An Empanada Story Filled with Family, Growth, and Dedication

Margarita Womack never intended to build a frozen empanada empire. Eight years ago, she was a PhD scientist with Colombian roots who simply wanted to help a friend secure a visa through a small catering business. Today, she's the founder of Maspanadas, with over 50 employees, a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, and nationwide distribution.

This candid conversation reveals the complete financing journey behind Maspanadas, from kitchen table experiments to multi-million dollar fundraising. Womack shares how she bootstrapped initially through catering and farmers markets, discovering empanadas were her bestsellers and pivoting the entire business model. When expansion required capital, she turned first to family, securing $150,000 to take over an existing manufacturing facility – the first step in a financial journey that would eventually include convertible notes, SBA loans, and a seed round that dragged on for nearly three years.

The pandemic brought both crisis and opportunity, forcing Maspanadas to pivot when it lost most of its food service business overnight. Womack's science background proved invaluable as she methodically tested and validated each business decision, expanding into private label manufacturing while gradually building retail presence. Through it all, she invested "every single cent" her family had, even using her home as collateral for equipment loans.

What makes this story particularly powerful is Womack's honesty about the personal toll of entrepreneurship. As a mother of three balancing multiple roles, she dispels the myth of "having it all," instead describing how she learned to focus on one priority at a time while building a company that now provides opportunities for dozens of employees, many of whom are immigrants like herself. She's even established a foundation to help employees with financial literacy and accessing community resources.

Ready to start your own entrepreneurial journey? Learn from Margarita's experiences navigating the complex world of CPG financing, and discover why persistence, adaptability, and community might be even more important than the money itself.

Connect with Keith on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithkohler1/

Transcript

Introduction to How I Financed It

Keith Kohler 0:04

Hi everyone. It's Keith Kohler here, your financing man, and welcome to episode two of how I Financed it. Really excited to bring this to you. This is an idea I'd had over several years ago and now I'm finally making it happen. By way of background, what I do is I help companies get the right financing at the right time so getting them businesses and closing deals and I also help founders feel more comfortable with the management of their business finances. So you could say I'm a combination of both transaction and transformation.

Keith Kohler 0:36

And how I financed it is going to be a series of discussions with founders and perhaps other service providers at some point, broadly from the financing space and from the financing lens.

Keith Kohler 0:49

And what we'll do in our discussions is we'll chronicle the journeys of our founders, principally from the lens of how they finance their business, from origin to where they are now and from that naturally, organically, what's going to evolve are offshoots and tangents about strategy and feelings and supporters and people along the way, and fresh products and new ideas. All those different things will flow outward naturally in the conversation and I can't wait to see what happens. I don't prepare really anything upfront other than just having that basic structure of understanding the financing and then we see how it goes from there. So really excited to bring this to you and for today's discussion. I get to welcome to the stage Margarita Womack from Maspanadas, which is a company I've had the pleasure of working with in financing and I've chronicled and witnessed her journey over her eight years in business. So really excited to have her today and thank you for coming to join us.

Margarita Womack 1:57

Hey Keith.

Keith Kohler 1:58

Anita, how are you?

Margarita Womack 1:59

Doing good. How about you?

Origin Story of Maspanadas

Keith Kohler 2:01

Good, good, good. So really excited to have you here on the initial launch series again of how I financed it and really excited to dive into our conversation. And the way I'll start out is by having you give a bit the origin story of Maspanadas. What excited you about founding this business?

Margarita Womack 2:20

Well, I didn't realize I was funding this business you didn't realize.

Margarita Womack 2:25

No, I started a different business with a very different idea, and this was a pivot. I originally started what was meant to be just a small catering company. I thought I would be able to do it out of my home kitchen and really it was a way to help a friend and it was meant to be this teeny, weeny business for just catering to friends and neighbors. Had you asked me then if I would see myself now here with a large manufacturing company with tons of employees and nationwide presence uh, just making empanadas I would tell you you're nuts I am.

Keith Kohler 3:09

I'm nuts, for sure, but it's amazing to think it was you originally and conceived it as a small catering company, right and now here you go.

Margarita Womack 3:19

Exactly, it was um. So I'm originally colombian and came to the US over 20 years ago. I've actually been longer in the US now than I ever was in Colombia and came because a guerrilla group called FARC that's, FARC threatened my family. They were trying to extort my mother, so it was not safe to be in Colombia anymore.

Margarita Womack 3:39

So I came to the US, was able to transfer as a student, but came pretty much as a refugee, just fleeing a very difficult situation in my home country. And it was very hard, definitely very traumatic, though I'd never realized how difficult really until I had children. And so I found myself with two toddlers, a newborn and a full-time job teaching, and that's when you really want to jump out the window with no help community around. So I desperately reached out to home and had a friend come to support me and spend some months helping me, and at some point she said, like you know, I would like to stay and I was more than happy to entertain the alien, figure out a way. And so the catering company, as a business of cultural aspect right character, had give us access to special visa program so that I could hire her as the chef for this unique company that needed essential personal from home, right from Colombia.

Margarita Womack 4:42

So that's why I did it, to get this visa, and I? Um thought we would be able to do it out of my, my home kitchen. I have no background, did not have any background whatsoever in the food and best um industry and, of course by state also the regulations vary. But you can't have a catering company out of your home kitchen, so that led us to the kitchen?

Margarita Womack 5:03

yeah, because every place has their regulation right exactly so it's first thing you want to make sure you understand before you launch your business. But for maryland then we had to go to a share commercial kitchen and so went to union kitchen that has an incubator too, and got a very big area, right?

Margarita Womack 5:19

yeah, a lot of people start their businesses there and you have a community that's all doing the same thing. So it's very exciting and uh, uh, pretty soon we realized then, within the menu, empanadas were the best sellers and there was a real business opportunity, uh, going in that direction. So consumer packaged goods and frozen empanadas that my family thought was completely nuts. I mean, it's kind of the same idea. I don't know gonna go to japan, sell street food frozen from the us. So hot dogs, frozen hot dogs in japan and you're making them in like alaska or something like that. I don't know completely like wacky, right, it's the same idea. It's.

Margarita Womack 5:59

It's a street food in latin america, not something you buy frozen ever, and certainly didn't really have that much presence almost eight years ago when I started the business. But I was loving it, I would see the potential and quit my teaching career. I have a PhD in science, so that's what I thought I would be doing. And here we are now, almost eight years later, where this is my full-time job. I have over 50 employees and just moved into a brand new plant. We do our brand, we do private label, we do food service and we've reached nationwide presence.

Keith Kohler 6:37

Yeah, marguerite, I have not realized. You know, I just really want to witness you because you came from violent situation, right, and your family was threatened, and that must have been really hard and you know, it makes, I think, all of us realize that some of the founder stories sure come from maybe challenging origins, but yours was an extremely challenging one and I'm sure I just really want to witness what you did. Is you immediately sprung into action? Right? You said, okay, I'm in a new country, I have a new opportunity, and here the catering opportunity presented itself and you went right in and you knew that this was a pathway for you.

Margarita Womack 7:23

Yeah, thank you. It's what certainly. I think it was incredibly hard and certainly marked me in a very deep way, but it has a huge upside that I learned in the process that you are so much more flexible and adaptive than you think and no matter what life throws at you, there's always a way around.

