Sandra Velasquez was in her 40s and unemployed when she launched Nopalera, a line of luxury

bath and body products made with Nopal that celebrates and elevates Latino culture.

Fast forward to today, Sandra has raised over $2 million to grow and expand the brand,

and Nopalera is now carried to more than 400 national retailers, including Nordstrom and Whole Foods,

New York City.

Sandra offers a lot of real talk about how her early days as the band leader of Pistolera did and did not prepare her for this moment,

the success squad that has been critical to redefining her sphere of influence,

and her hard-earned insights about what the realities of distribution mean for creating a profitable product.

Thank you. product. Sandra, thank you for doing this. Yes, my pleasure.

So I have a question for you, which is, does Pistolera end?

It didn't technically end.

Like there was no, okay, that's it.

We're wrapping up.

But COVID ended all of my friends' music careers, including mine, pretty much overnight.

And it was actually perfectly timed because I was already working on Opelera.

So it didn't

feel like a death to me.

You know, I had been a professional musician for so long, and I'm happy to turn the page.

I ask because we focus so much on beginnings and we glamorize beginnings that I think it is

worth digging into the fact that your big beginning accompanied

a big close.

Like there was a chapter that had to close there.

...