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

Angela , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

I originally started my business on a wholesale model. I rented out a commercial kitchen, obtained my business license and built up about 15 wholesale accounts between Long Beach, Los Angeles and Orange County. I did this for about 2 years and thought I was doing everything by the books. Well, apparently there are laws against selling raw juice wholesale. Raw juice can only be sold in your own retail store! Within two days, the health department had called each and every one of my accounts and told them they were in violation of their health permit by selling my product. It was the most humiliating moment of my entrepreneur life. I was having lunch at a restaurant that held my juices on their menu and the owner walked up to me and told me about the phone call with the health department. And then the phone calls started pouring in from other business owners and my entire business came screeching to a halt. I had also just finally quit my second job so Salud was my only source of income. It was such a scary time and I really did not think I would come back from it. I only had two regular clients who ordered from me weekly at the time and that was my only steady business. I lived off credit cards. I had a decision to make and that single decision changed the trajectory of my entire business. I gave myself some time to process my options and eventually decided my best option was to open a brick n mortar of my own. I found a location, found a friend who partnered with me as a silent investor and got to work! Needless to say, the time in my career where I thought I was an absolute failure actually ended up being the reason why I have my juice bars at all. I tell this story because there might come a time where you think something is the end but it is actually just another chapter in your longer book of life.

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?

I started my company after some tragedy hit my family rather abruptly. My uncle passed away from cardiac arrest. At his funeral, my dad had a minor heart attack and then eventually had to undergo open heart surgery for a quadruple bypass. This happened in my senior year of college. I was graduating with a degree in history and planning my move to LA to teach in a teaching program and receive my master’s at Loyal Marymount University (my dream college). I didn’t really mean to start Salud. I was making juice for my dad while he recovered from surgery and just kept trying to perfect the juice concoctions I was making for us. I started with a $5 Jack Lalane juicer I found at a garage sale. I would make us gross-tasting juices and we would “saludos a tu salud” before chugging it down. I eventually hit the books and started researching the best and most optimal ways of juicing. I discovered a method called “cold-pressed” and bought a household cold-pressed juicer to start. I would bring my juices to work with me and, eventually, had orders coming in from coworkers. This eventually turned into a delivery service and I became the juice lady that delivered juice around town. I just kept selling and saying yes to new opportunities and ended up turning down my teaching job in LA to see where this company could go. I figure if it failed I could always get a teaching job somewhere. But here I am, 10 years later, and I really never looked back!

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My business partner was the general manager of the restaurant I worked at. We became friends but he really became my mentor. We would exchange ideas of businesses we wanted to start. He always wanted to start his own restaurant and I had started dabbling in juices. He would bring menus to work for me to copy edit and he would include me in testing out names for his restaurant. One time I watched him sit with a customer who he knew very well because he needed to start seeding money for his restaurant concept. That was a huge turning point for me because I realized that men are not afraid to sit down and ask for what they want and it was a huge part of doing business. Eventually, he opened his own restaurant and became fairly successful fast (To nobody’s surprise. He is one of the most talented and hardest working men I’ve ever met). So I took his same advice and I sat him down and said “Ok I need money for my concept now.” He kept turning me down and saying I wasn’t ready. He said to come back when I started selling 14 juices a day. I never in my wildest dreams thought that would ever be possible and now we sell close to 200 a day! But eventually he caved and offered me a small chunk of change along with priceless amount of mentorship that I will always cherish and thank him for.

Any advice for managing a team?

I’ve managed hundreds of people now over the past decade. The best advice I can give is hire slow and fire fast Take your time hiring the right people for the job. Keep your standards high and be patient. Keep the ones you love happy. Have one-on-one meetings with them just to check in. Often times your best employees are the quietest wheels because they don’t want to disturb the peace. Initiate meetings with them and hear what they have to say. And if you ever feel like someone is bringing down the morale of your group, separate yourself from that person fast. It’s amazing how quickly one person can turn the morale of an entire team to the dark side. And, above all else, treat your staff with respect.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.saludjuice.com
• Instagram: @saludjuice
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/saludjuice
• Twitter: @saludjuice
• Yelp: Salud Juice