We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marielena Martinez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marielena below.

Marielena , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Well my entire process into this business has been a risk. I always had an idea and followed with my gut . I like to say that this industry found me I didn’t find it . Teaching to then coaching
Owning a dance studio to now running an entertainment company . Each decision I made in my business was always a big leap of faith in risk taking .

I opened a studio w 4 students
I opened a second studio 1 year later
I started entertainment with no idea how to make that my full income
I started my own event with no capitol or history of running an event at the magnitude of what I want .

I work w an industry of youth and that has been a risk each day .

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Well my name is Mari and I have always worked in business type positions – sales as a manager and have held positions where I staff ppl , train and run profit and loss statements for other company’s .

My passion and love was always dance but I did that as a hobby . I decided to take dance as a full time hobby when I was 18 and then added it to my college resume and we’ll all I can say is dance found me and slowly pulled me out of corporate America and lead to me to follow my dreams . Listen to my heart and believe in myself . With no Clients or real idea of what I would be doing I began w working at a dance studio to later teaching , choreographing and then jumping into my life and career head first . In 2007 I opened my first studio and in 2009 I had the second location . In 2016 I had closed that chapter and in 2017 went full into entertainment .
In the mist of all that I joined the miami salsa congress team back in 2010 became the artistic director and learned more about events and the back end of the business .

Of course thru my journey I was a promoter and worked so many odd jobs dancing , bartending and just gigs that fell with in the arts and entertainment.

These were all steps to take me closer to my empire .

I have been teaching and choreographing for 20 years and I coach dancers to develop the habits necessary to take their dancing to the next level.

Started my own yearly youth event and a competition with salsa clubs at your local high school. I’m still learning and creating new ideas but I love what I do and I wouldn’t change it for the world .

Have you ever had to pivot?

Yes a big pivot was the shift of opening a dance studio being an owner of not 1 but 2 studios and then realizing this was not my thing so I had to accept my failures , mistakes and just take a turn into entertainment so that I can stay doing my love and passion .

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Well that is funny . I lived w my ex boyfriend and asked him to let me live there for free. I took an entire year of earnings and saved every penny . He also dropped some funds in there and helped and pushed me out. I’ll admit many times in my life there was always someone pointing me in my next direction. I saved 10k and then I built out . That was all sweat and tears NO LOANS .

Contact Info:

• Website: Hotspotgala.com
• Instagram: @hotspotentertainmemt @quincesbyhotspot @hotspotdance
• Facebook: Mari Martínez and Hotpsot entertainment
• Youtube: Hotspot dance entertainment
• Other: I have a bunch of instagram pages for each biz .