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

Cristal , appreciate you joining us today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

Making the first dollar out of your hard work is so meaningful. I know for Conchitas Kikissz it was a huge milestone. My first clients were family and friends but they were more like quality control and taste testers. Remembering that makes me chuckle a little. After working on their feedback I decided to take the risk of finally promoting on social media what I was working on. I was so nervous and anxious and doubted myself quite a bit! I even tried to talk myself out of promoting a sale. I can’t help but laugh at myself a little since it felt like I was doing a face-to-face sale back then. My course of attack was promoting on Facebook Market. I figured it would be a good way to start. I still remember the date, it was July 14th, 2020. I would be lying if I say I say I posted it and forgot about it. In reality, I kept checking my phone for any activity on the post. After a few hours of being stressed a message came through. It was Zaidey she asked for the details and then placed her order. I was in shock. I even danced with joy throughout my house and messaged my siblings and my husband. It was a huge deal to me. It felt like it was the beginning of Conchitas Kikissz. That same day I received another order from another customer. The next morning I got up early and started prepping the Conchas (Mexican sweet bread). I was baking with such excitement and could not wait to have them picked up. Once I was finally finished I messaged them and they were on their way to pick-up. Zaidey arrived first and she picked up her order and headed home. She messaged me later that evening complimenting how unique the idea was and how delicious the Concha was. My confidence elevated enormously, which increased even more once my second customer had the same comment. To this day I can say Zaidey is my first customer and she is still a loyal Conchita fan.

Cristal , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Conchitas Kikissz is taking the artisan art of Mexican pan dulce (sweet bread) to a more artistic and gourmet level. I grew up eating pan dulce and to this day I enjoy it at family gatherings. Eating a piece of the pan with a cup of coffee is a must! I wanted to get creative with the Concha, which is our specialty. I wanted to bring honor to the original flavor yet create new flavors! Once, I started baking and perfecting different concha flavors, such as Oreo flavor, strawberry, and many more flavors, but our newest flavor is Fruity Pebbles. We also love creating themed conchas it’s an edible art that is amazing for themed parties. But we all know starting a business is not a piece of cake. It comes with challenges. Perfecting the recipes was not easy at all, which was my greatest challenge. I messed up quite a bit of dough, and while that meant learning, it also meant I was wasting and losing. However, sometimes to learn, we have to make mistakes. Creating the perfect recipe for each flavor meant messing up a bit. Baking is a science that makes it fun to learn what worked and what didn’t. Several lessons were learned at the beginning of this business. The biggest one was being patient with myself. Getting a business together is hard work, especially for someone who knows nothing about business. This process made me learn to be nice and patient with myself and that it was OK to mess up a bit because mistakes are the mother of success. These lessons create success for the next attempt! If you’re in that process, remember to be nice to yourself. I would love the world to know that Conchitas Kikissz bakes with the best ingredients possible, but the most important are memories of sweet times spent with our family and friends. We bake, so you can create those sweet memories while you eat your conchitas and drink cafecito. The biggest reason I started this business was that, while, I missed being away from my family during the pandemic. I reminisced about my family, and the memories that came to mind were those of us sitting around laughing and drinking coffee with a piece of Pan Dulce. That is why memories make a huge ingredient in our bread. We want you to remember the happy memories yet make new happy memories with your family and friends.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

For us, our best source of new clients has been Pop-Up Events. A pop- up event is like a small market where several small businesses go to sell their products or services. Our first pop-up event was on March 27, 2021 I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. However, the outcome was amazing. The first pop-up brought us so much exposure and new friends! We have hosted so many of them that now many clients go and tell us “we just came because we knew you would be here!” Hearing those words felt amazing! From those pop-up events, we have received more orders for future events such as birthdays, baptisms, and many more events. A piece of advice for new small businesses is to take that chance it will bring you exposure and try different ones.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

My initial capital came from my current job. I felt that it was time to take a chance on this since it started as a hobby and start treating it as the business that I wanted it to become. A week into taking orders my husband invested in me and he bought me a Kitchenaid Mixer. Which was my most used work utensil. From there on, I reinvested what was coming back. Initially, it was not easy, but I managed to make enough to invest the business earnings into the purchase of more items needed to run it smoothly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/Conchitas.kikissz
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conchitas.kikissz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/conchitas.kikissz/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@conchitaskikissz

Image Credits
Barbara Palomares