Take Me to Your Leader

In the latest episode of “Through the Door,” Megan Comfort sits down with Juanny Romero, CEO and founder of Mothership Coffee Roasters—one of the few woman-owned coffee brands in the country. A child of immigrants and a self-made entrepreneur, Romero has spent the past 15 years growing a business that reflects her values.

Romero opens up about scaling with soul, building inclusive spaces, and leading with love, grit, and purpose. She shares her journey from a self-described “professional at failing forward” to running an eight-figure business rooted in community, culture, and connection—guided by principles that prioritize safe spaces, ethical sourcing, and authentic relationships.

All price references and market forecasts correspond to the date of this recording. This podcast should not be copied, distributed, published or reproduced in whole or in part. The information contained in this podcast does not constitute research, recommendations, representations or warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of the statements of any information contained in this podcast and any liability from Zions Bancorporation, N.A or its divisions (including direct, indirect, or consequential loss or damage) is expressly disclaimed. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of Zions Bancorporation, N.A. or any of its divisions. Zions Bancorporation, N.A. is not providing any financial, economic, legal, accounting or tax advice or recommendations in this podcast. In addition, the receipt of this podcast by any listener is not to be taken as constituting the giving of advice, investment or otherwise, by Zions Bancorporation, N.A. to that listener, nor to constitute such person a client of Zions Bancorporation, N.A. Copyright reserved by Zions Bancorporation, N.A. Nevada State Bank is a division of Zions Bancorporation, N.A. Member FDIC

Chapters

• 0:06 Welcome Juanny Romero
• 1:06 From Rock Climbing to Entrepreneurship
• 1:49 Are You a Lounge Singer?
• 3:13 Owning a Coffee House: Myth vs. Reality
• 3:58 Mothership Lifting Off
• 5:15 A Professional at Failing Forward
• 5:52 Coffee Start-Up to Industry Leader
• 7:15 The Language of Business
• 8:16 Fear is the Mind Killer
• 9:28 Find a Financial Mentor
• 10:51 The Thrill of a Challenge
• 12:04 Doubling Down
• 13:13 Don't Make Decisions Out of Fear
• 14:10 Take Control Your Mindset
• 15:37 Growing Too Big, Too Fast
• 17:04 Two Most Risky Moments for Businesses
• 17:41 Delegate Roles You Don't Excel At
• 18:53 Overcoming the Challenge of Scalability
• 20:14 Building Problem Solving Systems
• 22:11 Curating Company Culture
• 23:52 If You Want to Go Far, Go Together
• 25:12 Understanding Your Employees
• 26:40 Understanding Your Personality
• 29:04 The Fruit Bowl Metaphor
• 30:13 Identifying the Bad Fruit
• 31:44 Identifying the Good Fruit
• 32:47 Aligning Core Values
• 34:17 Defying Traditional Stereotypes
• 36:13 Do What is Right At All Times
• 37:25 Defining Clear Roles & Responsibilities
• 39:44 Giving Up the Reigns
• 40:24 "I'm a CEO, Not Just an Owner"
• 42:04 Leaning into Being a CEO
• 43:23 Capitalize on Nevada's Business Resources
• 43:59 Believe Others When They Recognize You
• 44:56 Pushing Limits for Growth
• 45:50 Building Your Network
• 46:59 Ask Leaders to Be Your Mentor
• 47:59 Scratching Each Other's Back
• 49:51 Join a Peer Group
• 53:09 You Are Your Business
• 55:12 Seek Out Experiences Outside Your Circle
• 56:49 Business is Just One Part of Your Whole Being
• 58:08 Joy, Love & Happiness
• 1:00:15 What is Your Guiding Principle
• 1:00:44 Closing

Transcript

Hi I’m Megan Comfort, I'm the small business manager at Nevada State Bank, and this is a podcast where we interview business owners, business leaders, and get them to share their stories and unique situations that they've come across being an entrepreneur in our state of Nevada. So, if you love listening to this podcast, please know it's available on any forum or platform where you can find podcasts, as well as YouTube. So, if you want to actually see our beautiful faces, go ahead and tune in there, and you can see the video as well. So, with that being said, I want to introduce my next guest. This is Juanita Romero, she's the CEO and founder of Mothership Coffee. If you've been in Las Vegas for any period of time, you know the brand well, and if you haven't, please go check it out, you won't be disappointed, but I want to welcome Juanita here. Hi. Hi. So, we typically start these podcasts off with learning a little bit more about your origin story. So, kind of where you were in life and how you eventually ended up taking that leap into entrepreneurship. Okay, so I like to typically say that, you know, I'm born and raised New Yorker, so always I have New York in my heart, but I have to say I love living on the West Coast, and I love our state, and I love living in Las Vegas, and if I were to say, like, what brought me here is, honestly, like, rock climbing and skateboarding. I wanted to hang out, and I wanted to travel the world, and I wanted to have fun.

(...)

Oh, wow, that's really nice. So, we talked a little bit before about how the podcast started, so you kind of moved from New York to California, and then found yourself in Las Vegas, when you came here, did you know, like, I wanna be a business owner? Not at all, no way. What happened was my sisters, I have an older sister and younger sister, both Ivy League-educated women who are done very well for themselves in life,(...) call me, and they're like, "Hey, we're really worried about you. "We either think, like, you're a lounge singer "or a gambling addict. "We don't know why you live in Las Vegas."(...) Were you either?(...) I was neither, unfortunately. Neither, unfortunately, I cannot sing, but I do have a favorite karaoke song that I could bust out. Oh, what is it, just to hear this? I Will Survive. Okay, all right. Yeah, by Gloria Gaynor.(...) We're gonna have to do that. I actually won a dance-off competition with that song, so. Yes, nice.

(...)

That's awesome. And they were like, "Hey, like, you need to, like, do something with your life. "You need to either go back to school or figure it out." And, like, at that time, I've been to, like, at that point, like, five different colleges, and I still, like, to this day, don't know what I wanna become.

(...)

