This episode of the Braving Business podcast is sponsored by, well, me.
I'm PJ Benoit and I've been in the domestic and international
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If you need any assistance with transportation or logistics, my team
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And one last quick thing.
If you enjoy this episode, please stay on after the show to learn more about the
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And now let's get the show started.
Well, hello there.
Hello there, PJ.
I just heard that there, did you actually say hello there or did
you decide to change your trademark?
No, I said, why?
Well, hello there.
Okay.
Well, maybe it's my headset.
I didn't hear it.
I just heard it there.
Oh, no.
No, they're there.
I said, well, hello.
Of course I'm all about salutations.
I'm not going to start a fantastic show with an amazing
guess by not saying hello.
So, all right.
Well, sure enough.
Hello there.
How are you, sir?
I'm well, I'm well, dude.
Hey, guess what?
This past weekend, I went and saw a band by the name of the, the, and they're
the, I've heard of you.
I thought they'd been around a while.
They've been around a long time.
They're one of my favorite bands when I was in high school.
And, and when I was going to high school in Hawaii, you know, you
don't have a lot of concerts.
There's not a lot of bands who come out.
And those were my formative years where I was finally going to
concerts that I chose to go to.
And of course, although I was never going to come to the islands.
And so they came to Chicago and I got to see them.
I was blown away.
Never in a million years would I have thought I was going to be able to see them.
It's fantastic.
Well, you know what?
I'm going to go listen to the, the, I remember thinking their
name was the most ridiculous thing.
I remember.
And then you listen to their music as a result.
You're wearing a shirt.
I see that.
Actually, my son went to see what I think is a pretty cool concert this week.
He actually flew from school and he goes to top in Boston.
He flew to San Antonio and saw Billy Joel and sting.
Nice doing a concert together.
That's a hell of a concert right there.
No kidding.
Jessica, what was the last concert you went and saw last concert?
That's a good one.
This is wild.
It was a bomba concert in the middle of the projects of Puerto Rico with my kids.
And it was like some up and coming rapper, like just working the crowd that.
Wow.
The last concert was a street concert.
Concerts are a little different here on the Island.
That was the last one.
Well, I'm sure bad bunny would be amazing.
The sea, whenever he plays in Puerto Rico, I've seen him play.
He did a listening party here, so I was able to see him come down in his really
cool car and play his whole album and all his like friends were there.
It was, it was really intimate and cool.
Yeah.
Oh, that's awesome.
I buddy come on.
Absolutely.
100%.
Now that's a great name.
Bad bunny, right?
We're talking good names.
Bad bunny.
That's a great name to have a lot better than the, the.
Hey now, but also come on.
It's a terrible name.
Admit it.
Oh, are you enough of you?
Let's talk about Jessica.
All right.
Let's do that.
So today folks, we have the amazing Jessica Gonzalez on our show.
She is a powerhouse of resilience and innovation in the business world,
particularly in the challenging area of event technology and sustainable business.
She is a Latino CEO.
And serial entrepreneur known for bootstrapping her first company in
charged from her parents' house and turning it into a globally recognized
event technology firm, working with brands like Google, Coca-Cola and Coachella.
See the bands with revenues exceeding 25 million.
She later launched a software company that allowed consumers, mainly at
events to interact with products and get samples and exchanging for
completing questionnaires when the pandemic hit, it wasn't a business,
when the pandemic hit, it wasn't exactly the best time to be in the event business.
So both companies were impacted and neither survived the pandemic.
In fact, they both went bankrupt and they, uh, that had to have been
an incredibly painful experience, but instead of just giving up, Jessica
brushed herself off and pivoted founding Lux disinfect, a disinfection tech company
to help meet urgent health needs in the community.
Not only did Lux disinfect become a legitimate business with millions in
revenue and Jessica was then able to sell it less than two years later.
Lustix disinfectant, gosh, say that 20 times real fast, uh, helped keep people
safer from being exposed to COVID, but pardon my adorable pun, it also exposed
Jessica to the great opportunities of the sustainability and waste management
industry, see what I did there.
And yes, you are just so clever.
Sometimes I am.
Uh, and being the entrepreneur she is, she ran with it.
Her newest enterprise Happen Ventures applies her entrepreneurial grit to
tackle sustainable waste waste management, where she is challenging the status
quo and helping transform waste into resources for communities and reducing
landfill impact, a proud single mother and mentor, Jessica brings a nothing
is impossible mindset to every challenge that she faces.
