We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashley Villanueva. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashley below.
Alright, Ashley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?
We as a small family business started during the pandemic back in 2020 since my sister and I didn’t have a job at the time and our business blew up on tiktok for the next 2 years constant orders, constant restocks from selling out, it came to the losing where both my sister and I and my mother did 4 chicas bonitas full time and were able to have a steady income but then comes 2023 and business slows down like crazy! I kid you not we almost shut down because no orders were coming in, we couldn’t afford to keep all 3 of us on pay roll so my sister and I had to get a 2nd job to keep 4 chicas Bonitas up in running and my mom stayed running the business full time and us helping when out of our 2nd job. Sales were nothing like before it was as slow as when we first began and we had bills to pay, product to purchase, sometimes we would spend more to ship out an order then what the order actually was. It was so discouraging cause the business was crashing. But then out of the blue Our great friend Gia from silky gem reached out to us about doing a collab and it helped bring back business to us and we’ve been sold out for a few weeks and now have a constant collab with silky gem and our good friend Trinah but we were close to thinking about shutting down before Gia reached out to us. Honestly the lord heard our prayers because he is the one who blessed us with this business and with all these amazing customers but that was the time were we truly did fail but failure didn’t win! I do believe it brought back passion and motivation to just keep growing and to get back up when you fall.
Ashley, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Ashley Villanueva I’m 25 yrs old and I have a small business with my family. My sisters and are all born and raised in beautiful South Texas down in the RGV! I went to college for a semester and withdrew to attend bible school. My sister and I are also Worship Leaders at our; The Family Church. My family and I have been singing there for the past 13 years . So I’ve been working food service for the past 10 years and my sister my mom and I finally quit our jobs in 2021 to pursue the dream of a small family business which I get to run with my little sister Aaliyah from our home until we can finally open up our shop. And well since We work from home We’re a low key nanny to our beautiful niece and nephew since my dad, my older sister and her husband work full time. My whole family had always worked retail and fast food so we’re honestly huge on customer service and just people my parents really taught us to serve and love people. My family and I have a small business selling Dulces Enchilados which is huge here in Texas. During the Pandemic my sister & I were out of work for a few month with no source of income so My sister & I were joking one day about making those Dulces Enchilados & well my mom said we really should try it out & as mother do, she encouraged us & really believed in our dream even though we were only joking so we decided to give it a try. My mom & I came up with all the recipes & the proper ways to coat our candies. We have 4 spice flavors “ Sweet & Spicy, Spicy, Watermelon, & Sweet” & we also have rim dips, chamoys, and huge selection of candies. We created a tiktok to our name out there our business blow up so we have a great following now. My older sister, mom & dad help when they have days off from their full time jobs & help after work so the whole family pitches when they can but my little sister & I are the main employees My sister makes all the candy, powders & Chamoys. I make our dips, package local & shipping orders, donmeet ups for our local pickup /deliveries & go to the store to buy supplies & run our social media. It’s a lot of work for just two but it’s worth it seeing people love our products So we made out business legit and got a business license and so we then opened up an Online Shop with Shopify where we take local order and shipping orders. We actually have shipped every state in the US and have shipped worldwide like to Canada and Guam which is crazy cool. We only take 200 orders a month since it’s just my little sister and I who do the online store orders. We are constantly making new content on tiktok like drink videos and snacks to show people what we offer and would love to offer when we have our own shop so we’re really big on social media to stay relevant and be out there
How’d you meet your business partner?
So honestly My sister and I came up with the idea to start a small business because we were joking and being competitive about making candy aka dulces Enchilados. This type of candy is very popular hear where I live. But my sister and I were very lazy and didn’t wanna follow through, but we ended up telling our mom our idea and we’re just joking with her and told her I bet you we can make the best candy out there and my mom is the one who pushed us and told us to buy products so that we can make our own recipes and my dad was the one who just also said let’s do it so that’s how we became Bonitas. I have three sisters, including myself in that three and my mom so we’re the 4 Chicas Bonitas, which is for beautiful girls in English and so we all became co-owners. We all put in some money bought products and decided to open a small business, even though it was very scary , but if it wasn’t for my sister and I being competitive, but my parents being the ones to push us, we wouldn’t be 4 Chica’s Bonitas
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
Constancy is key. We stay true to what we started with from the very beginning. Honestly we have had many opportunities from brands and companies but they have not lined up with our vision or who we are as a company and have had to turn things down and do believe the lord will bring the right opportunities. My family and I are all co owners so we have great one another as equals and hear out each and every persons input and honestly come to unanimous agreement and just build from there. I do believe we keep each other grounded and just have to remember what the vision for our brand and us as co-owners from the very beginning.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://4chicasbonitas.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagrames.com/4chicasbonitas/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/4ChicasBonitas/
- Other: https://vm.tiktok.com/JFQ4vLS/
Image Credits
Ashley Villanueva Aaliyah Villanueva Myra Villanueva Gustavo Villanueva Danielle Gonzalez