew herbal teas for me. So it would be like oregano water or chamomille water. So I remember that when I was a kid, it was not never a thing like to take pills or take anything like chemicals. Whenever I, I was having it, it was like all natural teas that that worked. Amazing. Like I remember that I hated them whenever I was a kid because I go, ma, just give me a, just gimme a pill.
Pam: Something quick.
Nico: Oregano water is not that great tasting, more if it has no sugar or anything, but I remember it was super effective. Like it was, it was very good. So I think that was a cure for stomach aches when I was a kid.
Pam: Nice. And do you have a quote or mantra that you live by?
Nico: My mantra is always keep moving forward and always keep expanding your surface of luck. That's my, my mantra, which is like, if you keep showing up and if you keep putting yourself out there, it's more likely that you're gonna become more lucky. And, and I know that in a lot of times for, in my, in my journey as entrepreneur, I know that luck has played a big, a big part of it, but it was basically the, the more I put myself out there and the harder I I work, the, the more luck I get, the the luckier I get.
Pam: You're at the right place at the right time.
Nico: Yeah. Cause you were in the right place at the right time. Exactly.
Pam: For sure. Awesome. Well, thank you so, so much for sharing your story and coming to Café con Pam.
Nico: Thank you so much, Pam, for having me. Listeners, stay shining.
***
All right, listeners, that was my conversation with Nico Estrella. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you had a lot of fun listening to the process of building this company and even hearing from a founder as they went through the pandemic and how they had to lay off and kind of rehire and make decisions when it came to, to their business. Because I think a lot of us will relate to that process of hard decision making. In this case. I think the pandemic brought hardship to a lot of businesses at the same time. However, I do think, and I have seen it with my clients, that there's always the ups and downs, the peaks and the valleys in business, and I hope that hearing it from someone who has done it and continues to do it every day, will hopefully give you hope and illustrate in a way that it's possible to make hard decisions and at the same time, pick yourself back up. One of the lessons that I received from this episode, so I really hope you also got some.
I would love to hear from you. Screenshot this, tag me and let me know what your thoughts are about it. And on that note, also, you can let me know what your thoughts are on the reviews and the ratings. And as you know, you hear me if you are an avid Café con Pam listener, thank you so much for being here again. And you know, I always talk about the importance of leaving reviews and feedback because not only does it help the show get better with your feedback, but it also supports the growth of the show because as you leave your feedback and reviews and ratings and stars and you subscribe, actually it's all three that count, subscribe, rate, and review. They all three count. It supports the show by feeding the algorithms and it tells the algorithm, the podcasting algorithms that people are listening. And so if you feel in a way called to support in some way, you can subscribe, rate, and review, whichever one of the three, all of the three, two outta three, whatever you want. And I so, so, so appreciate it. If you feel called leave a review. You can ask yourself, what was I expecting before I listen, and what happened afterwards, and how would I describe the show to my best friend or to someone if I was looking to recommend Café con Pam to somebody else. Think about those questions and what you could use as prompts to leave a review if you feel called to do it. If not, leave some stars. Five stars. Appreciated. And subscribing is also super helpful because it counts as people who are interested in listening more and more. Thank you so, so much for that.
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I'm so grateful you're here. And please, nunca se te olvide, to stay shining.