Jessica, thank you so much for being on the braving business podcast.
Thanks for having me.
Jessica, it's great to have you on.
You've had a, uh, an incredible, uh, super varied journey.
Uh, and it began with major sacrifice.
Did you move back home, worked multiple jobs, uh, and had a dream of a dream
of being an entrepreneur, being a CEO.
Talk to, talk to us about the, where did that drive come from?
This, this, this willingness to sacrifice so much, own your own business
and build your own dreams.
Where did that come from?
So that's a really great question.
Uh, I have no idea.
It's, I always wonder what is the fire under my ass, part of my French that
gets me up every day and puts me, you know, in the driver's seat of the things that
I'm doing and, uh, I, I don't know.
I feel entrepreneurs are just kind of born.
Um, and they have that zing from the beginning.
And then if they find their way through, then they become business owners
and then they scale and, and, and, and so forth.
Uh, I was hustling since, oh my goodness, since I was in grade school,
selling whatever I could.
And it, it was just something that was instinctual in me for some reason.
And it still is.
I, I wake up every day with the same drive I did 15 years ago and just building
and building and growing where it comes from.
I don't know.
I wish, I wish I could bottle it up and bottle it up and sell it.
And that would be a business within itself, but no idea.
Just that buyer.
That's amazing.
Actually.
So bootstrapping a company and keeping a hundred percent ownership, no easy
feet, but you've done it multiple times.
So what strategies or philosophies guided you through these early decisions,
uh, when you launched your businesses?
So being brutally honest, uh, bootstrapping the first company was simply
because I had no idea how to get money.
I, uh, you know, being a woman Latina, I felt very intimidated in the rooms I was
in, so asking for money was even harder.
And I said, I'll just go out and do it myself and figure it out.
So the first business and what I call getting my bachelor's in business.
Um, the, the whole bootstrapping thing came with just, I had no money to do
anything, I had to figure it out and utilize things like Amazon and Craigslist
and all these different resources to try to make my vision come true.
And honestly, I feel like that's the best way for all starting entrepreneurs is
if you're given a ton of money upfront, you probably are not going to manage it
the best way, as if you had to kind of do a little bit of everything on your own.
And I'm glad I did that and learned because I was very frugal with everything.
And it taught me how to learn every single aspect of the business.
Cause I couldn't hire, couldn't hire a finance person, couldn't hire a salesperson,
couldn't hire an engineer, had to do it all at some point myself marketing.
So bootstrapping in the beginning was very essential and I kept at it.
Cause I always had this mindset of just no one works as hard as I did.
And I got really frustrated whenever I tried to later down in the business
road, bring on other partners.
And, um, yeah, I, I just figured the best way is just hire a really great team.
And, uh, that's allowed me to keep more of the percentage of people that I
need to keep more of the percentage myself, um, strategically and be able to
focus on as much as I can when it comes to, um, you know, growing the business.
So let's talk about a couple of things that I want to pull out.
A couple of threads I want to pull on that you just touched on.
So, uh, one is, uh, necessity is they say some other adventure.
There's a, there's a reason that, that, that, uh, the cliche exists.
Uh, a lot of entrepreneurs are in the same boat you're in, whether they know
how to raise money or not, most do not.
Uh, even if they so-called knew how to do it, there isn't a reason to believe
that anyone would give them any money because they've not done anything yet.
And so, uh, the reality that a lot of businesses have to start from, uh, a
place of not having resources, uh, tends to create entrepreneurs that are, uh,
more innovative, so I think innovation tends to come from scarcity.
The second part, uh, that I want to touch on, I don't know if you've had the
opportunity since to start businesses with other people's capital, uh, I've
had the opportunities to do both.
And what I learned the hard way, the first time I was doing a business with
people's capital, where it seemingly wasn't as difficult because I had more
resources, uh, was that a lot of times you tend to make some mistakes with that.
Uh, so the benefits of not having, uh, when they are not there, oftentimes lead
to other kinds of mistakes that are made when you do have resources.
And so it isn't that one way is better than the other necessarily.
If there is a better way, it tends to be having to do without, uh, initially
makes you a more accomplished, more complete entrepreneur.