So they kinda gave you intervention. They're like, "Sister, what are you doing in life? "Like, you need to figure it out." Yeah, they're like, "Hey, we're really worried. "You're gonna end up being a crackhead and a loser." And I was like, "Oh, shoot, you know what? "They might be right."

(...)

So what ended up, like, venturing into, like, the coffee and the business ownership side? So, on my off days, I used to, like, hang out in cafes and reading books. So I said, "You know what? "If I own a cafe, I, too, "can sit in my own cafe and read a book." I have never done that in 17 years. That's usually how it starts, though, for business owners, I feel like. They're like, "Oh, I could see myself owning this "'cause I enjoy it." And then they realize, they're like, "No, now I just own it." And I'm running it for everyone else to do that. Yes, exactly. And it was, you know, I like to start the story that way because I think a lot of people have this idea of, like, "Oh, what you have to be to start a business," or, "You have to have everything perfectly lined up," and honestly, no, that wasn't the case for me at all.(...) So, a lot of business owners, when they're first starting out, what I've noticed is they always get stuck on, like, knowing where to go for information, or honestly, even how to, like, lift off, right? How to launch that business idea. And a lot of them kind of do it through just trial and error. Was that what you felt like when you were starting your business? Like, how did that come to be and what was the first location?

(...)

That's an interesting question. I can't say when I first started my business, that was the situation I was in. I was so ignorant, I didn't know the things I didn't know. So I just did it. And I remember, like, a good story or a good analogy is I walked into this turnkey location, we were the third outfit to take it over. It had been a franchise of whatever before, coffee shop before, and in one of the drawers, I found the employee handbook.

(...)

And I picked it up and I was like, "Ugh, whatever. I don't want to follow rules." And I threw it in the trash can.

(...)

Did you dig that out later? You're like, "Okay, wait a minute, there might be some valuables." Like, I've spent $10,000, if not more, in recreating that employee handbook. Like, I was so against rules and being controlled and anti-establishment. I was like, "No way." And in hindsight, like, I didn't know the things I didn't know. And I just did it with gumption. And eventually I learned a lot of hard lessons. And I like to say I'm a professional at failing forward. Like, literally, I just fall and I'm like one inch above losing my business each time.

(...)

I love that statement or that saying. Like, what is it? One inch or-- Above failing. No, you said falling for-- A professional at failing forward. Yes, a professional at failing forward. Wow, that is a really profound statement. I'm gonna remember that. I love taking one-liners from the episodes that we have.

(...)

So then tell me how that journey went then. It sounds like you won just either ignorance or naivete or whatever the case may be, but ended up charging forward starting this cafe because you had this idea of being able to chill at your own cafe. And then how did you, what moment, I guess, in the business did you really start to realize, I need to actually create structure and start learning more about how to become a business professional? I think it's when I realized that there were people

(...)

who were more successful than me. And I was like, what's the difference between me and them at the end of the day? I've got all my limbs, I have a head,(...) I have some kind of education, and they're doing so much better than me. So I was like, so the issue is me.(...) And I was like, so I can control me. I can do things to better me. And that's when I actually started finding resources, applying myself to programs.(...) One of the things I like to talk about is understanding finances, right? That's the key to everything. And when I realized that I had a lack of education and finance, I sat in the back of my cafe in my office and I bought fifth grade math books for girls. And I taught myself math from fifth grade all the way to calculus in about eight months.

(...)

Wow.(...) I love that you talk about finance because when I got into banking, it was just through falling into the world of banking because I got weekends and holidays off. Really was the primary driver for working for a bank. But what I ended up realizing is that one, accounting and finance is the language of business. I loved learning about business owners and how they got started and how they made these successful things out of, you know, nothing most of the time. And then how it becomes and takes on a life of its own where you have now responsibility of like your employees and all these other things. And it really stems from, in my opinion, as I've interviewed and gotten to know many business owners through like my 20 plus career here at Nevada State Bank, is that it really does drill down to people understanding the financing aspect of it. What made you realize that that was the main key point that you were actually missing? It was the one thing that I was scared of. I wanted to hide all the numbers. I didn't want to look at them. I didn't want to manage all those aspects of it. I love the people. I love serving coffee. I loved, you know, working with my team. But when it came to the numbers, I just sort of cringed. And it was like, and I told myself, I was like, either I'm going to get over this fear

(...)

or I'm going to fail because of this fear. And one of the biggest impact in my life has been the book Dune. Right now it's like a really cool movie. Well, at the time when I was 13, it was just a really cool sci-fi book. And there's a quote in there about fear being the mind killer. And I really took that to heart. And ever since I was a little girl, I said, the only thing I can fear is fear itself. If I could stand here and face my fears, that's where the journey begins. And I knew at finance, because there was a palpable fear, that there was something missing for me. And I sat my butt down every day and I studied math. And I said, okay, if she has two nail polishes in her bag and she takes one out,(...) how many nail polishes does she have left?(...) I did girl math.

(...)

Okay, nice. So did you have any mentors or were there people that you reached out to while you were learning the financing game? Yes, so I had an amazing mentor called Matt. And Matt was a part of Score.

(...)

He was my mentor on and off for, I would say, 15 years.

(...)

And he was the one that actually helped me get one of my first SBA loans was through him because no one was taking me seriously. And it makes sense. I was like 23 years old. I'm wearing a rock climbing outfit. And I don't know my left from my right, but Matt believed in me. He saw Gumption, he saw Tenacity, he saw a girl who would say whatever she wants. And he found it pretty hilarious.(...) So he helped polish it up, basically.(...) Take what you were already doing and put it into a format that could help you move the business forward with financing.

(...)

More than polish it up, he went and talked to his people.

(...)

Matt had retired with a $300 million trucking business. Oh, wow. So Matt knew people. And Matt was like, hey, this is the person that you really wanna focus on. You need a helper with this loan process. And through him, people took me seriously.

(...)

