We recently connected with Eduardo Garcia and have shared our conversation below.
Eduardo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.
Scaling up takes time and a lot of work. I opened my first Helados La Azteca location back in 2019 at the age of 22. The first couple of months were full of stress sleepless nights and working everyday. Slowly you start realizing that you need to start removing yourself from the picture to to let the business and team members grow. After seeing such an amazing response by the Waco community I decided to open a 2nd location in 2021. Now 2023, I am opening our third location in Temple. The best advice to scaling up is to be patient and always seek to grow both your business and yourself.
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?
My name is Eduardo Garcia, I am 27 years old and I own Helados La Azteca. We are a a Hispanic ice cream store full of your favorite Hispanic antojitos. My father started this business back in the early 2000s and I followed in his footsteps. My family now owns 7 locations, 3 which belong to me. My father carved the path for me by showing us the way of a paletero at a very young age.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
We have been manufacturing our own paletas since I was 8 years old. Recipes that my father learned from a brother and from our hometown Mexticacan, Jalisco. Recipes that he passed to me and we continue to use to this day. As the years passed my creativity began to take control and I would create new flavors.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
We love our customers. The best way to keep customers happy is to make them feel appreciated. That goes beyond great customer service. We enjoy doing giveaways on social media and donating to Latin organizations.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.heladoslaazteca.net
- Instagram: Helados La Azteca
- Facebook: Helados La Azteca
- Other: TikTok: heladoslaazteca
Image Credits
Dominic Villa Devin Li Andrea’s Zaloumis