Sandra Velasquez is the CEO and founder of Nopalera, which is a Mexican botanical Bath and Body brand that she launched from her Brooklyn apartment in the middle of the pandemic. We are really excited to share this powerful, bold, and inspiring story from her perspective from one of the talks she gave at our events.
“At the age of 43, I found myself unemployed for the very first time, in my adult life. I had no savings, I had $86,000 of student loan debt, I had $30,000, of credit card debt. And I was also a single mother to a 13 year old teenage daughter. This was a very scary moment for me when I realized that I had nothing to show for what I had been doing. And I had spent my entire life building my music career, actually here in New York City where I live. And for anyone that knows any musicians or working artists out there, the money is not.., you can’t count on it, right. And so I realized that I didn’t have any other skills, really. I had always worked a day job in higher education just for insurance purposes. But I never worked in corporate, so I didn’t have any corporate skill sets.
There I was 43, unemployed, with tons of debt, and very scared and very nervous at that moment. But looking back, you know, hindsight is 2020. As I say, it was a massive opportunity for me and a massive blessing because it forced me to think outside the box. What I realized in that moment, is that the only way that I was going to change my life was going to be to actually change what I was doing. And if I want different results, I’d have to do different things and take different actions, and you have to think outside of the box.
The funny thing about being unemployed is that as scary and as nerve-racking as it can be, it does give you time to think. And so I had time to think in there, I was standing, you know, in my parents’ front yard and looking at the nopal, which is the prickly pear cactus. I think I don’t have to explain to this audience what a nopalera is, and looking there at it. And just wondering, like, why has no one created a brand around this culturally symbolic, versatile, sustainable, resilient plant. And in that moment, I decided that I was going to build a beauty brand. And I was going to call it no by Lera. And I was going to build a high-end Latina beauty brand to really disrupt the historically Eurocentric beauty space, which has really conditioned us to believe that higher price tags belong to French and Italian names.
There I was, with his big bold idea, but absolutely no money to start a business. And no experience in the beauty industry, by the way, either. I’ve never worked for Estee Lauder. I’ve never worked in the beauty industry. And so what did I do? I enrolled in formulation school online with my American Express card. So I really do have to give a shout-out to American Express for making it possible for me to even create and launch a brand. I enrolled in formulation school. I studied formulation for nine months because again, I didn’t even know how to get products made.
I was like I’m gonna have to learn how to make them myself, which is exactly what I did. I called my friend Abby, who was a brilliant designer, the designer behind the beautiful bold brand of Nopalera if you’ve ever seen it, and I asked her I told her my vision, I created a brand deck. I knew exactly what it was for and what its purpose was for who was going to serve. And, you know, I couldn’t afford to pay for the branding either. So I asked her for a payment plan, and I paid for the branding. I paid for the branding on also my American Express card. So again, double shout out to MX and so this was how nope I lead I was born. And fast forward right. I made the products myself for the first year out of my Brooklyn apartment.
We are now in Nordstrom credo beauty over 400 boutiques nationwide. I close out efforts bootstrapping for two years I closed out 2022 With an oversubscribed seed round of $2.7 million. And I won Latino Startup of the year.
I also appeared on Shark Tank in January just two months ago, and just received the news yesterday that our episode is actually going to re-air tomorrow. So in case and if you are in front of your television and have ABC you can see my famous pitch where I received two offers and said no. And I’m giving you only that spoiler alert because it’s already been out in the world for over two once. I said no, because as desperate as sometimes we often feel that we need money and that we need other people to validate us, I created this brand specifically for Latinos to stand in their worth, for us to believe and us to be able to mirror and see that our work that our goods and our ideas are worthy of the same price tags as other brands that are in the market. And I famously, you know, said that I could hear my ancestors whispering in my ears to not devalue myself. And so I received two offers. And I said, Thank you, but no, thank you. And I walked out. And that is when I went on to raise $2.7 million after the taping of Shark Tank. All of this was only possible because I had a big, bold idea.
I didn’t have any money. No one in my family is an entrepreneur. I don’t have a rich husband, I don’t own a car or a house. But yet, you know, our lifetime sales are $2 million. And, you know, now we’re in talks with some of the largest retailers in the United States. So, no, don’t let anyone ever tell you that you are too old or that, you know, if you don’t know how to do something because you can learn new things? I certainly did.
There was absolutely no way I would have believed anyone if they had told me that at the age of 44, I would be launching a beauty brand. So, um, you know, thank you so much for, you know, let me tell my story, I hope that it inspires people to live boldly and to believe in themselves. Because as I heard the previous speaker, before I started, we have to choose ourselves, we have to create or create our own opportunities. We cannot wait for someone to discover us, nobody is coming to save us. We need to have the ideas, we need to figure out how to get those ideas into reality. And then we need to bring everybody along with us for the journey.”
About Sandra Velasquez Sandra Velasquez is the Mexican-American founder of Nopalera, an iconic and culture forward Bath & Body brand that celebrates and elevates Latino culture. Velasquez launched Nopalera in the middle of the pandemic from her Brooklyn apartment with no outside funding or savings while working as a CPG sales & distribution manager in New York City. The brand attracted dream retailers like Nordstrom, Credo, Free People, and over 400 influential boutiques nationwide in its first full year and has been featured on NBC’s The Today Show, Telemundo, and over sixty national publications. She won Latino Start-Up of the year at the L’attitude Match Up Conference. In 2022 she raised 2.7 Million after appearing on Shark Tank and famously turning down two offers. Velasquez hosts The Nopalera Podcast which chronicles her journey of building her brand in real time while sharing the stories of others in her community. In her spare time, she mentors other Latina founders.
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