Um, but have you had the opportunity to since start businesses with other
people's money and have you experienced it being different or have you continued
to start your business with your own money?
Uh, with Vendax, I was able to start.
I was able to get funding.
It was my second pitch and it was a very capital intensive business.
Um, so I was able to get some seed funding for that.
And it was literally right before COVID hit.
So was on the up and up finally, you know, was pitching to be able to afford to get
more machines and got the investment and COVID hit and obliviated all of that.
So I didn't get the luxury of being able to enjoy spending in the right way.
I really want to keeping people employed, but, uh, now given that I have, uh, sold
two of my companies and, you know, moved into another field, I've just invested
myself, uh, in building these companies.
And also now I know a lot more.
So now I'm building a company with, uh, the intentions of how to sell it.
Instead of building a company, uh, just, you know, kind of piece
milling and scrapping it together.
Now I know exactly what the pillars are that investment bankers are looking for.
So when I do, or if I do ask for money, it's a lot more valuable.
Very cool.
I find that, um, you know, I've been involved in a couple of startups, not of
my own, but also I worked for large startups that got like a ton of intensive
capital in the beginning, the pre seed and the seed and the series A and the
series B and it's amazing how many dollars are flying around and, uh, both of
those failed, uh, after I left, just so you know, um, so it's just, it's
interesting, like, you know, it's all about the grit and the determination
and, and money, money's great and money affords a lot of opportunity, but just
like both of you are saying, if you don't manage it well and you don't have a real
plan for it, uh, it can fail pretty easily.
So great, great lesson there.
Let me, let me ask about COVID.
So when COVID hit, you know, both of the companies that you had built, uh, you
know, bootstrapping all the way went bankrupt, unfortunately, and you
pivoted to launch Lux to first.
Sounded like one was not bootstrap, just to set the record straight.
Sounded like one was one she'd raised money for if I heard her correctly.
Yeah.
So first one was bootstrapped and I funded the second one and then
got money right before COVID.
Yeah.
And I'm sorry.
I, when I say bootstrap, I also think of just all the work behind that.
So I meant the efforts in my head.
I'm still strapping.
I feel, you know, that's the, that's the real way I feel like to run a business.
That's right.
It's the mentality.
So, um, you told us in your pre-interview that you believe that when you had
moments like these, like the, like the bankruptcies, an entrepreneur needs to
sulk, then pivot and move on quickly.
And so can you walk us through those first few days of realizing all you've
worked for is kind of going away?
Um, how long did you sulk?
Like, what did that look like?
And can you explain the decision to start a new company, especially when the
world was burning and no one knew what COVID even was?
Man.
Um, I feel a lot of people have very similar beginning of the story because
we all didn't know, right?
When is it opening?
Uh, we had employees that we wanted to pay and that was, you know, the,
the thing that weighed heavy on me.
I had a mortgage, um, I had a kid on the way and one at home, so that all these
personal things and we're all stuck inside the house and sulk, what looked,
it was more like waiting.
So waiting, uh, was the hard part, not knowing when things would open and start
and what became two days, then two weeks, then two months, and then eventually two
years was the hardest thing.
And so after about, I'd say maybe a month of realizing that no one knows what
they're doing and things are not opening up and it's going to stay this way.
That's when I said, okay, let me figure out how I can make my way out of this.
First and foremost, how do I get my kid back in school?
So then I can actually breathe a little.
I have a toddler running around, um, you know, and not have a missed school and
be able to like really dive in.
And then the idea of disinfection came and how do I aid with that?
And, um, it went from like depression of losing the business, the business.
I can't pay anybody in these PPP loans to the excitement of starting
something fresh with my bare hands.
Only being able to build what's available at Home Depot at six in
the morning in the lines waiting.
And it was exciting for me because I feel like I got to start new like I did back
then, and that gave me a whole new breath of life, you know, just building that up.
And then that took off.
Um, but as quick as that took off, I'll say the ending real quick.
Great.
Um, that business also started to, and that's why I sold it at, you
know, kind of like on its way down.
Um, COVID business went up.
That one went down really quick.
So I learned really fast, you know, the meaning of like understand your
success, but also don't think about now you have to think about three years
from now and not thinking, was it there?
Um, while building it, but it was, it was tough, but I did enjoy a couple
of Netflix and pizza nights, you know, not doing anything.
It was helpful.