Keith Kohler 7:46

Yeah, wouldn't you say yeah, and we're going to go dive into the details step by step, but wouldn't you say, when you think about largely your journey, resourcefulness, resiliency, your ability to handle adversity, maybe touch the bottom sometimes and test our limits, but to come back stronger right, or to find strength, support, whatever that means. That's just a hallmark, I think, of many of our founder journeys, particularly over eight years, right, and certainly right from the beginning, you had to test. You were tested in so many ways yeah, agreed.

Margarita Womack 8:20

Yeah, hallmarks of an entrepreneur, for sure.

Keith Kohler 8:22

I think so, and I think so in the catering company when you first started right again, you were offering many different products, but the empanadas stood out as being the one that you knew you wanted to focus on.

Margarita Womack 8:33

Yeah, we're the one that people order the most right. So, okay, maybe instead of catering, you can only grow it so much right. The footprint is so much smaller versus if we try this in consumer packaged goods.

Keith Kohler 8:47

How far can we go? Yeah, I love it. So in the catering business obviously that was probably self-financed. That was easy to handle, right. You spent the money on the ingredients, you prepared it, you sold it. That happened in a very narrow timeframe, right, that was probably easy to handle, you get paid right away. You get paid right away. What's that? What's getting paid right away as an early stage founder?

Margarita Womack 9:07

It's amazing and that's what it should be. That's really one of the hardest pieces, right. You have to wait months to get paid.

Keith Kohler 9:15

That's such a great insight because you're right, here's that instant I buy it or I buy the ingredients, I make it, I sell it, it happens in a couple days, right, but now, what then triggered the? What was the opportunity where you said okay, now I know I'm going to make this into a viable consumer product, I'm going to sell it in different channels? What triggered that moment?

Margarita Womack 9:36

I really being part of this community where there were many companies uh, striving for, for this and only for the consumer packaged goods aspect, and it seemed like, hey, this is something where we could have a product that can do well in this space. But we took it slowly and I think that helped significantly. We did catering for quite a while, though mostly then centered around empanadas. We would do empanadas on a couple of sides, that was it, and so we continued that one for a period of time and started actually with food service. So, delis, where would that deliver directly?

Margarita Womack 10:12

that also pays you relatively fast right and then started in the meantime and farmers markets kind of thing direct to consumer, would do in our neighborhood. Like you know, when you're tired of pizza Friday, maybe try empanada Friday, right. And it gave us the chance to really learn about what people thought of the product and the chance to figure out well, how do you develop packaging, you know what are the pieces people are looking for, what sort of colors are attractive, and I didn't know that. What's supposed to go on the back right, like how do you develop a nutritional label? How do you list your ingredients? So that sort of thing it takes a while to figure out when you're starting from nothing and really don't know what you're doing. So, starting outside CPG on sort of parallel alternate spaces, that helped a lot because we had the chance to get our feet wet and try things and get iterations of a prototype right and try it with people and get feedback direct, before we ever tried to get it on a package and on a shelf at a grocery store.

Keith Kohler 11:16

I really love that because I think we often hear the refrain from lots of people, particularly in the finance community, but even among founders, is the importance of going deep in your home market right and learning, as you said, farmers markets, continuing the catering business being part of a community right Of peer founders. So all of those different associations and those experiences helped you form a solid foundation from which you could say, okay, great, great, I'm gonna get that right first, I'll bet your science background had a lot to do with it too great, because you were committed to process and to analytics and things like that right. Coming from that structured style background, I think probably was very helpful to you absolutely.

Margarita Womack 12:00

Uh, science is great. Training for life in general and a PhD I might be the world expert at the most. Actually very interesting things like spider genitalia. I can tell you lots about spider genitalia and that was my undergraduate thesis. Yes, I have two actual published articles on spider genitalia and I can also tell you about the genetic basis of morphological differences between closely related species of Drosophila. I wrote a whole book. It's back there. No one will ever read it. There's a copy of it at the Library of Congress and I bet if I put a hundred dollar bill now, I'll find it again in a hundred years.

Keith Kohler 12:41

But that's OK, I'll link it to the Library of Congress and we'll Library of Congress and then we're going to spend it on Mas Panadas, for sure.

Margarita Womack 12:46

Maybe that's a good idea. I think that's a great idea.

Keith Kohler 12:50

So yeah, so here you are right, You've self-financed it. At what point did you say, okay, great, I'm going to make a bigger commitment and scale it? And what was the financing that went with that?

Margarita Womack 13:02

So it was all little by little.

Margarita Womack 13:07

Small steps, very iterative I was getting those love steps and going back to that previous aspect. So science, no matter what you do for your research, what science does is structure your thinking, and how you approach a problem is all about what I think the solution is, but then going and gathering data and analyzing it to validate that idea, right. So for me it was. The trick is not you go like okay, have the product, the product ready, boom, put it on shelf in thousands of stores and you get to go. That's a mistake. You want to do small steps because you think this is I don't know the branding that works. Steps because you think this is I don't know the branding that works. Try it out a little bit, get feedback, go back, change it, update it and go in small steps that are better each time. Right, but using information every time to revise what you're doing. So it's um, we started with one store uh so a local chain.

Margarita Womack 14:03

Yeah, I just really a couple stores, someone that the owner, a female, really supported female founders and gave us the opportunity to launch at her store and give you feedback and mentorship in the process. And once you have that one and you learn some of how it works there and who's buying it and why they're buying it, then you go on to the next store and it becomes much easier. See, it's over there and shelves over that store and this is how it does and this is who likes it. Much easier to get on that shelf and it snowballs over time. But if you take, make these big steps, you're not going to know the mistakes till later and there's going to be mistakes and the bigger mistakes till later and there is going to be mistakes.

Margarita Womack 14:46

And the bigger investment right, yeah, yeah, they're bigger and you fall harder, right. So those small steps are key in the beginning was easy. So we had the caring on the side that would bring a little bit of money right. And the direct to consumer duo local yeah, and started testing just one place at a time at that point no slotting to worry about, no tradesmen that you had to finance, and we would get paid directly by the store. So fairly quick.

Keith Kohler 15:08

Yeah, not terms like a credit card or a transfer or something like that. Right, Exactly.

Margarita Womack 15:14

So it was much easier because the rotation cycle was much faster. It didn't start getting complicated until the first time I had to go find outside money, and the first victims were, of course, my family. It till the first time I had to go find outside money, and the first victims were, of course, my family. Uh is, when we took over, we went out of the incubator kitchen to a space that uh became our first manufacturing plant and, uh, we had to do some. Uh, it was already a manufacturing plant for empanadas when we took it over.

Pandemic Challenges and Pivoting

Margarita Womack 15:40

Yeah, yeah, there was already. Yeah, this is in the area. They went out the they decided to close their doors and it was. It was easy for us to step in, take over the lease and buy the equipment that was there, but we still had to do all these renovations and all this work. So I needed and then the working capital to kind of get going after that. So I needed 150k was that first check and it came from family to be able to move in this facility and get it going. So that's when things started kind of getting a little bit bigger and bigger. From there I kept more than anything the food service channel because, even though it also has terms, they tend to be shorter and a little bit more direct and we work directly with a small distributor and uh, uh, so that was great. It was over 80 of our business at that point. The rest was catering and a teeny bit of these guys. They were just trying out and, um, when the pandemic came, oh my god so you raised the money right in 2019?

