Pilar Guzmán likes to go more than the aspects of her enterprise. Her eyes glow when she talks about her empanadas, and she lights up when she remembers how 50 percent Moon Empanadas went from a single-retailer challenge to a chain in different U.S. airports, delighting travelers from all over the globe with her delicious empanadas.
“Our empanadas are the finest on the marketplace,” mentioned Guzmán about the pastries that are at the middle of the enterprise she created with co-founder Juan Zavala. The vital to their achievement, she said, is shelling out interest to the aspects in the course of the course of action, which commences with creating their personal dough.
Considering that 2008, when it commenced at a area in Miami’s South Seaside, 50 % Moon Empanadas has expanded to more than 20 locations, such as airports in Miami, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Nashville, Chicago, Phoenix, Palm Springs and Minneapolis, as perfectly as in universities and hospitals in Florida.
In 2023 by itself, the corporation sold 3 million empanadas. Guzmán was recently showcased in Inc. magazine’s 2024 Woman Founders 250 “most intriguing” entrepreneurs.
“The pounds of our empanada is 4 ounces, when most some others have fifty percent that. You slash 1 of most empanadas and there is air. You slash 1 of our empanadas and there is product,” she states with an air of triumph because, it have to be admitted, handful of matters are as disappointing as biting into an empanada and acquiring a tasteless emptiness alternatively of a strong filling.
Empanadas are Latin American baked or fried pastries, primarily in the form of a 50 % moon, that can have various fillings like meats, cheese, veggies or fruit. Their origins can be traced to Spanish, Arab and other cuisines.
“I consider this came a lot from Juan’s coronary heart,” stated Guzman. “He wanted to deliver a little piece of Argentina to the United States — I feel he wished to rescue a small of his society as an immigrant and he had the vision for the solution.”
Guzmán is a indigenous of Veracruz, Mexico, and has a track record in enterprise administration and a master’s degree in finance from Georgetown College.
She feels the firm’s success has appear from merging Zavala’s initial desire of setting up the company and her “madness” that compelled her to feel, “‘Why not in airports and why not in the entire nation?’ And which is exactly where we are,’” she said with a smile.
Now that they’re offering millions of empanadas a yr, “the problem proceeds to be how you scale up and not allow it slack. That’s the place you have to continue putting the controls, and the right people.”
Beating tough moments
Nevertheless, Guzmán sighs as she remembers past problems. Behind this history of enlargement and millions of empanadas bought, there is a challenging commencing that required beating numerous issues.
“We managed to get out of South Seaside mainly because we had been shedding income, we nearly went bankrupt and we moved to a kitchen area in Miami and started out with a cart at the University of Miami,” Guzmán said, conveying that, for numerous many years they hardly designed any income. “We had been in an financial disaster for like seven a long time, devoid of earning a wage thirty day period right after thirty day period. So, wherever do you get resilience from? Perfectly, I notify you, I’m stupid, it is a little bit of my individuality but I never like no’s.”
The businesswoman stated that 2011 was a decisive calendar year. At that minute she understood that the way to introduce the concept of her empanadas to a huge range of shoppers needed conquering new spaces.
She said she located out there was an option to bid for a compact small business possibility at Miami Intercontinental Airport, “so we bid with out a lobbyist, with out interactions, and we received,” she explained. Guzmán remembers telling Zavala that they ought to participate for the reason that it was a unique opportunity.
“I advised him if this country is what I feel it is, what it has been for me, which is a state of options, we have to gain this bid and we won it,” she reported.
She recalls men and women telling her they wouldn’t market any empanadas at the airport. Now they’re the top rated-offering enterprise per sq. foot at the airport, she said.
With 150 staff members, 50 percent Moon Empanadas is thought of a small organization (less than 500 staff members) modest enterprises make up just about all U.S. enterprises.
“We are 75% women and we are 95% Latino. I assume there are starting off to be extra persons who only communicate English, given that we have opened in other sections of the state, but the vast majority nonetheless converse in Spanish,” Guzmán reported about her staff.
Smiling, Guzmán described that just one of her most unforgettable moments transpired in 2021, when she participated in a online video get in touch with with President Joe Biden. “There have been like 100 screens and, instantly, he seems and states: ‘Hello, Pilar.’ And he is the president of the United States. It was really surreal,” she said.
Her discussion with the president was part of the marketing campaign that announced the administration’s financial rescue plan throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, which bundled aid for small enterprises.
Guzmán states that she took edge of each and every next of that dialogue and stated to the president the circumstance of companies like hers: “I saw that there have been troubles with revenue reaching. Assist from the government did not get there. I told him: ‘ Sir, I just want to give an opinion, the definition they have of compact corporations is 500 persons. I want you to know that in a small business of a Latina like me, the normal range of staff is one person. So, the dollars they have been supplying at the federal amount is not achieving smaller business enterprise proprietors.'”
Guzmán claimed Biden later requested that an exceptional 14-working day period of time be set up so that organizations and nonprofit businesses with less than 20 personnel could utilize for loans.
Operate, sacrifice and ‘don’t be afraid’
Aside from developing her enterprise, Guzmán reported she’s focused on supplying chances for her employees, particularly for females.
A person instance is her staff Sara León, who went from remaining head of catering to turning into the company’s vice president of administration and human resources in six a long time.
Guzmán describes herself as having a good outlook and is incredibly encouraging of entrepreneurship, in spite of the operate that is concerned.
“I often see the optimistic points. In this state you can do the factors you want, but you have to get to do the job, you have to do matters significantly, sacrifice when you have to sacrifice and not be scared of it. So I would inform them: don’t be scared, go for it, make that initiative, make that solution that you have needed to make,” she explained. “If the universe blesses you with the chance to have a organization, to be able to promote a product or service, to crank out revenue for oneself, for your family members, your accountability is with your workers and with your modern society and your local community. Which is the equation.”
A version of this story was published in Noticias Telemundo.
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