Couldn't do anything then back to building.
Jessica, I want to talk to you about a feeling that I had a business that, uh,
that sailed during COVID, uh, it wasn't entirely related to COVID, but COVID
that certainly didn't help.
Uh, and I remember feeling a lot of shame, uh, about the business not succeeding.
Can you talk about shame?
Uh, and you adjusted, you had some money, you had other people's money.
Uh, how did you, how did you deal with just the internal sense of, wow, I.
This didn't work out.
I did not succeed.
How did that, how did you work through that?
That's it.
Well, first shame is such a strong word because man, it, it'll get you.
Um, it's, it's, it wasn't as much shame because I knew that there were external
factors that were making it impossible for me to fail and I've made it my
mission to pay back by investors.
Um, I want to just sell this new company first.
That's, that's my goal.
To make them whole.
Uh, it was more of more fear than anything.
And, you know, the, the investors to be brutally honest, they had other
investments, they had money, right?
But the people that worked for me, you know, they counted on those
paychecks and that company and that killed me.
Um, I had a mortgage, I had a kid on the way.
So I think the fear was so debilitating sometimes, and it's also what drove
me to kind of move.
Uh, and I honestly, and, and kind of going back to like what, what gives
you that drive in the beginning, you know, I think it's trauma and fear
that really fuels a lot of entrepreneurs and, and, you know, the fear failing,
the fear of not making it, the feel of the fear of not, not doing what you set out to do.
So definitely, definitely it was, I was very, I was very scared and I was, uh,
and I guess the shame part came in and just not being able to take care of the
people who've taken care of the business for so long that that was, that was really rough.
Um, and then kids, you know, putting a roof over their head.
Absolutely.
So let's talk a little bit about the fear, right?
Let's talk about how did that manifest?
How did you face it?
What did you do?
Like your reaction to it?
Was it more instinctual?
Was it more, I got to strategize.
Like, how did you, how did you put, keep that dragon at bay?
Was there a fake it till you make it component to it? I mean, fear is a very glad
you brought up fear because fear is a massive motivator.
We've had people that are some of the most successful people on earth on this podcast.
Well, as a day wake up feeling fear almost daily on some level and need to manage that fear.
And so for successful entrepreneurs to understand that fear is not something to run away from or be
ashamed of, but something to deal with and have a plan for, I think is a really important thing.
Tell us about your, tell us about how you process fear.
And thanks for sharing that by the way.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
I read not too long ago or I saw something that talked about, you know, a lot of successful
people have trauma and this fear that they had growing up.
Um, and that's kind of what motivates them to be successful.
Um, and that's kind of what motivates them to just show up every day.
And I resonated with that because I do feel that like my upbringing and just being raised by a
single dad was part of, you know, the, you know, I have to make it, I have to, you know, do it for
the family, you know, I have to figure it out.
Like I want a better life for my kids.
And, you know, I had, and, and yeah, I'm today, even having any accolades or any success, I am
always scared shitless part of my French.
Um, you know, I speak a lot of great French.
I know really fluent.
I have a potty about, um, yeah, I'm always really, really, I, it's always there, but I
feel like I've learned to use that as that motivator and that driver.
So when I wake up in the morning, I'm not sleeping in, I'm getting up and getting what
I need to get done that, that is some fear underlying in there.
Um, faking it till you make it, I'll tell you, still doing that to this day, I walked into the
new waste management world and, you know, just, I can do it all and I'll figure it out.
And, you know, we landed our first few clients, just faking it till we made it and we figured
it out and it's super successful.
So I think there's always a little bit of that at the core.
Um, but yeah, how I keep things at bay, just, I use it as fuel.
And if I need a day, there are days where I'm like, I just, I can do it.
I will allow myself a day to not work, order my favorite food, watch some trash TV and
just relax and be human and then, you know, get back at it.
So I think keeping it at bay is a good Netflix documentary with a pie and pizza.
And then I'm like, all right, back to it next day.
That is wonderful.
I mean, self care is obviously very important than that.
Um, but I just, I love how you're, you're, you're keeping fear in a box and you're using
it as, as what you need to make sure that you get past that.
Right.
And then some, some people let, let fear run amok and that's, uh, it can be so damaging,
but good for you.
That's amazing.
I find it funny that all of us humans in moments like that, we go to, you don't hear
anybody saying, and I watched a masterpiece theater.