So did that financing help you expand into more than one location? Like when did you get the idea that you didn't just wanna have a very successful one location coffee business, but that you wanted to start creating more locations? That was,(...) it was, so when I started my first location, it was really fun. I loved the risk, I loved the unknown. Remember, I started doing the Great Recession.(...) So it was two years before I actually turned a profit. And I loved it. Like it sounds crazy, but I just loved the fact how hard it was. I loved the insurmountable odds. I loved the fact that I had to fight every day to survive. I remember the first day I made like $200 and I was so proud of myself. And I still feel it to this day, that depth of pride that I did on my own. And that no one else could say that they did it for me. And it was the first time in my life where I was like, I have true ownership of something. And even if it's $200, it's mine. And from there, it started becoming a really thriving business. And then I got bored.

(...)

And once I got bored, I was like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. And I went and I talked to, I was at actually a retreat, a yoga retreat. And there was a gentleman there who is a developer or used to be a developer here in town. And I went and I was like, hey, I'm really bored with my business. I'm thinking about starting something new. And he was like, let me give you a piece of advice. The most successful businesses are the ones that double down. And they become the best at what they do. And they keep at it for year on, year on, until decades pass by. He was like, so it's your choice. But if you really want to be good at what you do, there's more to learn. And I took his advice to heart. And I was like, you know what? The problem isn't the business. The problem is me. The issue is me. So what can I do to change? And that's when I was like, I'm gonna grow. I need more risk. I need to find more ways to make this difficult for myself. That's just my personality. And that's what brings me joy. And that's when I was like, I literally threw noodles to the wall and said, all right, let me go after everything. Every resource, every program, anyone that I could know, knock on doors. And I was like, I'm gonna do it. And I almost lost my shirt again, opening my second business. Oh my God, I love that. You thrive in uncomfortable environments. I do. I try to recognize that too. I love that you talk about a quote from Dune. I equate it to a book that I read a long time ago called Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. He's the same guy that wrote Think and Grow Rich. But I love that he talks about like, if you get into this hypnotic rhythm of just doing things because you're used to doing it and you let fear basically control your decisions to take risk or fear control your decisions to stay in a situation,(...) then you are living in hell on earth essentially. You're not taking control of your own life. Yeah, it's like living in a glass box. And so I try to remember that too when I'm making decisions. Am I doing this just because I'm afraid? Because if I am, I really need to figure that out. You have a unique ability and trait to really kind of do some introspective kind of searching and looking at yourself and saying, I can control myself, I'm part of this equation, I'm a big part of it, so what do I need to do to change and grow and develop? A lot of people don't have that trait or ability. It is, I think a lot of small business owners suffer from it and it makes sense, right? If you're wearing 10 different hats and everyone wants a piece of you and you have to provide, it's easy to fall into a victim narrative and a victim mindset, but it's also just a mindset. We have the ability to pull ourselves and change our mindset. We can either, like you mentioned,(...) move towards fear or we can move towards love.(...) And love can look very different from each person, but I do believe most people who start their businesses do it out of love for their family, for their community, for themselves.

(...)

Wanting a better life is a form of love. All those things matter, but then we forget along the way as things happen, right? Life happens and you have to be the marketing person, the social media creator plus the boss, and you gotta fire someone and you gotta hire someone. And sometimes your employees are ungrateful. It's easy to be like, "Oh, why did I start this?" It's just about finding love again.

(...)

Wow, you have so many good one-liners. You're like, I love this, you're Oracle, you're Oracle of business.

(...)

But so let's move into, tell me about almost losing your shirt the second time. So you identified like, I'm tired of it. I love that you talk about ownership. One of the things that I've noticed with businesses is the ones that are grassroots and start with basically not a whole lot, almost overfunding is the killer of business because they don't pay attention to all the pennies because they just think they have this abundance of money or they feel that they need to go super big right out the gate. And then they don't actually identify the ramp up and how long that takes. And so a lot of failures that I've seen over the years have really come from overfunding,(...) not understanding the value of the dollar, right?(...) When it comes to their business or scaling up and doing it too fast, too quickly, and just taking on a ton of debt, not necessarily understanding that moderation is sometimes the better approach, more conservative and it takes you a little bit longer, but it's better.(...) So you then go into, all right, I'm successful now with the one location, but now I wanna get more uncomfortable and actually go into this because of a mentor. And I love the development piece too, like where you said, businesses over time that can grow over time and double down and continue to create something bigger

(...)

is really where you should stay. Yes, yes. I think most businesses, like there's two parts where it's most dangerous for a business. There's the seven life cycles, sometimes six, depending on where the business goes. First is when it starts out, the risk of failure is very high. And when a business scales, the risk of failure is high. And that was me going from one to two businesses.(...) And I actually was gonna name my second business, my LLC Skid Plate, because it was like literally like, if we were like an airplane, we were hitting that skid plate and we were about to like eat it, and then we were able to take off. And it was like not being able, it was putting the cart before the horse, not managing our finances properly, not understanding the costs, not deploying the cost well, not understanding cashflow and having good cashflow analysis. And listen, I'm saying all these things like I'm like a finance genius. I just hired a CFO and I'm like, he's like, what is going on here? I was like, listen, I tried.

(...)

So I'm putting it back into the hands of the expert again.

(...)

But I like that you paid attention to all those words that probably made you uncomfortable in the beginning and realized this is the key to basically not allowing my business to fail as I'm continuing to scale. Oh yeah. Like cash is king. I just remember that statement very young in banking of liquidity is everything. If you have low liquidity and high leverage, you are in a very uncomfortable position because you don't have enough cash to weather a downturn and you have so much debt that your break even for your business now is so much higher that you can't necessarily scale down as things maybe start to shrink or it takes a little bit longer to come off the ground. So how did you, I guess, after the one to two locations, seems like it's the most challenging part for businesses.

(...)

How did you overcome that challenge and then perfect that recipe to where then you just started scaling more and growing more?

(...)

