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

Desiree, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you’re open to it, can you talk to us about the best (or worst) investment you’ve made. What’s the backstory and the relevant context behind why you made the investment

The best investment I made in my business was to educate myself and really take the time to learn who my target market is. I started out my small business trying to make a hobby into a successful business without any business education or frankly, any idea what I was doing. I knew that I wanted to be able to sell my creative soaps and that I had the creative skills to do all the design, branding, photography, etc. related to the biz. I just kind of set prices where everyone else did not realizing that I was cutting myself short not knowing what a profit margin was, or that most likely everyone around me was probably pricing things way lower than they should have.

About 10 months in I decided to take a huge leap and invest in a 10-week course for soap business owners. I already had the foundations of my business set up, but there I learned how to price accordingly, how to scale up the correct way, how to brand my products for a specific customer, and how to run a business and not a hobby. I realized I was way underpricing my products by AT LEAST FOUR DOLLARS. That was a lot of money I was not making! Luckily, my established customer base was on board with my biz changes and still supported me throughout the process because I was very transparent and upfront from the get go with them. On top of that, I learned how to run a business without grinding myself to the ground doing everything alone. While I still run my biz 100% on my own, I know now when to take some time to re-charge, and when to hire external help despite me being able to do things by myself.

So definitely the absolute best investment has definitely been education!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Desirée Velázquez Rodríguez and I am the owner of Lilasuds, LLC. Lilasuds is an artisan handcrafted soap company designed to honor yourself with creative bath products made from sustainably sourced ingredients. But that is just my side job. I am also a full-time print designer in the fashion industry in NYC. I create original artwork for a ver well-known fashion company every day for womens, mens, and childrenswear. So, I get to be creative in both my jobs, and I am able to integrate the creativity from my full-time job into my side biz. I get a lot of inspo for color and design from being a print designer and use that to create sculpted soaps with fun colors and incredible scents.

I also pull a lot of inspiration from where I am from. I was born and raised in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. I lived there all my life until I moved to NYC 10 years ago to pursue fashion. So, a lot of the stories I tell though my soaps come from living in the Caribbean, as well as coming from a family of creative women that formed me into the artist and designer I am today. In particular my mother who is my company’s namesake. She’s an artist. I take after her in my career as well.

Lilasuds was born a little over 3 years ago in my tiny kitchen in my Astoria apartment. I was going through some skin troubles and was looking to create a more gentle option for my skin. I spent a year learning the science of how soap works and how to formulate it before I even made my first bar. Once I made the first one, it was love at first swirl! I’ve made hundreds of batches since. I decided to start selling my soap because my obsession became so big I had too much of it. My friends and peers were all asking to buy so I decided to formalize my business and make it legit. All of this while working at another demanding high fashion company!

I always knew I wanted to keep Lilasuds rather small because I enjoy being able to be a part of every aspect of the biz. I get to control every single micro batch, every single ingredient, and oversee every single product that goes out the door. That ensures a high-quality bar of soap, bath bomb, or bath salt reaches you. I want to make sure that whenever someone opens one of my soaps, they get excited because they’re holding something in their hands that was made with such attention to detail and care. I want them to feel like they deserve to use something special, and that they honor themselves with absolute luxury. I care for gentle ingredients that are sourced from reliable suppliers and ethical sources. I’m proud that most of the suppliers I use are women/founded companies.

It’s absolutely amazing to create small collections with a story behind every name, scent, and detail. I love hearing when customers love a scent, or love my photography, or they can relate to the story behind each bar. I’ve made some wonderful friendships along the way through this small business. It keeps me going to create more!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

My social media presence story is very simple. I started 100% from zero followers a few years ago. As mentioned, I am an artist/designer so I know the principles of basic photography. I’ve been able to create all the content and photography I post from day 1. I started on Instagram right when I launched my company and have been quite consistent from day 1 posting almost every day. Granted, there have been times I’ve had to take a break as socials can take a lot of energy from you. I am very proud of the organic growth I’ve been able to have and maintain through consistency.

My customers love seeing the process of soapmaking and also enjoy bright product photography. I won’t lie, the switch to video format has been a struggle for me as I’m not exactly thinking about filming stuff when I’m in the middle of production working with caustic ingredients and a race against the clock. I keep pushing always for those loyal customers that always have my back no matter what!

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

I, like many small biz owners started my business on Etsy. Reason being it seemed like that was just the way to do it, to be honest. Etsy is a great place when you’re starting out, but there comes a point where I find it too expensive for businesses. One the admin side, it solves a lot of tasks you might need help managing starting off as a biz, but the more sales I got, the higher the fees I paid. The more markets I did, the more money I bled paying the platform. I also realized people would say “Oh, I got it on Etsy!” rather than “I got it at Lilasuds.com!” To me that was a huge missed opportunity.

I made the leap to set up my own shop via Shopify a few years back and haven’t looked back. I get to manage my biz with so many good business tools, curate the website how I want it to look and feel, and I don’t have to bleed money out of every sale or transaction. One monthly fee and that’s it! I even get to offer rewards to my customers. While I do have to bring in people to my website on my own rather than a general platform where people could search me, I’ve found that it has brought in even more sales connecting my Shopify through socials like Instagram and Facebook too which is something I could not do before through Etsy.

Contact Info:

• Website: lilasuds.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/lilasudssoaps
• Facebook: facebook.com/lilasuds
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzDmmcsWcl7_QdfE0o9A19Q
• Other: TikTok: Lilasudssoaps

Image Credits
All photos by Desiree Velazquez Rodriguez, Lilasuds LLC 2022, 2023