Keith Kohler 16:44

Was that, when it happened, okay? Did you do it on a convertible note? Did you do it in loans? Did you do it in straight equity A loan?

Margarita Womack 16:52

A loan originally, and once we started the seed round then we made it into a convertible note.

Keith Kohler 16:58

Okay, brilliant. So the seed round happened also during the pandemic or right after.

Margarita Womack 17:03

It started during, so 2021.

Keith Kohler 17:09

Okay, so as that time you used that 150 again to the equipment, improve the manufacturing facility right, Take me through the time of the pandemic. Did you grow quickly during that time?

Margarita Womack 17:21

So well, we lost all of our food service. That was the majority of our income and that was harsh. We had no idea we might have to just completely close, right. I remember meeting with my seven employees at the time and then having the chat like it's close to weeks, figure out where this is going to go, but it's the future certainly unclear, because if we can't sell, we were selling to event venues, right, and restaurants and, uh, conference centers. It's where we would distribute, and so that that was gone yeah, yeah instantly and we had.

Margarita Womack 17:54

So, okay, let's try more of the retail. But we didn't really have the capital to grow fast. We had just started distributing at that point for the first time with uh like somebody that could do the retail, uh distribution for us. We had a few, uh, whole food stores at that point and moms organically in our, in our area, so just a handful of stores, 30 or so, right, and wanted to grow. But uh, it was sudden, had tried to push on it some and then we tried also to do like ship, do online sales. Uh, fortunately then we we started also doing private label and that was the second time I needed money because we had to double the size of the space, buy more equipment, hire more people, uh, but um, but it really was um, the best possible decision to to try using then our manufacturing for other brands and um, that's really helps with funding because it's also um short, short rotation and larger volumes yeah, and long-term contracts right it was.

Keith Kohler 19:00

You had some predictability and I really want to witness that because you think about right. You're shut down. In food service. You have just a handful of stores locally. That's certainly not enough to keep the employees and the factory, you know, on its own it would result in significant losses. And yet here you are as a young company, still quite small, but that's huge that you've got private label, because normally young companies that's, it's very hard for them to do that. And so what do you think it was that that helped get win those contracts?

Margarita Womack 19:36

So that's I think it's serendipity and good luck, because it was literally. The connection was a friend was working with this company and they wanted us to add him, similar to ours, and he put us in touch and they liked the samples and we went from there. But it was having a good network more than anything and, yeah, that's a consistent theme, hasn't it?

Keith Kohler 20:06

In those early days, right from the beginning, you knew the value of community and network, right, and you were very present and willing. I remember again in your early days seeing seeing you on LinkedIn and that's how I originally reached out right, because I saw your presence and you were really, from the beginning, willing to talk about community and participating in Chamber of Commerce events or I'm showing up at these types of networking opportunities, right. You've been always extremely visible that way and I think it's really paid out extremely visible that way and I think it's really paid out.

Margarita Womack 20:39

Yes, it was very deliberate, because, uh, it's uh. You have to have a strong community around you. This is not something you do in the void by yourself. You have to have the support of so many people around you other founders, um, people that are experienced in the industry from all aspects of it, and people in government around you, so it's something you have to work on actively.

Keith Kohler 21:10

Yeah, I love that. So now you've got the private label right and you were doing the seed round to support the private label expansion and the general expansion, Can you tell us a bit about the seed round and how you approach that?

Family Sacrifices and Balancing Roles

Margarita Womack 21:23

I thought it would be so easy, Like, look, we are making all these beautiful empanadas and we have these great contracts, and it's a pandemic. Look at what a wonderful opportunity. And it was so much harder than I thought. That round dragged for close to three years.

Keith Kohler 21:39

Three years.

Margarita Womack 21:40

Mm-hmm.

Keith Kohler 21:41

Yeah, Wow, I really wow. You stuck with it.

Margarita Womack 21:46

But you know you have to make it happen and it wasn't a rolling basis, right. So it just kind of kept on going and even though the company changed over time, the needs changed over time and the first few people investing were just a couple of people that were really close and really believed in what I was doing. Good time and, um, the first few people investing were just a couple of people that were really close and really believed in what I was doing. But then it kind of dried up because a number of factors were right. We're still, uh, it was pandemic, so no one really knew what was going on, was going to happen and, uh, at that point in time, it's changed significantly since then.

Margarita Womack 22:17

But having your own manufacturing and focusing more than anything on private label was not attractive to investors. Having your own manufacturing was seen as a high risk. It is a high risk regardless. But the pandemic changed some the perspective into what opportunity it is if you manage it well. And we were still kind of proving ourselves right that we could do this. And private label is not the same kind of exit as branded, right. So it was not attractive as I thought it would be and it's not unusual anyways to have to have, I mean, hundreds of conversations before you get anywhere. And so that first year, I think, I just got two checks literally from a mentor and another family member. And then it was not until we started getting some momentum with the brand, and this is just as the pandemic was wrapping up that we launched regional with Whole Foods and started actually second region and, uh, finally had someone that said, hey, I'm willing to be lead in your round.

Keith Kohler 23:27

That was the turning point yes, big time, because now you had that more retail presence, so you were more retail presence yeah, this is an old branded product route exactly and someone that was willing to say I vouch for what this company is doing.

Margarita Womack 23:44

I believe in their potential and I'm there to support them and I look deeply into what they're doing. That first move that someone saying that and calling themselves lead got many conversations that I've had before suddenly all fall in line. And then Amazing.

Keith Kohler 24:03

Yeah, margarita, I really appreciate you sharing that detail because I think a lot of founders, with your time in business and having gone through your experience, would echo the same thing. It's astonishing how much, particularly in these early stage rounds, someone will go okay, I'm in, as long as someone else leads it right, and that lead person has to be someone of substance, of credibility, right, whatever that means, and they have to have those attributes of believing in you. They did do all the diligence and checked under the hood and said I believe in the product, the business, margarita, the team, everything right. That they kind of put their blessing over everything and it's a lot of pressure. And yet once you get it because you knew you had all the elements in place, then things start to unfold right.

Margarita Womack 24:55

Exactly. And so you've got to push and, push and push and have those conversations and keep on working on your business, keep on growing it to, to eventually get to that point where where you find that lead and you have the pieces ready up, and then so it's just kind of like a lighting, a match, right, and you what's the name for that? It's not quite a fuse, but you know, you've been trying to light it for a while and it's just not catching and finally you get it and dynamite, right explodes the whole, yeah, the whole thing.

Keith Kohler 25:24

To that point, yeah, but until that time, right. It's really amazing, as I reflect upon that and I really am astonished when you think of three years, right, you're going through that whole process and you're still running the business. Did you have to put your own money in? Did you have to find other short term? Yeah, how did you handle that?

Margarita Womack 25:44

That was the in between. It's honestly every single cent my family has. It's in there right now. Every I mean we practically live check to check because everything's committed. We, every time we had to, the business was running out of money, we would come and rescue with our own, our own savings and our own everything and so and then we were able to get an idol.