So what I wanted to first touch on is what you're talking about. So I take accounting classes every three to four years now

(...)

because it doesn't stick in my head. I'll take a basic course and I'm just like, what? But over time, I've gotten comfortable with the words, the jargons. And what you're talking about is the golden ratios in business, the financial ratios you should always look at. You don't wanna be overfunded, you don't wanna have too much cash, and I'm talking to the pro here, right? You wanna have a certain percentage of leverage that's good for your business. And one of the things I learned recently, it's not cash is king anymore, cash flow is king, right? You gotta know and understand your cash flow. So when we talk about scaling my business and what I learned is it's what I learned about myself. And what I learned about myself is that I'm a great systems builder.(...) I am a big risk taker,(...) but more than the risk and my appetite for risk, I love building systems. I love building concepts that stick that other people can perpetuate on my behalf. And that was something I've really learned later in life. Like I always just thought, oh, I'm a daredevil, I'm a risk taker. I love to climb mountains and throw myself off of them. I like to skateboard, longboard as a 40 year old woman with my kids in my arms and eat it, all these things. And it's like, well, actually, what I'm really best at is building systems.(...) And there's this quiet joy I get from going, there's this problem and this problem doesn't need to persist. And I could solve it for a bunch of people within the context of this organizational part, this unit in my company. And I'm really good at doing that. I'm good at understanding the problem, figuring out the solution and then creating the policies and the process and then being able to train that into my team(...) and then being able to also have the accountability(...) and the auditing to follow up. So the inputs match the outputs. And it sounds so boring, right? Like the way I'm saying it. To me, it sounds fascinating, but that is something that I would say most, maybe entrepreneurs or business owners are like, oh, I wanna pay somebody to do that part of it. I've had people offer me, beg for me to do it. They're like, I'll give you a part of my company, I'll make you CEO. They're like, please do this. And I'm like, and it comes from a place of love. And I was like, if I love what you do, if I love your company, I would do it for you. But it's like truly because I love my company. I love the people in my company. I love what we do that I produce this process for them. And it's so funny because it's so disparate from being a risk taker versus really loving the attention and detail in the system building. And maybe it's something that as I've aged and I've grown up, my risk tolerance has gone up and my attention and detail has, or my risk tolerance has gone down and my attention to detail has gone up.

(...)

So the system, well, what I like what you said about that is that system building, I think you put the label on it, but it really, to your point, came from love and the fact that there was a problem within your organization that was creating issues. And so you were just solving around that problem and making sure that there was a documented process around it so that others could do it and it wasn't just you solving for the problem.(...) Because you are only one person, which kind of brings me to the next phase of scaling. Outside of cashflow and understanding all the financing stuff and how to make sure that you're doing it, at least with a good shot at succeeding, right?(...) You also have surrounded yourself with really identifying good culture and good folks. I could go into any one of your locations(...) and everyone is fantastic there. And you could tell they genuinely enjoy what they do. They're talkative, even if there's a long line, they'll still chat it up with you for a little bit and not feel like, hey, I gotta get to the next person.

(...)

And then everyone just seems very, like not, when you walk into your store, it's almost like time slows down. People are not in a hurry,

(...)

which if you go into other coffee places, people are like, go, go, go.(...) Mobile order, I want in and out, I don't wanna talk to anybody, I don't need to say hi, what's your order? How did you, I guess, create that type of culture or was that an intentional vibe or feel that you wanted? Well, thank you for all those positive things. It's good to know that my secret shopper is doing well and evaluating.

(...)

I know who I need. I never do that, I never do that. So it is, right? I think one of the quotes that come to mind that my friend told me over breakfast a couple of years ago, and this was only a couple of years ago, right? I've been in business 17 years, but this realization about building great teams was only three, four years ago, which is if you wanna go fast, go alone. If you wanna go far, go together.

(...)

And that was a real aha moment for me that I had this idea of myself that I was a lone wolf, you know? I can do anything on my own.(...) And what I was actually doing was like, I was hurting the people around me. I was hurting my team members. I assumed that they were like me, that they also wanted to be lone wolves. And actually, no, they wanted to be part of mothership because they wanted to be part of the community. Whereas like, I like to create communities,

(...)

they wanted to fill the community up. And I just assumed that they were different in the fact that they didn't want to fill a community, they also want to create their own little communities. And this is really important to note because a creator and person who fills that community are very different types of people.

(...)

And with that in mind, I was like, oh, wow, I'm the wrong person to actually not only to create this community, I'm the wrong person to manage these people to fill it. I am the wrong profile for it. And that's where I took a step back. And I was like, how do I understand this better? How can I understand these people better?

(...)

And that was another awareness where I was like, you know what, I'm not really good at reading people.(...) I'm, you know, go out there, charge the first line,

(...)

but I'm not the one that can sit there and go, hey, like, how are you feeling? Hey, like, what's going on in your life? How can I support you? Because I'm so busy fighting the next thing, the next battle, the next fun, the next risk. And that's when I actually invested in a really cool personality program for executives. And that was life-changing for me. What was that? It's called Culture Index.

(...)

And we still use it to this day. And the reason why it's been life-changing is it's the first time where I understood other people, because I'm also really data-driven. And it's hard for me, like I mentioned earlier, to read between the lines.

(...)

It allowed me to understand people and how they're motivated and what makes them feel good and how sociable they are, and whether they're process-driven or if they're detail-oriented or if they're people-driven. And using that, I could actually look at someone and go, oh, okay, like, you're this way. When it comes to being self-motivated, you're actually team-oriented. I'm highly self-motivated. When I took the first time we did a workshop,(...) and they did my personality,

(...)

and the way that the advisor was mapping it out, it made it seem, I was like, dude, you make me seem like I'm a pit bull in the pound and no one's gonna adopt me. He was like, you're so self-motivated that you're actually belligerent if you don't get to do whatever you want all the time. He was like, there's 98% of the people in the United States are much more nicer than you.

(...)

And he was like, and you're like, even though I'm an extrovert, I'm not team-oriented. So he's like, and your sociability is so low that if you're not in control and leading the situation,

(...)

you literally do not care what other people think and you don't take into consideration.(...) And he's like, and you're so impatient(...) that if you want things to get done two weeks ago, and then your attention and detail is so high that no one else around you(...) can get to the level of detail that you want and things done, you're upset. And I was like, oh my God, that is me. I feel like you just describe myself.