We all watched trash TV.
I don't know what it's, I don't know why that's where we go, but that is where we go.
And I'm glad you're honest about it, Jessica.
So good.
And at night when I, I have to just say like there's some times when I have late night work,
it's on in the background and I'll have the housewives screaming and I'm just typing away,
getting emails out.
So I think that it's balanced, you know, you got to a little bit of both.
Yeah, for sure.
That's awesome.
So nothing is impossible is your personal mantra.
So can you share a recent example of a time where that mindset really pushed you through
the, a tough moment?
And I'm sure you've had ones since COVID.
I'm because I, I have had the opportunity to get to know you a little bit and.
I'm, I can't picture a wall that you couldn't bust through, to be honest.
I mean, climbing a wall, maybe at this age, I'm getting tired, but,
at this age, it says the young woman looking at the two middle age men.
I am, I am 40.
Okay.
I'm 40.
Okay.
Well, that makes you way younger than both of us, but all right.
I'm, I'm hurting in places.
I never thought I'd be hurting.
So I, I thank you for, you know, I, I look at that as definitely a compliment.
I made my team.
I don't know if they love or hate this about me, but when we come up with a,
with an opportunity, my mentality is let's find a solution for it.
That makes sense.
And the biggest example is right now we're in the sustainability world,
asking a lot of questions that people don't ask.
Like, why is this being done this way?
Why can't it be done this way?
And just very, you know, things that to me are just, you know, I feel like almost like
common-sensical and some of the easiest solutions are very simple.
And I'll give you one example where we're trying to earn business
in grocers across the U S and one big thing that grocers have is a lot of food waste.
And I learned this through just having a conversation, you know, pitching another
line of business that we were doing to reduce their hazardous waste.
And they said, Hey, you know, or anaerobic digesters upping the price.
And we have all these meat scraps and this chicken grease from cooking those rotisserie
chickens and these organics.
And I sat there and I was thinking, I'm like, why can't we just give them to farmers?
And all of that and just thought the idea, you know, right now we have nonprofits go
and pick up a lot of items that we're going to trash.
Why not have farmers pick up food?
These animals eat a lot.
I saw on trash TV, you know, all the tiger and monkey shows, Tiger King or whatever his
name is.
So it helped, you see.
So, so I did a little research and figured out that there are a slew of different farmers
that need food.
And every, a lot of people on my team are like, it's not, it's not going to work.
It's not going to make sense.
There's not enough farms.
There's not enough, you know, to cover nationally.
And I'm like, there has to be a way, even if we don't take, you know, every single store,
we started regionally.
There has to be a way.
Like, why are we taking something and making it into something else and then selling it
to farmers?
Why not give them the meat?
And now we're piloting this program with two major grocers and it's a direct to farm meat
and organics program.
And to me, I'm just kind of like, why were they picking it up, driving it somewhere, making
something else, and then why not just get the actual food to the animals?
And that's just one of the examples of where I'm like, let's figure it out.
Let's try a little harder.
Let's put some elbow grease in it.
Let's call farmers.
Let's, let's really figure out if this is possible.
And we did.
And now it's, it's going.
Let me ask you a question.
So I, I, first of all, I think that, uh, mantras are, mantras are important.
And I think that having the mindset that nothing is impossible, um, is important.
And yet I find myself as I'm hearing you speak about it.
I think you gave the example you cited are examples of where there was in fact, uh, you
know, a path to do something that was worth doing sometimes, however, either something
I, and I don't want to say that something is impossible because that contradicts your
point that I don't actually think that I want to contradict it.
Nor do I necessarily agree, uh, that it's, that there's a contradiction.
I do think that sometimes certain things aren't worth doing.
So how do you distinguish the fine line between nothing is impossible and some things aren't
worth doing money.
Okay.
Yes way.
So, um, one thing that we've encountered in our business is, and why I feel we become
so successful very quickly in the sustainability world is because.
We w I know from my business dealings, how hard it is to sell something new and something
that either is the same cost or more money.
No one wants to change the process.
It's a lot.
So in order for me to create something or move forward on it, I have to see the money
there beforehand.
So how we did that with the meat farmers?
Well, they're paying for transport.
They're paying X amount of money.
For transport, they're paying X amount per ton.
We had farmers asking to pay us for access to this.