Margarita Womack 26:09

So for, for the pandemic yeah, so that helped, um, but it's been cobbling it with pieces. But but, yes, everything we have it's in there. And then for the plant we got an SBA loan for the equipment and for that we have to put the house as collateral. This is not easy and you go in in full. Honestly, the only thing that's not as collateral for this business working out my children's souls, not kidding.

Keith Kohler 26:38

Oh my God, yeah, I mean I really, and do you mind if I explore that a little bit with you, because here you are, businesswoman, entrepreneur and mother and wife, right, and when you think of that role, of how mother and wife has evolved during this time and maybe during that time where you, how did you feel your family support? Or were there times when, hey, this is tough but you still feel you believe in it, how would you characterize how you felt during that time and the children and husband and everything?

Margarita Womack 27:10

It's a roller coaster, right, and it's so many things you're trying to balance and balance the way I think people tend to think of it, of keeping all those balls in the air at the same time. That doesn't really exist. I think that's a fallacy, because you can't just keep everything in the air at the same time. You're just focusing at one ball at a time and the other one's on the side, and sometimes it's one ball, sometimes it's the other. So sometimes it's family, sometimes it's the business, sometimes it's your relationship with your husband and hopefully, over time it evens out right. But it's difficult because you have to make compromises and you're always, always making a choice, one thing over another. Any of those are a full-time job.

Keith Kohler 27:57

Any of those you could take 100% of my attention. Yes, attention, yes. You have 400 going on at any one time yes, and it's difficult, it's very difficult.

Margarita Womack 28:07

I tend to be very ambitious and incredibly optimistic and think I can do much more and put more than I can on my plate. Um, but it's asking for a lot, and it's asking for a lot from yourself, right? And that's something I didn't quite realize at the beginning how you have to choose and I never want to choose. I want to have it all and you can't have it all.

Keith Kohler 28:35

And I appreciate you saying that, because I think when you think of what we hear right, what we see about entrepreneurship stories, the impression can be that a little bit opposite of what you're saying right, like no, you can't have it all, you can do all of them at 100%, and I love what you're saying is like no, I made choices and sometimes I was focusing on this and sometimes I was focusing on that. And when you think of your husband and your children I imagine they've always supported you right On this and very and realize, hey, there's ups and downs here.

Margarita Womack 29:13

Yes, I think that's absolutely key and I don't know if you would know it ahead of time to judge if it's something that's going to work for you or not. I been very lucky in that regard, Because you hear so many horror stories, founders, and not just in the CPG space. I often hear from the restaurant space to the tech space. The founder tends to be so absorbed in their venture that often just wrecks homes apart and relationships.

Keith Kohler 29:39

It absolutely does. Yeah, I really yeah. I've seen that too because, again, you think of that journey of eight years. Sometimes you might be continued to be resilient and resourceful, but I've seen this in other settings Spouses can get tired Like, oh my God, is anything ever going to come of this? Are we ever going to get there? And a lot of times I've observed I think yours is different, obviously you have great alignment and great communication. Yeah, and let's bless that, because so many founders even struggle to talk about the realities of their business with a spouse or a partner, because oftentimes it's opposites attract right.

Margarita Womack 30:21

True.

Keith Kohler 30:22

But you gotta.

Margarita Womack 30:23

if you're not honest, it's not going to go anywhere. And and there's going to be again a compromise that um and you have to have their support and they're buying and believe in you that, even though you're doing something that probably looks totally crazy, it's going to make sense and it's going to make you happy and it's going to be fulfilling. And they have to be part of that ride. And I think we've been pretty successful in that regard and it has even paid off in some ways. My kids have grown up with the business.

Keith Kohler 30:55

They really have.

Margarita Womack 30:56

My youngest was one when I started the business.

Keith Kohler 30:59

One.

Margarita Womack 31:00

One.

Keith Kohler 31:01

I I mean, he knows nothing but mom and mas panadas right together, I love it exactly. Don't mind me going down that when you think of your children is like how do you talk to them about the business, what lessons do you find that you're able to share with them, that that they liked learning about?

Margarita Womack 31:17

you know, I didn't quite even. I don't think about it sort of on purpose. Planning like this is a lesson they might be able to learn. It's just what I'm absorbed doing the whole day, so they hear about it, right, so they might be. They're probably coming from school soon the two older ones you probably see him on the background like checking out what's he doing. Is he on a call, can I interfere or not? And um, and so it's always there and they go with me to the plan. During the pandemic they were little right and I had to work.

Keith Kohler 31:44

Right, yeah, that was taking care. Right, you were full-time exactly full-time.

Margarita Womack 31:51

They got to go and take him with me and the oldest would sometimes, you know, work on the line like, uh, the packaging, putting together the cartons, is always all just by hand.

Margarita Womack 31:59

We didn't have that many machines and he thought it was very fun and he would make races with the employees to see who could assemble the boxes the fastest. And so he worked on the line and he learned from what it is and, uh, I didn't realize really how much they absorb uh, until a couple years back. Union kitchen holds every year at a media expo in a way, meet the makers event, and so I took my then 12 year old to help and he was supposed to be in the back helping to prepare the empanadas and serve them right, and I was talking to guests that they were coming and it got very busy. There were a lot of people coming through and he ended up talking to people and I heard later from a rep from a distributor that I didn't get to chat with them. She chatted with my 12 year old and she said he did a perfect pitch.

Margarita Womack 32:47

So a 12 year old, look at the eyes of an adult and actually pitch the product. Not bad.

Keith Kohler 32:54

What a beautiful moment, right, that you get to share with your child and know that isn't that exciting because the children they're absorbing it right. And I know, growing up in entrepreneurship household myself, when I think of what my father was doing. I was that too. I listened in right when my dad had the home office I wanted to go, I wanted to practically join the calls myself and I enjoyed it. I also saw. You know, sometimes there were times that were bad and there was times that were good and I imagine your children understand, hey, it's a journey and it's not linear.

Margarita Womack 33:30

Yeah, it's a big lesson for them too and that you got to work hard and there's adversity and you figure it out and things are just just not perfect and they feel pride of it to own your ships, yeah, so.

Keith Kohler 33:43

So in that sense, you know, if mom has a business, it's involves the whole family yeah, it really is a family business it's a family up there, for sure yeah, I really, I really want to just say what a blessing that you have that and the kids are excited and you have, and I'm sure you feel that support and I'm glad you have it, because for founders who don't, my god, it can be fraught with difficulties very difficult.

Margarita Womack 34:09

I can't imagine, and again, you do trade off. Say, for example, next week, expo west, we're going. It's both of my children's. My oldest is their birthday. I'm going to miss their birthday next week, but they know it's important, they know it's something that's valuable for the business.

Keith Kohler 34:30

And we just, you know, we celebrate a little bit after, and that's fine. Yeah, I really appreciate that and yeah, I think all of us know, as founders, sometimes we miss those events, whether for family or for other things. That because we know that, as you said, it's compromise and sometimes this is the choice that needs to be made.

Keith Kohler 34:47

Thank you for allowing me to explore that side of you, Margarita. I really appreciate it. So you raise that seed round again. You're in the factory, You're growing the business in retail. You got the SBA loan for principally equipment right, and then where did that get you to what was kind of how did that fuel the next phase of growth?

Margarita Womack 35:07

So seed round right about three years and still overlap with getting the SBA by the equipment. And honestly, it's never enough money.