(...)

I don't like that.

(...)

You're right, none of that sounds that great. But it's funny, I focus more on communication and understanding how to communicate because I did recognize early in my career when I started managing people that I was not good at it. And I didn't understand why, because I cared. I cared about doing a good job and I cared about the people that I was working with, but I didn't necessarily know how to motivate people in the right way and understand them. I wanted them to just default to my style automatically and I couldn't understand why they couldn't. I was like, this doesn't make any sense. It wasn't until I did like a 360 type of thing and got some pretty bad reviews that I realized, wow, this is what people think of me, okay.(...) And it humbled, it humbles you, right? It makes you really take a good look at like, these aren't necessarily bad traits, but these are things that are not everyone's cup of tea. And when you work in a team environment or when you're working with people or even helping others, like you have to be able to communicate and work with all and find that balance.

(...)

So with this culture index that you did, did you have other members of your team do the culture index and did that help you kind of understand like, wow, I'm the community builder, but this person is better at creating that community or fostering that. So like, imagine like a bowl and there's fruits in it. I'm the bowl, right? I keep the container safe. I carry the container, I'm the leader. I mark what the boundaries of this container is, but I'm not the one that is putting the fruit in it. I'm not the different types of fruit. I'm not allowing the fruit to stay in the bowl and do whatever fruits do and ripen. And I actually hired a team to do that. I hired the right people to do that. And once I put the right people in the right place, they've taken it and ran with it. And I have to say like, I have numbers. When I put the right people in the right place and I took out, and remember, there was some bad fruits in there. And there's one thing that I do know what I do is I know how to take out the bad fruit. And I got rid of those bad fruit. My sales revenue increased in one year, 174%.

(...)

Wow.

(...)

How do you identify that bad fruit? That I think is sometimes very hard for people to also recognize, especially when they have pretty big parts of the pie or pretty big elements that maybe they take care of for you. So maybe they shield you from how they are. So it's something that I learned.

(...)

I've been a very lucky participant of two scholarships at Dartmouth for the executive education program.(...) And wow, like I wish I could go back to school now because man, to be in a classroom and conceptualizing about my business and talking it through with like a professor is like the most amazing experience. But besides the point, the one thing I learned in that program is the concept of a coach killer.

(...)

A coach killer is someone who really understands your business, they do their job well, but they are a cancer to the organization.(...) They are a culture killer. They do the job well enough in order to make it difficult to fire them because they're toxic.

(...)

And the one thing that I learned, it was like literally I was there for one week was I need to get the coach killers out. And I came back with a rampage. And in three months, I turned over my organization and I started just pulling and ripping people out.(...) It was brutal. I almost lost my business again because of that. I mean, that's a scary thing to do, especially in that short period of time.

(...)

How did you kind of float that in the interim until you found the right people? Or what did you do differently when identifying the right folks?

(...)

I looked at each person in the organization and not the lipstick service that they were giving me. I like to say lipstick service, that's like my new thing. Cause like on Instagram, you see like all these like super like good looking people and they have like makeup on or really great lipstick. And then they're wearing like sweatpants underneath and they're like three months late on their rent. So it's like people were like, we've got it together. Let me sell you my training program, my business. If you pay $99, you too can also do nothing.

(...)

And it's like what I realized is that there were people like them in my organization who were paying me lipstick service,(...) but when I actually sat and observed and paid attention, they weren't following up with their actions. And I was like, oh, it's like, I always have to look at,

(...)

if you wanna look, in the Bible it talks about like, if you wanna look at the actions of someone, look at the fruit of their actions. And that's what I went back to. It's like, all right, who in this organization(...) actually truly cares for the organization?(...) And it's okay to care for themselves as long as our values align.

(...)

And what can we do to protect that? And you know, honestly,(...) that coach killer, it went all the way to the top.

(...)

There were people who had too many fingers in their pie(...) who would say that they were for the organization. They cared for the organization, but I honestly, like, we had like core values,

(...)

and I was perpetuating this culture with this core value. Well, this person was perpetuating a whole other set of values,(...) and a lot of the people who,

(...)

you know, I don't wanna like throw them under the bus. It's more so people who maybe didn't have the strength and the foundation to live with integrity capitulated to that style of values. And so I was like, you know what? I'm from Queens, man. I was in my neighborhood before Giuliani came along. Like, don't get it twisted, all right? I was like, we're gonna go back to the streets with this. Like, I've been in rough environments. This is nothing.

(...)

Wow, that is, you made a tough call. That's not easy for a growing and scaling small business to really make those tough decisions. A lot of times you just kind of hope that it figures itself out. Yeah, as a woman.

(...)

We're using these words and it's like,(...) that's what a woman would say, right? Or a person who identifies that way, right? Feminine energy.

(...)

Well,(...) it's not, I had to step in and be a masculine or be a man. It's more so like, there is different types of feminine energy. Like, I identify as like a tiger.

(...)

And that's what I need to let out because you're right. We say we hope or we shouldn't or you know what, little girls don't do that. Little ladies don't behave that way. And we get it, I started boxing myself into that and allowing these people once again to should me or tell me how to live my life or what was permissible. And I was like, no, I'm a tiger. And you know what, you guys are messing with my baby and I will rip you guys apart. And I've done that. And I've restructured my organization. And in the past, like I would say now, going on in two years, and I'm telling you once again, I've been in business 17 years. This has only happened the last three years now, right?

(...)

From the 174%(...) revenue jump, now we're an eight figure business.

(...)

And it's because of being able to not be shoulded, not be told to behave a certain way, how little girls should act, little ladies should act and going, no, you know what, I can be feminine and I can be strong and I can be loud and I can send them for myself. And it doesn't take away from the fact that, you know what, I look good in my lipstick.

(...)

There is different types of feminine energy and we need to call that into service, especially as women business owners. We can't hope,(...) right? We can't be like, well, let's just hope for the best. No, lady, you built that business. You put blood, sweat and tears. Do not let other people tell you how the rules should be applied to you. You create your rules. Yeah, that's your baby.

