We were lucky to catch up with Manuel Rojas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Manuel, appreciate you joining us today. Often the greatest growth and the biggest wins come right after a defeat. Other times the failure serves as a lesson that’s helpful later in your journey. We’d appreciate if you could open up about a time you’ve failed

In March 2020, the world starts to face a “Global Pandemic” and there is no clear skies on sight for small businesses, specially the ones that depend on parties and large events to continue operating, such as our company, Foam Party Hats.

While facing probably the hardest time for our business, where our revenue decreased more than 75%, we received an email that changed our life and the future of our business forever. Foam Party Hats was officially invited to participate in Shark Tank Season 12, in what was probably the toughest year for any business owner.

After countless hours of work, several months of preparation, and countless covid tests, we dived into the tank at the Venetian Hotel at Las Vegas, and snatched a deal worth $100,000 from Mark Cuban & Lori Greiner.

With the help of the Sharks, we were able to keep our business afloat and even managed to increase sales in a year where many small businesses couldn’t even survive.

Manuel, 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?

The idea of “Foam Party Hats” originated more than 15 years ago in Caracas, Venezuela. Grace Rojas, founder and designer of every single one of our fantastic and fun hats, wanted to make something different and unique for the “Hora Loca” of her daughter’s wedding – and that’s how our first “Foam Party Hats” were created.

Needless to say, the hats were a total success and shortly after the wedding, a lot of the attendees started to ask where they could buy some of these incredible fun hats. For many years, Grace sold her hats in Venezuela, until 2010 due to the incremental humanitarian crisis in the country, she decided to migrate to the US with, her son (myself), Manuel Rojas, in order to pursue a better future.

Since arriving in the US, Grace never stopped dreaming about making a business out of her art, so little by little she started making a name for herself and started selling her famous hats in Houston, TX. In 2017, due to the interest and success of the hats Grace had started selling, I decided to join the fun, and that’s how in 2017, Foam Party Hats was officially founded.

Since then, we have been bringing joy, happiness and an excuse to be silly to every single state in the US, and as far as Singapore, Japan, and even Cyprus. At Foam Party Hats, we do not sell “hats”, we offer a unique way to allow our customers to be silly, enjoy life, and bring happiness and great memories to any of their special occasions.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

The idea of “Foam Party Hats” originated more than 15 years ago in Caracas, Venezuela. Grace Rojas, founder and designer of every single one of our fantastic and fun hats, wanted to make something different and unique for the “Hora Loca” of her daughter’s wedding – and that’s how our first “Foam Party Hats” were created.

Grace has been an incredible artist her entire life. So when she came up with some hats designs for people to wear and have fun, the hats were incredibly detailed and beautiful.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Our most resilient moment came right on March 2020, when COVID hit hard the US.

At that moment in time, we have been in business for 3 years, we had managed to grow organically year after year and that’s why in Feb 2017 we decided to rent our first office to continue expanding our business.

Needless to say, the timing was terrible. Signing a lease of 3 years was a risk we decided to take given the current projected sales of the business. Nonetheless, the same week we moved to our business, COVID was declared an emergency in the US and we couldn’t go to our new office for more than a month.

Additionally, our sales decreased greatly due to not many parties going on. We were faced with reduced revenue, several employees on our payroll that depended on this job, and a new 3 year lease that we were not sure we could cover given the economic state of the country.

Against all ods, we started brainstorming new ideas to make sure our business survived, and thats when we came up with our most popular hat to day, our “Virus Hat”.

We designed a hat people could wear to participate in Social Distancing in a fun way. The hat was a completely hit and allowed us keep our business afloat during the quarantine months.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://foampartyhats.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foampartyhats
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foampartyhats
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/foampartyhats
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/foampartyhats
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/foampartyhats