We recently connected with Carolina Acosta and have shared our conversation below.

Carolina, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

I started my business to create a product that I wanted for myself but realized didn’t exist. As a U.S. born Latina, I had always struggled to identify as such because assimilating at a young age to the U.S. culture made me shy away from my roots. It wasn’t until I experienced South America for the first time in 2018 that I reconnected with this identity, falling absolutely in love with everything about my culture. It was also when I met my now business associate, who introduced me to the idea of my first product, a cultural drinking game. I was so excited for this idea because I personally love tabletop games. The idea also made me realize that there weren’t a lot of products out there that spoke to someone with a dual identity like me.

I didn’t plan to make a whole business out of this one game I was making. I always thought it would be something I would just play with my friends and family, and at most be a side gig. However, over time I saw just how necessary my product was to my community of so many other Latinos that felt like me. It was amazing to see just so many engaging with the first ads, sharing that they could all truly relate to this game. This engagement quickly turned into orders and as soon as we had enough preorder sales, I used that revenue to purchase our first batch of inventory. Four years and many games sold later, I’ve come to love what I do, despite still learning something new every day. I feel like I’m really making a difference for my community by offering representation not only in games, but through social impact and sharing a relatable story that inspires others to share their narrative and become the next innovators and leaders.

Carolina, 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 Carolina Acosta and I’m first and foremost a creative and daughter to Colombian and Dominican parents. I was born and raised in Queens, New York in an area called “Little Colombia” growing up on a lot of empanadas and cheese bread. My calling was always art and design. I was a total nerd who loved a good sketchbook that I could draw in for hours. I went to a high school focused in fine arts and then went to Parsons The New School for Communication Design where I transitioned from painting/drawing to full digital design. It led me to work at a design agency in Manhattan where I developed my skills in branding, pitch deck design, and UI/UX.

After a few years at the agency, I felt I wanted something new, unsure of exactly what. But, an opportunity struck when I visited my mom’s birthplace in Colombia for the first time on a family vacation. Not having ever felt too connected to my Latin roots, I was nervous to visit South America for the fear of coming off as too “gringa” or “white.” Yet, I always loved traveling so it was only a matter of time that I would visit. I fell absolutely in love with the Colombian culture and people! Coming back home, I felt a longing for more. A few months later, I took a leap of faith and joined a travel program called Remote Year that had an itinerary of 4 months traveling across South America. I convinced my job to let me travel remote and headed off to live in Peru, Colombia, and Mexico.

What I loved most about this trip– apart from the friends I made for life– was understanding a few cultures outside of my Colombian roots. In discovering what many Latinos had in common (whether they were based in South or North America), I widened my appreciation for a community that I had never felt a part of until then. Coming back home for a second time from Latin America, I finally felt like I belonged and wanted to keep this feeling. I think that’s why when the opportunity to create a cultural drinking game came up, I needed to follow through and make it happen.

The games that I’ve created with my team are 100% rooted in the similarities all Latinos tend to have, regardless of their nationality or fluency in either English or Spanish. This was important to me because I wanted people who played Tragos to feel like they also belonged. Over time, this mission has only grown stronger by seeing the players we’ve positively affected by our games and seeing the rise in importance of representation and inclusivity across the media and other industries. As a creative, I’ll always love making beautiful products. As a Latina, it’s a dream to be able to use my calling to speak to my community and have fun doing it!

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

Starting a business a year before the pandemic has definitely led to several ups and downs. That said, entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster always throwing curve balls at any given point in time, especially for first timers.

Interestingly for us, the pandemic helped soar our sales at the beginning of 2020 thanks to the increased demand of at-home entertainment. As a new business, we weren’t ready to scale that quickly and panicked by buying an insane amount of inventory, reacting rather than planning. We also scaled other parts of the business like ad spend, agency hires, and expensive influencer marketing. We had the money so why not? As a new entrepreneur, I knew nothing about cash flow management or financial projecting. It wasn’t until the end of 2020 that I realized I had overspent and a lot of these marketing strategies didn’t bring in the ROI we expected. I felt duped. It took too long to get out contracts that were hurting the business and to figure out how to scale back down as much as we needed to finally stop the overspending.

What helped us survive was a combination of several financial solutions that all came at the right time. First, we won a grant presented to us by Hello Alice and UBS. I highly recommend Hello Alice as a small business resource! Next, I was approved for an SBA loan that specifically helped businesses affected by COVID-19. Over time, I also received support through cash advances that allowed us to become profitable again. While I don’t think I would’ve shut down my business entirely, these solutions made it possible to stay relevant in a space we had already carved out for ourselves and keep 100% ownership of the business.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most cost-effective strategy for growing our customers is word of month. It sounds vague yet when we’ve focused on strategies that involve others in our community telling their audience our story and brand, it’s produced over 10X ROI. Some of our methods that have used this strategy are; ambassador marketing, micro-influencer marketing, and referral programs on our website. However, all these methods need to constantly find new mouths with new audiences. Otherwise, they can go from producing 7-10X results for weeks at a time to less than 1X very quickly. We’re always trying to tap into different customer profiles to see who might not know about us and where.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tragosgame.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/tragosgame
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/tragosgame
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tragos-games-llc/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tragosgame
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tragosgame3508
• Other: Tiktok: https://tiktok.com/@tragosgame