(...)

I'm very fortunate that I recognize just do what is right at all times. And values to me is very important. I love that you bring up the value concept that you started with a set of core values and then started realizing that there were people in your organization, some very high up that were not living those values and you had to make the tough calls. I don't ever equate things to, oh, I shouldn't act a certain way. I do try to make sure my delivery sometimes with certain folks is different,(...) just so that it's a, I try to start with how do I want to make them feel at the end of it, right? When I'm going into a situation and then try to understand how to communicate in that way. But me, like facts and logical like sense, you can't really fight or combat that, right? People can get emotional over things, but I think it truly at the end of the day is like, is your heart in the right place? And are your values aligning with overall culture and organization and do you truly care at the end of the day? So after you made that tough move and you really kind of essentially identified like I need to do a 180 on some of my team,

(...)

you saw the sales kind of skyrocket.

(...)

Was that giving other people in the organization that were maybe held down a little bit, like the opportunity to really take the reins and grow or did you find other new folks outside of the organization to come in that you felt were a better fit?

(...)

So what I did is I have an amazing right hand,

(...)

my director of operations.

(...)

And what we did is when she came on board,(...) her name is Lisa. I don't wanna give her her last name because all you guys are gonna try and poach her for your own organization. Just give it another name. Just be like, it's Tisa. There you go, Tisa. She's amazing and she actually owned her own business, a chain of espresso carts, as well as worked for national organizations(...) and ran like huge franchises.

(...)

And she took a step back wanting, she wanted to find purpose. So where we aligned is that I gave her a sense of that purpose. I gave her a seat next to me and I said, hey, we can really do this together, but these are the things I require, I require values, I require integrity, I require your all, but I will be with you side by side. And it's been a great relationship and it's a great partnership. And what we agreed on, because she's also a huge risk taker, huge appetite, right? Was I said, I will make you in charge of everything within the four walls of this business. If it's within the four walls, you are the decision maker. I'm gonna be in charge of everything outside of those four walls. And that's what we shook our hands. We literally did a handshake deal. And that's how it's been ever since. So when you ask questions like, hey, what happened within your team? How did it grow? I can't really say because I gave it to the right person. I focus on what I'm good at, which is wearing makeup and showing up for podcasts. And visionary, hey, visionary created you more than the nice blazer, come on.

(...)

Oh, wow, so how,

(...)

was that hard to give the reins to someone else? Like as a woman entrepreneur, honestly, just an entrepreneur in general, was it hard to release the reins of that? Or were you like, oh my God, thank goodness you're here? Not at all. I think the best place for, and this is where we have to have a CEO mindset, right? There's six functions of a CEO, and it's not working in their business. It's working on their business. I'm so much better as an ambassador for my company. I'm so much better as a deal maker for my company. I'm so much better as a person who can see the problems from afar and be able to project manage it out to the rest of my organization.

(...)

Those are the skillsets that I actually really want to function in. That's why it's really important for me to say I am a CEO because I wasn't. I used to be an owner,

(...)

and an owner is very different from a CEO.(...) And I was like, I'm a CEO now, and I'm gonna do what's best, not for me as an owner. As a CEO, I have a mandate to do what's best for the organization.

(...)

I have goosebumps with that one comment of I'm not an owner, I'm a CEO.

(...)

You just gave me an epiphany, even with the businesses that I have with my family.

(...)

How difficult it is to recognize when you're in a company and you are working in it, not on it. And how to switch hats on, I need to start working more on it and not necessarily in the minutia. Having the trouble to separate the two,(...) the word owner versus CEO just kind of solidified it for me. It is about becoming more of a mindset of a bit, like you're running a big organization because it is. It's actually the most important organization to you.(...) And you should be running it with the care of a CEO that is basically in the seat to ensure that the longevity, the legacy, the movement, and the challenges and the risks that are on the horizon are kind of managed. And that in itself is a full-time job. Yeah, I think the most essential function of a CEO is to ascertain where the roadblocks are and get rid of those roadblocks so the organization and the team can thrive.(...) Did you always possess kind of those skills or was that really through all the resources that you leaned into on training and understanding how to run a business like the Dartmouth classes? And what did a lot of that kind of, I guess,

(...)

direct you into understanding that piece of it? I think it's an and yes situation.(...) It's definitely both. I think within me and within every person, there was something there that wanted to bloom.(...) And for me, especially being somewhat different from love like other, you know, I grew up in a biracial family and there was expectations on how girls acted and behaved. And also being half Asian, there was also this, you know, collective concept versus like the I and the ego,

(...)

which I'm very, you know, I'll say I'm ego-driven, not to a point where like ego in the sense of how I look and how people perceive me, but ego in the sense of my eye and what this person inside of me wants in life is driven by that. So it was a confluence of that was always within me, but it was also at odds with everything around me. And then going to these programs, having these resources, our state is amazing. We're so lucky to live in this state if you own a business. You can text your assembly people, you know, I can jump on the phone and talk to the state treasurer.

(...)

I also participate in politics. You know, I've created two BDRs. I had one vetoed by the governor. You tell me how many people have been out there and got rejected by the governor. That's amazing. And I've also had one bill pass.(...) Like I'm making an impact in my state. I get to, if I need help, I reach out and then the resources and the network is there. Like we're really lucky to be here. And through that, what I kept hearing, even though I didn't believe it in myself, other people who have done the journey and who've gone ahead of me going, you've got something in you. You know, you're a little rough around the edges, but you've got some really sparkles inside of you. That's really beautiful to look at. And me not believing them until eventually I realized, wow, I can shine as well. Wow, I have a place, this person that was so difficult to manage where everyone said, Juan, you sit down, Juan, you be quiet. Juan, you do this, Juan, you do that. And I couldn't, right? Was perfect for this role, which is as a community builder, as a CEO, as an empire builder, as a person that could run a team. And I said, where does this end? And I go, you know what? It doesn't end. I can keep growing as far as I want to. I can create other communities. Actually, you know what? I want to give this away to a thousand other women and I want them to go create mother ships and communities. Why stop?

