We were lucky to catch up with William Montoto recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi William, thanks for joining us today. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

My mom is a driving force, as well as one with which to be reckoned, as a child and even now in my adult years. She made a selfless decision to leave an abusive marriage to spare me and my three siblings from what she was enduring, before it got even worse, This resulted in her becoming a single mom, with three very rambunctious boys, and an extremely rough and tumble daughter. I witnessed her working two jobs to support us, and the struggle was, in fact, very real and very raw. When my stepdad came into my life at the age of 12, he reinforced my mother’s work ethic and taught me that persistence and determination will lead you to success. I was 14 years old, it was 4:30 am on a summer morning, and he would drag me to work with him to demolish bathrooms and install carpet. There was a million other places I would rather have been, but he would continue to say, “If you’re going to be dumb, you’re going to be strong”. This had a visceral effect on my upbringing and I thank him and my mom frequently for teaching me to work, and that the world doesn’t owe you anything. I know Covid changed the lives of millions, but it had a strange, yet wondrous, impact on mine. A few months before the pandemic hit, my brother underwent a kidney transplant. His donor was a young woman who was also a single mother of four kids- just like my mom. She saw a story on Instagram for a man who was in End Stage Renal Failure, desperately needing a kidney. She responded to this stranger’s post, and to everyone’s surprise- she was a match. She donated her kidney to my brother in late 2019, before we even knew what COVID was, as a nation, or a planet. I walked into her hospital room to thank her for saving my brother’s life- and I never walked out.
She is now the love of my life and we have endured six-figure job losses, unemployment, deaths of family members and loved ones, a move from Miami to Tampa, opening up her business last year (BeadnikRow), and now mine this year. To say we have endured almost a lifetime sequence of events in three years is an understatement. But I feel like my life has come full circle. I am now running my own Smoothie Bar, just as my stepdad ran his own construction company. My wife is no longer raising her four girls alone, just as my mom was given a bit of reprieve. I, too, drag my stepdaughters along for the ride at times to teach them that hard work is not only important, but inevitable, if you want to live a life you love. And for the first time in my life, I am in love with every facet of it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Before the pandemic, I was a banquet manager at the Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne, FL. I loved everything about my job, from industry to my coworkers. Unfortunately, all of our positions were cut and after 10 years, I found myself unemployed. I worked as an Operations Supervisor for FedEx for almost a year, but it just didn’t quench my need to serve others. I decided to start Cocomo’s because I realized there was a demand that wasn’t being met for fresh coconut water, straight from the coconut. After extensive research, I also found that cored pineapples were something customers want when they are walking around outside markets, events, and at nighttime venues. It just made sense for me to spearhead this and start my own company. With my 10 years of experience working for a company known for its luxury and service, I knew I could deliver a great product that not only tastes phenomenal, but I could do it on a five-star level. My smoothies are 100% natural, dairy-free, vegan friendly, and have no sugar added to them. Our customers are getting coconut water as a base for some of the flavors, or fresh squeezed juice. I don’t fill them up with ice to add volume; my customer truly gets what they pay for. I am converting a horse trailer for the convenience it will bring to people wanting to book us out for events of all kinds. We will have a mobile smoothie bar, that can serve up fresh coconut water, fruit smoothies inside sweet pineapples, or kid-friendly cups for the parents who want less mess!

How’d you meet your business partner?

I touched on this a bit earlier, but it truly is a remarkable story. A lot of people tell us it should be a Lifetime movie. My brother was undergoing renal dialysis for a number of years and was on the brink of giving up. His fiance’ posted a photo of him on Instagram and captioned it with their story. David, her fiance’ needed a kidney and time was running out. A few weeks later, we got word that there was someone who had answered the post and was willing to go through the pre-screening. After she passed all of those tests, there were a number of health screenings and mental/physical evaluations, along with 70 vials of bloodwork needing to be done- twice. Four months later we got word that she was a 98.8% genetic match. This person agreed to donate her kidney to my brother. She had four daughters, none of which carried her blood type, so she said the decision made sense. The day of the surgery, my big huge Cuban family was piled into the waiting room, anticipating the news that both of them made it out successfully. We received that news and were so happy. I needed to get home so I wasn’t able to meet or thank this woman for what she did, but I told my family I would be back the next day. When I walked into her room to thank her, I didn’t want to leave. I was in there for nearly four hours, and it felt simultaneously like a lifetime and not nearly enough time.
The rest is history. We fell in love fast, and I am happy to say we are still very much reliving those early days even now, having survived Covid, job losses, a move from Miami to Tampa, and all of the daily trinkets life throws at you. She is the one who encouraged me to take this leap, and I still feel like my feet haven’t touched the ground.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

When I am serving a customer, my focus is 100% on them. They are the core of my business and I exemplify that in the way I treat them. Having been a vendor at local markets and events has been a great source of exposure for me, in that it allows a mass number of people to see what I am doing in person. They may not be interested the first time they walk past my booth, but the second time they almost always stop to ask what we have and how they can order. What’s most important to me is not treating only our paying customers with respect and attention, but all customers, even the passersby. They are the ones that I want to come back, because they don’t know what I am offering. I have confidence in my product and I know that my repeat customers are loyal, because I see them time and again. But the skeptics still have their interest piqued and I feel it is my job as a business owner to match my product with their need, even if they don’t know it!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: instagram.com/_cocomos_
• Facebook: facebook.com/cocomos813