Thriving Latina Entrepreneurs in America
Inspiration and the desire to succeed in business with an instruction manual!

My entrepreneurial journey spans a few decades and two countries. From my early experiences in Mexico City as owner of flower shops and a travel agency, to the creation of Lulu’s Dessert Corporation in Southern California where I am the founder and CEO. Lulu’s Dessert is a pioneering food-manufacturing company which revolutionized the food industry with the introduction of ready-to-eat gelatin desserts to America’s grocers from my mother’s recipe.

Over the years, I have attended many conferences and been invited to speaking engagements. As more and more people asked for advice about starting their businesses, I realized that my story was inspirational and that I could make it instructional by writing a book. This couldn’t have happened if I never had the opportunity to meet a woman who has been an inspiration to me for many years. Her name was Anna Maria Arias, founder of LATINA Style Magazine. Anna Maria and her husband Robert Bard invited me to share my story in San Diego 15 years ago. There I was very impressed by their energy and dedication to travel across the country educating Latinas in small business. I’m honoring Anna Maria for being a role model for all Latinas and for all her accomplishments at such a young age. Anna Maria represents the Great Spirit, determination and love inherent in all Latinas, in all women.

The more I learned from watching business women signing their books at conferences, the more I thought about putting the effort into writing my book. I felt it was time to showcase other successful Latina business owners like myself. They too wanted to share their stories of triumphs and tribulations, and give their insightful vision to the next generation of female entrepreneurs. We want to inspire, motivate, and give back; we all want to save people time and effort by sharing the obstacles we have overcome. It was time to write about Latina entrepreneurs who are making a difference.

I feel privileged to call all of the extraordinary and inspiring women in this book my friends. One of the greatest rewards I’ve had creating this book has been getting to better know the women as well as their businesses. Although our businesses range from food manufacturing, construction, travel, health, publishing, event marketing to the import/export of flowers, we went through very similar obstacles and have a lot in common. Our businesses are a distinct reflection of who we are. We are all thriving Latina entrepreneurs interested in sharing our stories to empower others to succeed. If we all did it, you can do it too! All have triumphed over tremendous odds. Each one of these women is an advocate for ethics in business, delivering impressive business results that have led them to where they are today. As I approached them for this project, they found the idea very enticing and challenging. The criteria for selecting these women included primarily, that they be Latinas, whether they were immigrants like myself, or descendants of Latinos. They had to be the founder of their own business, and had to be running their business today.

I believe people must constantly adapt to new strategies to advance in business. To improve your learning curve, study these success stories and apply what is relevant to your career. Helping people in their business and personal life is one of the most important benefits of the book. I also wanted to provide the potential entrepreneur with solid, useful information that she can use to start her own business. The second part of the book highlights subjects I found most important in the development of my businesses. The topics range from establishing your own business, to ideas for venture financing, what marketing is all about, branding concepts you need to know and valuable resources specifically for Latinas.

I found many common threads and characteristics in the stories of the women featured in the book, reading it you will discover many ways to approach business. Our individual stories provide many lessons, and present an opportunity to learn from the process we went through to find a business niche. These women have achieved their dreams of becoming entrepreneurs. You can become a Thriving Entrepreneur as well.

By Maria de Lourdes Sobrino