(...)

Wow, I mean, I would agree. Like sky's the limit for, honestly, not just you, but like any entrepreneur that has that drive and that persistence and that desire to really just push the limits and be uncomfortable, grow and develop. There's a couple of things that you've said that have really resonated with me. And it's, you're always learning and tapping into resources and wanting to understand how to basically improve yourself and be better, not just for yourself, but also for your organization as a CEO. And that you take that CEO responsibility,(...) basically with the highest, most utmost importance in your life to ensure that it is moving in the direction that you want. And you're focused solely on the CEO responsibilities and you're not allowing yourself to dive back into the owner mindset, right? Of working inside your business.

(...)

Tell me like one thing about having all of those powerful connections and network, it doesn't happen by accident. It's very intentional. How did you start that intentional road of ensuring that you had this strong network to actually create positive change, not just for your organization, but for other small businesses as well?(...) So it wasn't intentional. I like to say like, I'm a very curious person and I do have a lot of gumption.(...) So the way I go about investigating is I like to say I'm an ant. You know how an ant goes out in the morning? They just sort of start wandering off and they're looking at different avenues. They're going down different cracks. They're coming back and they're looking for food resources. Eventually an ant does find that resource and what do they do? They go back to their community and then they start a path, right? To acquiring that resource. That's how I function. I'm like the ant. I keep an open mind, which is very difficult because I'm always thinking about myself and my needs first, but I keep an open mind, I stay expansive and I go, okay, I have this question. I don't even know the answer to it. You know, one of the first questions I had is, there are things that I don't know that I know I don't know. And there's things that I don't know that I don't know.

(...)

The latter is the issue, not the former.(...) So how do I mitigate for risk? How do I mitigate for unintended consequences? And I was like, I need to go to other people who have done this and who've moved further ahead of me and I need them to mentor me. I need to access their wisdom and their knowledge. And I did that. I sort of went out into the community and I go, okay, is this a person for me? And it's like, maybe.

(...)

Maybe I thought they were, oh, actually they're quite transactional. Or you know what, they look like they've done stuff, but in actuality, they really haven't done much.(...) And I keep moving forward. And I was also really authentic and honest. I'd be like, hey, my name is Juanita Romero. I own a business. Would you like to mentor me? And they'd be like, what? And I'm like, yeah, I want you to talk to me. I wanna sit down and drink coffee with you. And I want you to tell me how I can do better at business.(...) And it's funny enough, a bold ass typically gets a yes.(...) And I got a lot of yeses from that to the point where over time,

(...)

those yeses turned into relationships. And I always made sure that how can I be of service to them? That was really important. How can, when they have asked, how can I provide for them with what I have available?(...) And that became really important because I didn't want to have a transactional relationship. I saw the transactional relationships.(...) And I was like, you know what, that takes away from my personal values. For me, I need to be authentic above all,(...) at anything else. And I have to be honest, even to a fault.(...) And what became a network became a very close group of friends and friendships and people that supported each other. And as these people have grown in the communion, raised themselves up, whether it's in business and politics and whatever nonprofits that they're doing, I also was able to grow with them through their knowledge, through the mistakes that they made. And lastly, when we talk about wisdom,(...) I have an amazing business coach. I am part of an amazing tribe of other CEOs and leaders in our community. And I have an amazing network of people who care, who are also right there. And I have these confluence of circles, where if I reach out,(...) it feels so amazing. And I say this, why? Why do I keep saying amazing? Because I was very lonely as a child. I didn't have friends. I was really weird. My parents didn't even like me.

(...)

I'm being serious. And now I look at my life and I would never live, I can't leave the city because of the community that's been built around me. I'm so thankful for it. People actually love and care. And so I wanna give them everything. I wanna care back. And that's what we've built in Las Vegas.

(...)

So the peer group that you were a part of, did somebody tell you about it? And you were like, let me check this out and see if it's a good fit? Or was it something that you guys actually curated on your own, just the collective of basically friendships and relationships that you made where you're like, I need to-- So what it was is I got to a stage of my business and I was like, I cannot do any more self-learning. I need more organized learning. Unfortunately, I never finished college, so I don't have a degree. And I was like, maybe I need to get MBA. Well, I couldn't. No one would accept me. Even though I had all the years of experience in business without an actual four-year degree, I couldn't get an MBA. So I was like, okay, what do I do? How do I learn more?(...) And I went to Dr. Christina Vela, who runs St. Jude's Bridge for Children,(...) the Hustler for Hope, amazing personality.

(...)

And I was like, you know what, she knows what she's doing. Let me go ask her. And I went to her, I was like, hey, I don't know what to do next. Can you guide me? Can you help me? I think you're ready to join a peer group. I was like, what's that? And she was like, it's an organized group where we have a facilitator, and we meet once a month for a full day. We set aside eight hours, and we just learn, we process issues, and it's been life-changing for me. And I was like, I don't know if I'm the right person for that, and she's like, yeah, you are. Then I went back to my advisor for Culture Index, right? Because the program's pretty expensive. And I was like, hey, I don't know what to do. I found this great organization. He was actually part of it, too, prior,(...) before we moved to YPO.

(...)

And I was like, but I can't afford both right now in the business. And he actually said, you should go do that peer group first.

(...)

Wow, that's really amazing. He said, you're gonna do the peer group, and then you're gonna learn so much, you're gonna make more money, that you'll be able to afford the Culture Index program. And that's what started it. And it was the same thing, being at the feet of others, who not only have done more in business, I finally got to be at the feet of good men.

(...)

I grew up in a home that was really broken and violent. I didn't know what a good man looked like. I didn't date good men.

(...)