Keith Kohler 35:15

It is never enough right. It always takes more than we think.

Building Community and Supporting Employees

Margarita Womack 35:19

Unfortunately so, and it starts getting a bit tiring after a while. Like, wait, it's, it's okay. This is where I want to go. This is break even, and to get to break even, I need to invest in equipment and I need to invest in ingredients, I need to hire more people. And then suddenly, once you get here, like no, no, no, the break even now moved here, and so you're constantly chasing it. Uh, but I'm hoping now this year we'll be able to stabilize, finally, kind of take a slight revision of our strategy. But so seat round and then the sba uh, so that's a term loan and also a credit line. And also I, I was lucky that uh, one of our investors, um, financed part of the build out too as a loan.

Keith Kohler 36:01

That's tremendous. So as a loan it's been very lucky, yeah, so separate loan, personal loan at a very incredible, generous rate.

Margarita Womack 36:09

I don't have to pay anything for the first several years actually. So that was also like having a guardian angel right to put this together and I thought, okay, now we have the new plant. Well, it took a little longer than we thought to get it together and the old plant built with popsicle sticks and duct tape and winding through this complex little set of bays and where I needed lots of people to actually deliver the volume I needed, and that point was not efficient right.

Keith Kohler 36:40

Very manual.

Margarita Womack 36:42

Yeah, very, very, very manual. Now the plan we have is much more automated, streamlined. It's a single room, high ceilings, HVAC that actually works and basic things that you don't quite realize what an impact it has until you have them, and so now we're in a much stronger position and ready for starting to think about a series A.

Keith Kohler 37:03

Terrific Okay.

Margarita Womack 37:04

We just need a little bit more time to show what we can do with our new plant. So it's been just four months, so we need more data to show four months. Yeah, and also we're changing a little bit strategy. I uh, we did really well once we decided, okay, we, we have the seat round, we want to grow the brand because that's the value, right, and uh, uh, but uh, they've been learned right.

Keith Kohler 37:31

uh, but uh, when you grow fast your retail, you eat a lot of cash a lot of it and when you think about what you initially thought you needed versus how it wound up being, what was the differences? What were the differences that you found?

Margarita Womack 37:45

I needed more cash and then, to be honest, right, you make mistakes too in the process and those end up costing money too, and you didn't necessarily anticipate those. So it was moving to the plants like, okay, we're starting to get a little bit short of money and we need slow down a little bit the retail because it eats too much cash. We need to stabilize a little bit and finally the world has come to more stable place and with this new plant, we decided we're going to start pushing more on our food service, because, coming on our food service because coming back food service is coming back, so we have some very good contracts about to open.

Margarita Womack 38:28

Uh, we're doing schools, for example. Uh, we are doing um colleges and universities. We just got a big agreement with sodexo, uh, and so that's a new channel that's going to start growing and it's a good intermediate. It's still branded, of course, not the same value as having something customer facing, like in retail, but solid margins and there's still straight spend. It's not that there's no trade spend. There's still plenty of pieces, different pieces but I think we'll be able to get more towards the bottom line than we do for retail and so balance out a little bit more, stabilize the company and then at that point, somewhere looking at a year or so, to then do Series A. And it's not like I'm thinking I'm going to wait until then to have conversations about Series A. No, I've been having conversations about series a for months. Who is going to be interested? What are they looking for?

Keith Kohler 39:26

what are we missing yeah, do you mind on that? When you say, what are they looking for, can you share with us kind of the main bullet points of what makes you well prepared to go for a series a?

Margarita Womack 39:39

absolutely so we're a little bit in an awkward space still. For a Series A, it's ideal to be at around $10 million in sales or north of that to have more options. Vcs it's a lot of work for them to write a check. There's all these pieces that go with it, uh, and so many are just not. It's not worth it investing in that smaller space and those smaller checks. They want you to be at a certain size and write a certain size check. So that's one piece get closer to that 10 million dollar in sales. And at the other piece is that you want to have proof of concept with your brand. So that means sufficient geographical coverage. But the big lesson is solid presence in the market and it doesn't have to be at all. Thousands of stores you might open. Maybe you don't open thousands.

Keith Kohler 40:35

It's not necessarily the number of stores, but the solid. Does that really mean deep basic?

Margarita Womack 40:43

Yeah, yes. So it's where you have good velocities, where you show that, versus the category, you are doing above average and that your product has the market reception of a new, innovative, cool product, that then you can take other places. That that's absolutely key. That's one of the pieces we didn't really think of doing on time because we were getting all these yeses. We will pitch everyone because you know somebody is going to say yes, but then you get all these extra yeses and, if you know so, you open with everyone because it's just exciting Not a good idea because, yes, you open doors and doors and doors and more retailers, but because there's loading fees and because everything else, you don't have the funds to invest sufficiently in getting that product established and getting people to learn about your brand and actually willing to try it, especially a frozen brand.

Margarita Womack 41:34

People spend a lot of time looking at what's new Freezer not in a frozen aisle right.

Keith Kohler 41:39

Frozen is the hardest challenge. Right Because you're goingzers are not in the frozen aisle. Right. Frozen is the hardest challenge. Right Because you're going in and someone's likely coming out. Right Because the freezer space is limited and it's not like they add freezers every time. Isn't that your experience?

Margarita Womack 41:52

Yes, it's limited. Yes, If you're going in, someone else is going out and if you're not performing, you're the next one to go out. So you is going out, and if you're not performing, you're the next one to go out. So you gotta be very wise and measure you know it's a lot of gray exactly where that is and opening enough doors but then being able to invest enough on those doors heavily to get that velocity and show what you can do. So that's the second element, and the third element is perspective has changed significantly since pandemic really. And so these brands that run in red, deep, deep red, forever and ever and it was all the potential of once Nestle or General Mills or Mars or Conagra, whoever it is requires you. They could just come in, have the operational experience, the distribution network, and just make you efficient and take you out.

Keith Kohler 42:48

Just pop you into what they already have right.

Margarita Womack 42:51

Yes, exactly. So now they want to see, though, that you have legs under you as a brand and that you're a little bit more sustainable and you're closer to you as a brand and that you're a little bit more sustainable, uh, and you're closer to actually being a proper business. It might not be that you have to be cash flow positive and making a lot of money and having, like, a huge ibiza, but at least somewhere where you're not going to be if you, next year, you don't need another three million dollars to survive, or you're completely out of the market and the investment's gone right. So closer to that stability financially it's. The third piece is, of course, for us as manufacturers, even more important.

Keith Kohler 43:29

That was really brilliant. I really appreciate that. I'm going to go back to the second one for a minute. Investing, right Broadly defined. Can you give us a little bit more detail about the types of programs that you found have been effective? Is it demoing? Is it price promotions? What is kind of the mix that you found works best?

Margarita Womack 43:48

oh, I'd love to get people's feedback on it, because it's exactly what I'm trying to figure out right now really it's still yeah, you're still testing, right yeah?

