Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Claudia Gutierrez . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Claudia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

I was working for a corporation staffing agency for 11 years and I wanted to start working part time and go to school part time to eventually use my 11 years of expertise and a associates degree to get a better job opportunity. I started thinking how I can generate some extra income to help my husband with the family expenses so since I love cooking I thought selling something from my small kitchen on the weekends would be a great way to supplement our income while I went to school, at our home we love BBQs and burgers so I thought of offering a Mexican style hamburger since back in our hometown the street style burgers are a huge seller and we didn’t really have any restaurants offering them. I then made my initial investment of 300 dlls for my first weekend inventory and called all my friends and family to let them know the date and time I will be selling these burgers and to ask for their help sharing the info with their friends and family. First weekend Sat and Sun was a complete success we ran out of everything within 3 hours and we already had preorders for the next weekend, after doing the same thing for about 6 weeks plus adding extra preorders for factories during the week I found my self extremely busy and with an opportunity that seemed very promising. The owner of Plaza Del Sol who was a regular customer of ours every weekend approached us and offered us a spot on a small kitchen unit she had available in her plaza for a very reasonable price so my husband and I talked about it and decided to give it a try and quit our jobs to adventure into this new brick and mortar and thats how our first Hambuguesas El Gordo first location was born.

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

Im an immigrant from Matamoros Tamaulipas MX which is located on the border with Brownsville Texas, my husband is from Morelia Michoacan MX also an immigrant. I held a position for 11 years with an staffing agency and my husband a regular warehouse worker position in a large company located in St Paul. He had previously worked in kitchens for about 8 years and I had alot of experience in the workforce so this made a good addition to starting our own business. We started Hamburguesas El Gordo completely from scratch out of our own kitchen and raising 5 children at the same time omg is been a hell of a ride for the last 7 years of our life but it has not only made us mentally and spiritually stronger but it has also given us the opportunity to be a role model for our children and our community which we are extremely proud and humbled for.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

This is a funny story but people should know thats you dont need big amounts of money to start a business, you need passion, creativity and perseverance I was an extreme couponer before starting my restaurants so I had a lot of item in my home that I didn’t even have more space for so when we decided I was going to go to school part time and transition to part time at my job and do some cooking from my house on the weekends to help with the bills. We did a garage sale of all these households essentials for half price and gather $1000 on that one garage sale money that was invested into buying our first girls and inventory needed to keep offering our burgers with the increase demand.

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

There is 100’s but I guess something that could help people who are wanting to start their own business understand what it can take sometimes and that if you just stay focused and disciplined they can get there. When we first open our first brick and mortar we hd to have a plan and a budget to meet all the monthly expenses so we had a salary of $300 per week for each of us with five children and a mobile home where you still have to pay association fees, bills and all necessities for the family it was thought to live on $600/ week for the fist year, then pur salary bumped to $500/ week and so on but it took about 6 years to have a decent salary to live off of so it can be a struggle but well worth it

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.gordoburgers.com
• Instagram: Hamburguesas El Gordo
• Facebook: Hamburguesas El Gordo