Now, granted, I have an amazing man in my life now, so. But it wasn't without learning, right? It wasn't without learning. I ended up with men who were egotistical, narcissistic,(...) you name it, liars, people who were not like, and I don't wanna say these are bad people, they're more like broken people, broken men. And I thought that that's all I deserved. Well, being around a group of men who were married and loved their wives and loved their company and worked hard, I was like, wow, there's this other type of man that could exist. That was a big eye-opening thing for me. Oh, I don't need to be used. I actually can be treated like a queen, being around women who had a lot of strong boundaries, who could advocate for themselves, who were comfortable, gracefully disagreeing.(...) And all those little bits, you don't think that they matter, but they do matter. I am like a pitbull, I'm coming in like a bull in a China shop and they're like, okay, Juanie. And I remember my business coach, she was saying, she teared up recently and she looked at me and she's like, Juanie, when I first met you,(...) I didn't know if I could take you on. And she's not because of you. She was like, I didn't know if I had the strength in me to really let that beautiful piece inside of you help it come out and help it shine. And it's been three years and she's like, I'm so proud of you. Look at how much you've grown. And as much as I've grown as a person, that's what's impacted my business. I went in thinking I need to be better at business. I actually needed to become a better person.(...) Well, it comes hand in hand. You are your business, like your energy, your soul, your heart, your basically the main values and feelings that you have in life, like all of those things, they do transfer into what you create. And if you're creating a business, it's translating into that. There was another person that was on this podcast, Carlos, he owned a business and I remember him saying, if you're scatterbrains, your people will be scatterbrains. Like you are,(...) how you are in life, in your personal life and in business life is the same person. There is no separate personalities.(...) It's the same human. And you have to be that for your people if you want them to act in a certain way or conduct themselves in a certain way on behalf of your company. That's some really powerful things. I love that you continuously talk about support and resources and I mean, even with where you are when you outside in, seeing the amazing business that you've created and that you're continuing to grow,(...) it almost looks like it's just so polished, like it started that way, right? And it didn't, it evolved into this, but it evolved with a lot of blood, sweat, tears, a change in evolution on your part of making sure that you understood where you were as a person too.

(...)

One thing that you mentioned and then we'll kind of move into the last question, but I wanna tap into this a little bit is you said that you reached out to someone

(...)

that was just an organization leader. It wasn't necessarily somebody that was in the same industry or like a business owner, like you talked about the hustler for hope, right? The nonprofit organization.

(...)

Is that, that's a concept that's unique to me only because when I think about mentors or people that I would need to be guided by, I'm always thinking about who is in my industry or just a more successful business owner, I guess you would say that I could look into, but you kind of also looked outside of just business owners, but also business leaders.(...) How did you learn that? Was that just something where it resonated with you or did someone tell you that? So there's a book from Charlie Munger.

(...)

He wrote two books. One is Charlie's Almanac. It's not in that, it's in the other one. And it's from Darwin to Munger. And it's actually out of print. So if you can get one, please get it. It's amazing. And in it, he talks about the idea of understanding the coming to moment. And he's saying the more successful people actually have,(...) when the brain, you ask the brain a question, the brain goes over the whole nexus of all the different experiences you have and takes that and creates all these different notes and possibilities. And what he suggested in the book is to have as many disparate and different experiences in life that then can maybe possibly give you an out of the box solution.

(...)

So for me,(...) when I think about people and when I think about business, what I've come to realize is that business is a function

(...)

of being.(...) It's one more tool, whether it's a nonprofit, whether it's a micro business, whether it's a big business, it's another function of us becoming more human.(...) So even though people may understand things in a certain business, what is that person like though? And for me, that was the most important thing is that my soul, my energy, my vibration, my beingness(...) linked up with other people's beingness. Because even though a person could be successful in business,(...) yes, we have a lot of people who are very wealthy, but they're on their third marriage.

(...)

There's nothing wrong with that. I too have been in a couple of marriages.

(...)

They are prone to taking prescription pills. They have a controlled drinking problem. They are addicted to the accesses of life because they work hard, they have to play hard.(...) And in my opinion, those are imbalances like a seesaw(...) where the soul just wants to exist and wants to exist in joy and love and happiness. And business is another function of exploring that in terms of our mind and our energy.

(...)

And what I'm attracted to in people is a function of that soul.

(...)

Because that I can learn more than anything I can learn in business. I'm so thankful I run a great organization.(...) I run an eight figure business that I wanna move to nine figures one day. And it's such a fun thing to do, but my life isn't dictated by that.(...) I'm not a product of my business. I'm not wani mothership coffee. I'm wani a soul who's playing at this game of life. And how lucky am I to do that? And if I wanna play it, well, what do I wanna play with? I wanna play with joy. I wanna play with hope. I wanna play with love. I wanna play with faith. I don't wanna play with those other things. And I thought my whole life was all the negative stuff. And I don't, we'll use negative in quotes, such as how I should behave.

(...)

Life is hard. Life is suffering. Life is pain. And I'm like, that's not the life I wanna live anymore. How lucky am I if I can live a life full of joy instead?(...) And that's what I've been attracted to in people. And what I've learned is, as long as I follow my intuition(...) and I guide myself towards people like that, guess what the business takes care of itself. I didn't need to work hard.

(...)

Maybe I shouldn't say this out loud to see my profits raise 174%.(...) And then another several million after that the next year.(...) No, I just allowed my heart to be filled with joy. And I allowed it to be filled with love. And I connected with those people.

(...)

And I allowed my container, right, of my organization, I allowed those fruits that were there to bear fruits of love, joy, faith, and hope.

(...)

Wow, and get bigger in the process, which is fantastic.(...) So my last question, because I feel like you have so many good pieces of wisdom, I'm really excited about this episode, is what would be the number one guiding principle that you would wanna share with others, maybe listening to this podcast, either in business or in life?

(...)

This one I'd like to say directly to the camera. If anyone is on YouTube, please subscribe.

(...)

Which is, you are born perfectly whole. You are born with the greatest light to shine in the world.(...) And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Allow that light to shine and blossom, and live in hope, faith, and joy.

(...)

Oh, thank you. Well, thank you so much, Juanie, for being here. And thank you for tuning into this episode of Through the Door, the insider's perspective on running a business. I am so excited for this episode. And thank you so much, Juanie, for being here today and sharing all of your amazing wisdom. I know it's helped me immensely just talking to you for this hour. Thank you.

(...)