Margarita Womack 43:55

we're still testing, trying to figure out and might be a different combination from different retailers and because we just let it grow organically and the velocities we have are mostly organic, we're doing the very, very minimal uh ducat investments in it and, um, we're still figuring out what makes sense and what works. And my plan is to do more of what would be almost a pilot experiment versus taking all $3,500 doors or so and investing in all of them is figuring out, taking a retailer or region and then going with everything at it from every possible angle and then seeing what we can get to. And we really invest very heavily in with a certain set of stores to be able to show what we can do, because then it shows to the investor like, look, we take this set you know, I don't know 50 stores and we do demos and we do digital marketing and we do coupons and we do promotions. Look at velocities we're here and now they were here.

Keith Kohler 45:06

Yeah, that's the perfect outcome you hope for, right. Here's the baseline velocity you invest, and then it gets you to a new baseline over some acceptable timeframe that you would judge as being successful Right.

Margarita Womack 45:21

Yeah, exactly. And so what you're telling your investors is hey look, once you invest, we'll take the money to replicate what we did in this pilot. And we'll be able to get these results? Yes, everywhere else.

Keith Kohler 45:34

Yeah, and I really appreciate what you're saying is I think a lot of founders will think or oftentimes maybe go in thinking, oh, I do the exact same program for every retailer and it's all going to work the same, but every retailer lots of retailers will have different ideas too, right? The buyers will say, no, it's this type of program which is effective with my consumer base, or this is a better one, or different seasonalities, and it's hard to manage all those different expectations, right? And so I imagine it's a bit of a dance and a negotiation with the buyers in addition to your best thinking. And then there's the wild card of the consumer promotion, right, and how that's evolving. And when you think about Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and all these different places out there, what does your consumer marketing look like and where are you prioritizing and how is that evolving?

Margarita Womack 46:29

So something we just haven't had, we do very minimal, very, very minimal. It's mostly organic what happens.

Keith Kohler 46:37

Word of mouth, people, all those different things, what happens?

Margarita Womack 46:39

Word?

Keith Kohler 46:40

of mouth. Yeah, thanks.

Factory Expansion and Future Fundraising

Margarita Womack 46:44

It's something we want to start doing, but right now, which is kind of letting it be, our focus has been in getting our operations stabilized and then this is will be the next step to be able to start investing a little bit in this, and we want to do so again mindfully right and have a sense of direction from using data. So it's um I've been lucky to, in a way, to have um been able to get help, uh, to figure some of these pieces out. It's not like you go wild and instagram and just take pictures of everything and pay whatever influencer. No, you have to have a plan and that plan has to be based in some sort of information that's relevant to your brand and who you are and who's buying your product. So first is figuring out who's buying your product and you might have an idea. So we started with basics, right, you've had demos. You have conversations with people at demos, there's people that reach out through the website and you start figuring out a little bit who that person is, but you want to be able to validate it right, and then that helps you figure out.

Margarita Womack 47:48

Well, how do you reach this set of people? What are the channels they tend to be? Is it the mom that uses more facebook? Or is it more the millennial that's using tick tock and instagram? Or is it, you know, the 18, 20 year olds that are? I don't know what they're doing even, but it's so. You've got to really know who it is.

Margarita Womack 48:08

First, and we've been lucky because I guess it's my academic side of things, but we've done collaborations with students at Georgetown, students at Harvard and now we're starting to do a collaboration also with students at Princeton that are interested in entrepreneurship, are sometimes undergrad, sometimes MBA students. What we're doing appears to be something exciting and fun and good experience for them. So it's like here you go you wanna figure this one out, be great product for you. You'll learn lots in the process and I'll help you and you'll see how company works and the information they gather helps us get some of these. That would be like a very expensive marketing project right to pay, but it's not perfect. It's done by students but gets us a lot of information. They learn, we learn, everybody benefits.

Keith Kohler 48:59

There's a lot of great nuggets in what you just said and I'll revisit two of them. One is, I think, a lot of if you, as a founder, you're reading the customer service comments, right, the inbound email, and I think that's one of the biggest opportunities for founders as a reminder. I know we only have limited time, that's our most limited commodity and yet reading every single one of the inquiries, the praising, even the complaints, right about every single thing that comes in, you build up that body of knowledge saying now I have a very generalized understanding of my demographic, what they care about, objections like what, where could I improve? What could, what could we do more of? And again, with eight years in business, you must have had thousands of people write in over all that time. And that's, that's a big exciting learning to say, and I imagine it's. It's changed sometimes the direction of what you're doing absolutely, and I ask often questions.

Margarita Womack 49:54

Anytime somebody reaches out or is willing to talk, I'll try to pick their brain. I get invited to give a talk somewhere and I'll try to get people to talk to me about what they see and what they like and why they don't. There's information to be gathered and used and help you understand what your product is and well cause. You might see it one way, but it doesn't really matter how you see it. You understand how, in general, people perceive it and you're looking for patterns. So it's not just listening, but thinking and analyzing.

Keith Kohler 50:23

Was there anything surprising when you think about, like, the most surprising insights you got from the customer emails or perhaps a demographic? You never thought that would be as relevant or big as it is. Any surprises over this time?

Margarita Womack 50:41

relevant or big as it is. Any surprises over this time? Let me see Something that I didn't anticipate. First is how moms with very young kids would enjoy these and pick this up for their toddlers. Oh, really For toddlers.

Keith Kohler 50:56

Yeah, yeah, I would never have guessed that right, because you think of it as like big person food right.

Margarita Womack 51:00

Or something. Yeah, so they're very we do them on purpose fairly mild flavor, because then it's more of a neutral canvas and you can come and put cholula sauce and make them super spicy, or you can put you know that's me.

Keith Kohler 51:14

That's me Exactly.

Margarita Womack 51:20

But you can do even I don't know ketchup if you wanted, right, uh, but then kind of customize them to yourself. But uh, but it's good, it's a good profile for a kid, kids really like them. But then you can come as an adult and completely change the favorite profile, uh, but it's. Yeah, it's because they're small right, yeah, it's, it's.

Margarita Womack 51:34

It's something a child can easily handle, right yeah, so toddlers like they feel their whole hand, it's easy to just hold and, yeah, it works out pretty well and it's premium ingredients, clean, right, it's vegetables and meats and some dough and it's perfect Works out. So that's one space I didn't anticipate and you get very different questions from moms of toddlers than what you get from moms of teenagers or young adults that are using these.

Keith Kohler 51:59

I moms of toddlers than what you get from moms of teenagers or young adults that are using these. I really love that, because what a wonderful market. Because if the toddler is enjoying it as a very young child, they're going to keep asking for it, right? And so you have a beautiful lifetime arc of potential to keep that customer nearby, right?

Keith Kohler 52:14

Yeah, both when they're in the household and mom's making the purchase, or perhaps when they transition to make the purchases on their own. And I also want to go back to first of all shout out to Georgetown Hoyas, because that's what we have in common, right, margarita? Yeah, one of the ways we met and we connected, and I'm so glad we did and I really would love what you've done. You've spoken a lot at universities, number one and you and I think a lot of founders sometimes say to me well, you know why would they want to work with me? Why it's the other way around.

Keith Kohler 52:50

Entrepreneurs like you and entrepreneurs even at the early stages, have a great gift to give to eager and curious university students. Right, because you're showing them the real-life experience that can't be duplicated in an academic setting. And right, wow, they can create new things. It's kind of like you're giving them the blank canvas and saying draw your own picture, versus perhaps in a corporate environment where everything's already quite structured. So I think that's a huge hat tip to you and a big recommendation for our viewers and listeners to engage your local university. Go find terrific talent of eager, young and more perhaps advanced career people who can do great research projects practically anything under the sun.