So money.
Tells me if it's worth the time or not.
And if I'm going to go through with something, so I'll look at a spreadsheet and just put
the numbers together really quick in a spreadsheet.
And in my mind, I'll know whether I am going to invest in it or not, if it's scalable.
And that's the driver because we don't have to run a business.
So that's really what tells me yes or no.
That's a great answer.
You know, it's a great answer.
I mean, sometimes the answer is this is worth finding the path.
I think that's what you're saying ultimately, right?
There's enough, you know, there's enough there.
We're finding out a way to do it is is the responsible, stabby thing to do.
And I think that that's a good standard to have.
I just like the fact you said stabby thing.
All right.
So let's talk a little bit about Sammy, but we're going straight to murder.
I guess that goes with the Netflix.
Oh, okay.
I mean, it's the season.
Halloween's around the corner.
There you go.
Sorry about that.
Okay.
So with Happenventures, which is very, very cool.
So I would love for you to give a very quick synopsis of what it is.
But you are tackling waste and sustainability.
What does beneficial reuse mean to you and how do you see it impacting communities?
So we don't really know yet what Happenventures is, which is the
crazy but exciting part of it.
We're figuring that out because this is kind of just, it's a new venture.
It's a new idea.
We're pushing a lot of boundaries in the waste and sustainability world.
But at the core, we're a reuse-first company.
So the big question that we ask coming into this industry is
why are people going right to recycling or throwing things away and not reusing them?
And to me, I walked a waste management show and I saw not one booth focused on reuse.
Everything was recycling and composting, all of this.
And why take something in its original form and make it into something else?
It takes time, energy, and its cost.
And so through reuse, we have been able to unlock ways to save companies
a significant amount of money because they have to pay to throw things away.
We help the community because we're diverting things to communities,
other businesses, farmers, all these people that can use these items.
And we're saving money while doing it, which is just kind of like this golden trifecta of
just value, which has been explosive for us.
So at the core, Happen Ventures focuses on how can we reuse items first?
How do we stop all the in-betweens, all the brokering, all the moving this in around?
And how do we just go direct to the source and get something,
somebody's trash and turn it into a treasure?
Just the old thing my dad used to tell me, from trash to treasure.
And that's what we've been doing through various programs that we've launched.
Very cool.
It's definitely cool.
Sustainability is kind of a buzzword.
People talk about it, but like AI, I have a startup in the AI space.
People talk about AI, but they don't really have a plan.
They don't really have a strategy.
So having a plan, a strategy, with most things, particularly starting a business, it helps.
However, I kind of dig that you're not pretending to know exactly what you're doing
or where you're going.
I think that that's endearing and amenable, but I also think that it's a savvy business strategy
because you're going to be meeting people that have,
particularly for something that's new and innovative, that are going to have good ideas.
If they feel that you're open-minded and that you are someone that they believe can get things done,
you're going to find that people are going to confide their ideas in you,
particularly if they think that you might be able to activate something that they're
really passionate about.
So there's something really powerful about not spelling out your 10-point plan to do X, Y, or Z,
but accepting that I have a vision, it's broad-based,
and I'm filling it in.
I'm actually looking for ways to fill it in, and I'm looking for people who might help me fill that in.
I think that's a powerful strategy, and I just want to call that out.
Let's talk balance for a second.
So balance is a big thing for you also.
Balancing single parenthood, being a high-level executive,
I know it's something you're really proud of.
How do you manage it?
What kind of a legacy do you hope to leave for your kids?
So the honest way of answering that question is, balancing is always happening.
It's always continual.
So the most important thing I keep in the back of my head is I have all these balls,
and there's never going to be this perfect balance,
but they're ones that I absolutely can never drop.
And those are the core ones for me.
And that would be the number one is my time with my kids.
So it's always one thing is less than the other.
So I have to be mindful of that and conscious and be able to put things in the place where maybe
I'm really burnt out.
I need to Netflix and chill one day or get myself a spa day,
or I need to stop working and pay attention to my kids because they need that.
Or I need to really stay up late and work on a project.
So it is constantly accepting that nothing will be perfect and being okay with that and making sure
that the key balls still drop.
And that's how I've been able to really manage things.
And the last thing that I've learned in all of my years of entrepreneurship is I love the hustle.
Absolutely love it.
But to me, success is the most time that I get outside of hustling.