Margarita Womack 53:38

And everybody gains from it.

Keith Kohler 53:41

Yeah, I think so too, and that's it. You're providing something incredibly valuable for them and, who knows, that might develop into a future employee, someone who could be perhaps in business development or finance or some other area for you. I wanted to go into a different direction. One thing I do know about Margarita everybody is what beautiful things she has done in her community and specifically for her employees. So I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the things you've done for your employees over the years.

Margarita Womack 54:15

So the first time we hired an employee it happened to be a Salvadorian chef, and the next time we needed someone he brought his neighbor, and the next time we needed someone then she brought somebody from church and it just kind of percolated through. It was always word of mouth, and that's mostly manufacturing. Who you find is Hispanics, especially in this area? Uh, for sure. But, uh, you start seeing the needs and and it's basics, basic things, uh, and I I often see myself reflected in them, right at someone that also emigrated to this country and it's looking to make a living and and I've been very, very lucky and had so many doors open to me and and have what I think is a very successful life. Uh, and not everyone has that path and, um, there's ways you can help that don't take a lot of effort from you and can make such a big difference and, um, so it might be from helping them figure out how to open a bank account.

Keith Kohler 55:20

We've done several of those Things like that right yeah.

Margarita Womack 55:24

To say now. Recently we had one of our employees this is literally this week she has a four-year-old and he has special needs and she was limiting what she could do maintain childcare and balance then her time at work and helping her connect with the proper resources in the county to get the help she needs for her son to thrive and also get him in programs where then she can afford child care.

Margarita Womack 55:59

So it's something that eventually I turn into a small foundation, latin goodness foundation, and I hope to be able to do more with it to structure further what we do. But it's some incredibly rewarding by itself. Nothing like the smile of someone that that solved a big issue for them, you know yeah because, a lot of recent immigrants just won't know.

Keith Kohler 56:22

They won't know where to find them and it's it's overwhelming.

Margarita Womack 56:25

I mean, I came as a student, so I was within a university environment where it's a lot more structured and you have the chance to kind of figure out things a little bit easier and even then it was very difficult I didn't quite speak english when I first arrived bit easier and even then it was very difficult.

Margarita Womack 56:39

I didn't quite speak english when I first arrived and um and I had the opportunity to really see it from a very different perspective when, um, I hosted for a month a little bit over a month the mother of my cousin's girlfriend okay, so a little bit kind of convoluted, so somebody tied in our community, uh, whose daughter was or is in the army and she was deployed and she had gotten a green card for her mother to come from colombia but she was not here to help her. So I welcomed this woman in my home and helped her kind of get settled and it's just amazing what you see that you don't quite realize. It's just there and you always assume it's there and it's natural. You know how it works, like I don't know. It's something simple like riding the subway right and reading the signs on the subway when you've never been on a subway and you don't speak english and there's like four different exits from the same stop.

Margarita Womack 57:38

Yeah, it's so scary.

Keith Kohler 57:39

It's those things, right, it's those things that we just don't realize it until we become aware of it and we observe it Exactly. And how many employees again do you have now?

Margarita Womack 57:48

About 50.

Keith Kohler 57:50

Yeah, 50 with unique needs, unique backgrounds, unique histories, all their different stories, and I really love how you focused a lot on financial literacy, right that's a big piece. As a key foundation right, Helping people understanding how to open bank accounts, how direct deposit and things like that work and all those basics.

Margarita Womack 58:11

They don't understand taxes. That's a big one.

Keith Kohler 58:14

Yeah, like even the difference between income taxes and payroll taxes and why is this coming out of my paycheck this way and why am I required? And I really love that because I think a lot of people again in particular their own manufacturing. I really just love how invested you are with that, and I think it's also true that keeping employees is not always easy. Right, because sometimes they can get other offers to go other places, and to the degree that you keep them as happy as they can be in feeling like they're part of something, that's probably the best recipe, right absolutely the hardest piece of a business is people.

Margarita Womack 58:53

It's, uh, getting people to I. There's so many different situations, right, but keeping everyone on the same page working consistently with dedication towards the same goals. It's very, very difficult. A machine might go down, but then it's nuts and bolts and you call the technician and the very most is you buy a new piece right, a new machine. People are very different and really difficult to work with and that's one of the biggest pieces for me that I noticed as we scaled is that culture piece.

Keith Kohler 59:29

It's when you're by yourself.

Margarita Womack 59:31

Yeah, it's very different and you have a couple of people Everybody's on the same page and kind of constantly in touch, and it's easy. Everyone's kind of doing everything right exactly, and because you're all in constant, I don't know, it seems it's much easier. There's no, it's unsaid, it's sort of uh implied, like that culture aspect where you expect and what, how you want to do things and how you approach the world.

Keith Kohler 59:54

But when you have more people and grow more, you have to make that perfectly visible and clear and communicate it to everyone and make sure everyone can and will follow that culture, otherwise your organization falls apart yeah, and I'm sure over time you've had to make hard decisions because perhaps some people made the most sense for you in your beginning stages but maybe, as things got bigger, they weren't the right people for the job right.

Margarita Womack 1:00:24

Yeah, it changes dramatically what you need and what you can afford, and so it's yeah, it's an evolution, so constantly have to be thinking what's next and how do we adjust.

Keith Kohler 1:00:37

Yeah, and I think one of the things I remember, because obviously I have my finance consultancy now and I recently brought on an assistant, but it's not a full-time employee for me, it's not like I have that payroll going on. And yet in other settings in my life, when I purchased my family business, yes, I did have employees and I never lost sight of the fact about. It's really quite a sacred duty, right? We're employing people, we're responsible for their welfare, their safety and the commitment that we made, putting ourselves on the line that we must make those payments. And I myself had to cash in 401ks or put money into the business and sometimes, in order to make payroll, because I didn't get paid or the company didn't get paid, and I imagine you've had those right, the ups and downs of knowing, hey, payroll's coming, holy cow, what am I going to do? Right? That's part of every founder's journey at one point or another, and particularly with 50 employees.

Margarita Womack 1:01:33

Yeah, and going back to the finance piece's, um, it's been more than once that it's like oh my god, payroll's around the corner. How do we line up sense to make it happen? Yeah but it's the first thing you got to do. Everything else can go, but not payroll absolutely so.

Keith Kohler 1:01:53

you know, as we're coming to the home stretch here, um, when I think again of that whole financing journey, right, and we recounted right your own income from operations and your own money. In the beginning it was catering and local. Then when you got into retail, you got that first 150 from family members and then you got to the seed round and, my God, marjorie, that's probably a world record of how you stuck with it over those three years and you called in and you got some initial results and then, thank God, you found that lead who really believed in you. And then you pieced together what you did, along with making all your own commitments and continuing to put all of your money to work what you could in supporting the business, from your family and then other family members helping you.

Keith Kohler 1:02:42

And now here you are right, and, as you said, you're right at that point. Right Because you're getting the factory stable, or stabilization as you define it. And now, pretty soon, you'll get that series A. And when that series A happens, what will happen to everybody who's given you money so far? Will they be converted to equity? Might they get paid off? Are there different combinations there?

Margarita Womack 1:03:06

So the seed notes are going to convert before series A happens. Okay, so likely. At that point, when new VCs, old VCs come in, there's a chance people could exit right and sell to those VCs or then keep on growing with the company.

Keith Kohler 1:03:29

Okay so they'll have an option right.

Margarita Womack 1:03:31

They'll have an option, yeah.

Keith Kohler 1:03:33

That's terrific and I imagine you're really excited. You can't wait. It's going to happen this year or early next year.

Margarita Womack 1:03:43

So probably start getting serious again with conversations like, okay, keeping up with potential investors, keeping them informed, but getting a reach a certain point towards the end of the year, like, okay, look at the progress we're making, know that in a couple months we we want to start talking for real about an investment. Because if these are relationships you don't, you don't go to people when you need money. You go to people way earlier and build a relationship from much earlier, uh, so that, uh, they know who you are, they understand where you've come from, they get to understand how you work and see that potential and are willing to take a bet on you.

Keith Kohler 1:04:29

It seems like, as you've shared with us today, you've always taken a very structured, step-by-step approach to probably not just the financing, but almost everything you've done right. You've gotten approach to probably not just the financing, but almost everything you've done right. You've gotten the data, you find the resources, you know who can support you. You've always been successful because I think you took a broad view and you never did anything capriciously.

Margarita Womack 1:04:51

No, there's always has to be some sort of real facts, real support, real data behind it. The same time, you never have absolutely everything you would need to be 100% sure of anything.

Keith Kohler 1:05:03

You don't have that certainty at all.

Margarita Womack 1:05:04

No, no, there's still enough gut feeling in there, right, and there's also a good element of that, just like I think you know, I think this is going to work A portion of actual data, a portion of gut feeling, a portion of let's take this, you know, step into the average and see what happens.

Keith Kohler 1:05:23

Yeah, there is still a little. Even with great planning and great analytics, there is still a little bit about break and fix and learn right and taking chances and experimenting. So really, margarita, I'm really just grateful for you spending time with me today and the way now what I'm excited to do about how I finance it. I'm going to end every episode with two questions that I have for you, and that's always going to be my tradition in each of the times I have with each of the founders. So the first thing I want to ask you is, when you think of all that you've shared with us today, and even some things you haven't over this time in business, what are you most proud of and things you haven't over this?

Margarita Womack 1:05:59

time in business. What are you most proud of? I think the part of always being able to find, or the right path to look at opportunities that might come your way and take that risk, take that leap and try that out and make it work Right. So from the very start, it's the had my life plan in Colombia and then things happen and not having to completely reinvent myself here and it's the same train to be a scientist, right, thought I had a PhD and I thought it would be like, I don't know, bringing the Nobel Prize in academia.

Margarita Womack 1:06:39

Then suddenly I'm making empanadas Not anymore, maybe that's the next thing. But hey, you reinvent yourself and you find the opportunities that come your way and take the risk, try it out. And so, from something that was we're making little empanadas in our kitchen with the plastic molds and we could make I don't know a few dozen a day, now we make several thousand pounds a day and those empanadas are on shelf all over the country and people like them and buy them and eat them and enjoy them, and didn't exist eight years ago.

Keith Kohler 1:07:21

Yeah, I really appreciate that. And the second question I have for you is what would Margarita today tell Margarita eight years ago, when you were just starting out?

Margarita Womack 1:07:34

You want my honest answer. Of course I do. You want my honest answer.

Lessons Learned and Final Reflections

Margarita Womack 1:07:36

Of course I do. It's a hard one because it got in the ghost line, hand in hand with often people approaching me. Now You're killing it. I'm so inspired by you. I admire what you're doing. Tell me what the secret is and can you help me along in my journey? And if I could talk to myself? Eight years back, I had no sense about the amount of work and how hard it is and how challenging it is and how stressful it can be, the weight on your shoulders that it is to grow a company, and especially you know, once you get a certain size, it's not just me, it's not just my family, it's 50 employees that's it yeah, it's a lot of responsibility and sometimes it's just you trying to make decisions.

Margarita Womack 1:08:32

I'm fortunate to have um build a network of advisors and people and google bounce ideas from, but I'm still the one making the decision, I'm still the one bearing that responsibility and and it's such big risk overall and so so it's very difficult, it's very difficult to do, and more than once have questioned if I than once have questioned if I, if I can do it and if it's the right thing to do, and but hey, I'm all the way to here.

Margarita Womack 1:09:05

It's sink or swim, so I'm swimming and I'm gonna make it happen. No matter what, there's always a solution. But I would tell myself like, just eyes wide open, realize what you're getting into and know the challenges that you're going to face. I know I can do it, I'm doing it and I will keep on doing it. But at least I would have known. Versus this shock and surprise like, oh my goodness, it's not surprising that what's the stats less than 2% of companies are, are make it to five years and so many people that give up, and not because they can't and not because they don't have an amazing product, but it's just the burden of it, right.

Keith Kohler 1:09:55

Yeah, I really appreciate that reflection, right. I don't think anyone can say who's in our industry, that it's easy. I don't think anyone would ever be able to say that if they were, they'd be lying to themselves.

Margarita Womack 1:10:09

Exactly and but what you see it's, it's similar to okay when you're little, especially a girl, right, and not so much new generations, but certainly my generation. You read stories and it's Cinderella, and it's that's no way it's. And it's the princess and this blue knight is going to come and rescue you. Life is going to be perfect ever after. And then you start dating and you're like you should be this perfect man showing up in my life and and everything's compatible and everything's gonna be beautiful.

Margarita Womack 1:10:41

Yeah, no, there's no relationship like that. You're never, ever, forever happy. Yet just because you have to work at it and not in, there's no one that's 100% compatible with you, right? So it's very similar in this sense, because I think entrepreneurship is just as romanticized as those fairytales?

Margarita Womack 1:10:59

Yeah, absolutely, and it's so popular now, right, and what you see on social media, it's all the successes, it's all the awards and the new retailer where we're launching a new look at our new flavor, and you miss everything that's going on underneath and all the sacrifices and all the difficulties that's going on underneath and all the sacrifices and and all the the difficulties that are behind it.

Keith Kohler 1:11:23

You don't see those and I really just you know, when you think about our conversation today. Thank you for sharing, doing exactly that, for sharing the successes and the struggles and everything that went into it right, and all the things that you have done and the way you felt about it. Thank you for allowing me to explore again. You know, all the different the role of family, all your different roles that you balance and you, as you said, you compromise and you focus on. It's really quite extraordinary all these different touch points of your development, as much as your company's development, and that's why I was so glad that you said yes and you joined us on episode two of how I financed it.

Keith Kohler 1:12:08

So really just yeah, really just very grateful for you, margarita, and I'm so excited for you because I've known I've known a long part of your journey and I'm glad I could support parts of it from time to time, and I can't wait to see what you do next, because you're going to keep feeding the world with more amazing empanadas and I've no doubt that you're going to be really successful with this next phase of fundraising and growth to whatever you want that to be for yourself. So thank you again for being here, and I'm here to support you all the way, and I know our audiences too. So that winds up today's episode everyone. Episode two of how I Finance it is in the book. So thank you again, margarita, and thank you everyone for our listeners and viewers for being here.

Margarita Womack 1:12:53

Thank you.