And that means that I've made it.
So for me to be able to close my laptop, spend time with my kids, that's success.
For me to be able to watch Netflix and chill while answering emails and whatever, that's success.
That to me is very important.
Not so much everybody's trying to hustle and not have time to breathe.
You burn yourself out.
You lose yourself as a person.
You lose your relationships.
And I think you can maintain that balance if you just remember that there is life outside of there
and there's people that depend on you.
And just always keep that.
Just be mindful of that.
And you can still be a hustler and do all of that and be a great parent, great partner.
And last thing, sorry, I have to say I have a great support system.
I have a great co-parent.
I have a great partner.
All of those things in place allow me to do the things that I need to do in my business.
So without them and that support, I wouldn't be as fortunate and feel as lucky as I do now
with being able to balance that.
That's awesome.
Love it.
We have a very powerful CEO, Shelley Arshenbaugh, who was on earlier this season.
She's a massive powerhouse.
And she had a really interesting observation.
She said, you know, work-life balance doesn't mean 50-50.
It just means a balance that works for you.
And I think that's, that's, it sounds like that's sort of your vision as well.
It's about quality and that makes a lot of sense.
And go ahead, PJ.
Sorry about that.
That's okay, man.
And Jessica, you know, you're very, the word that comes to mind is scrappy, right?
You're just, you're just, you just get in there and you fight, which I love and I admire greatly.
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who may not be coming from
the silver spoon experience?
They might be coming from a tough spot.
What, what, what would your advice be for them?
Wow.
There's so many things, cause I learned a lot along the way.
I think common sense and scrappiness go a long way than having handouts.
I had none.
I had no family investments, nothing.
I just figured it out.
So nothing will be hard work and sticking to it.
And also being, knowing when to walk away.
There's another really big lesson that I learned.
And that's why I pivot so much, sometimes too much is when something doesn't work
and you have this grandiose idea that you want to make happen and it just doesn't.
You tried so hard.
Doesn't mean you have to stop, just pivot.
It's, it, it's okay to just be like, you know, leave that, that dream here and move here.
And follow, follow where the clients are going, you know, and, and that's,
that's probably my best advice.
Be nimble, be flexible.
You don't need a whole big expensive team to do what you need to do.
And if you're just starting up, learn a little bit of everything, cause it will be super valuable
when you start hiring people and you know that they're actually doing the job because
you could direct them because you know how to do it yourself.
So I just, and just start, just do it.
Just don't wait for it to be perfect.
Just get started.
Just start calling, start researching, start emailing, start moving.
Just don't, don't wait for the perfect time.
There's no perfect time.
Just keep going.
And you'll get a lot farther than people who are waiting for the perfect conditions
and everything to be done before launching.
You don't need anything other than a phone and your laptop to start a business.
So our guest today, Jessica Gonzalez has done some really cool things.
We didn't even get to many of them.
I wanted to talk to you about how you ended up with, you know, having the opportunity
to work with brands like, like Google and Coca-Cola and Coachella having not started with,
you know, a whole bunch of money and a whole bunch of connections.
I think we'd need to have you back to dig into that.
But I think we've learned a lot.
And I think that there are lessons in today's episodes for not just scrappy entrepreneurs,
for any entrepreneurs.
You know, I think Jessica's mindset, especially that last point, I, you know, I would urge
people to rewind and listen to what Jessica said because it might seem like it is somehow
in tension with nothing is impossible, but actually it's not.
It's a perfect, it's in perfect harmony, but nothing is impossible.
Being able to recognize the right time in business to pivot is not an indication that
something is impossible.
It's an indication of recognizing what is possible.
And that's an incredible strength.
And that's what allowed Jessica to build a business that did more than $25 million in
revenue and sell another business.
And if you guys don't know, the odds of starting a business and taking it to a million dollars,
I think are extremely long.
I think one less than 5% of businesses get to a million dollars.
Less than 5% of those businesses get to $10 million.
Less than 1% of those get to $20 million.
But what Jessica did was incredible.
And I think you heard a lot of reasons why in this episode, Jessica, thank you so much
for being our guest and give you success to you.
And we'd love to have you back and dig into some of the other things we didn't get to
talk about today.
Yeah.
Thank you guys for having me.
Thanks, Jessica.
It's great.
And that's a wrap, folks.
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