We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Elizabeth Eguez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Elizabeth, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

Well my sister started designing some cards. Once we had five or seven designs I started going to store that I love to shop at and doing a cold call. I don’t think we had our Business license yet too. So I walk in to Progress in South Park and look around. Waiting for the owner Bruce to be done with another customer. Once he was done I introduced myself and asked if he would like to see our greeting card designs. He was so kind and said yes. I pulled out the 5 -7 designs to show him and the tissue paper color options. He was impressed enough to place an order. I had the biggest smile on my face. As I walked out of his shop I called my sister / business partner to let her know the good news. She than reminded me I need to go buy the card stock and envelopes to fill the order.
With this order we had enough money to go get our business license too.
For years on Bruce from Progress was always a great customer. He even helped us with card designs that he thought would sell great. And some designs have done that.
The best part is that we became friends thru the years. Sad to say he has closed his shop. But I will always remember that first sale. And all the help he has given us thru the years

Elizabeth, 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?

We are Two Hermanas – sisters. Hermana 1 – Beckri. Hermana 2 – Elizabeth. We get to create and work together to make unique greeting cards. We grew up in Chula Vista, CA right next to Tijuana, MX. We spent most a lot of time in Tijuana exploring the markets, visiting family, taking gymnastic classes – which I was really bad at and of course the food. How we got started – we were doing kitchen remodels and hated it. Our father bought a laser print to use for his wood working. Hermana 1 – Beckri was in charge of learning how to use it. We had the laser print in our kitchen showroom and Beckri was learning what the machine could do, I asked her to draw me a Happy Birthday card for a friend. She said no problem and she laser cut her design instead of drawing it. We have always love Papel Picado flags and now she made me a Happy Birthday Papel Picado card. The next week she had 6 designs and I started going to stores – cold calls to see if they would like to order some. And they did.
We love having total control of everything. We – Beckri does all designs, Elizabeth tries but let’s be honest. Having the design work done inhouse we can help our clients create something unique for them. Or take their idea and turn it into something special. With all the laser cutting being done by us we really get to play with the designs.
One of the things we are really proud of is that we get to create together. We have happy hour design time. We are working hard to have a little footprint. The card stock is recycled, the protective sleeve is compostable. We compost all our remint paper. We have just added solar panels to help.
What we want people to know – we really working hard to make our greeting cards a piece of art. We are proud out our designs. We grew up always making cards and now we get to do that for a living.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

We were still working at our other job – kitchen remodeling. It was also our own business. But we hated it. Our father had just bought a laser printer and Beckri was starting to see what it could do. Once we had 6 designs Elizabeth started doing cold calls to stores and trying to get some orders. At the same time, we were still running the kitchen remodeling business. After about a year or two of doing both, we came the conclusion that we did not want to do the kitchen remodeling anymore. We started talking to some of our regular contractors to see if they would like to buy our business. We got a nibble/bite, but we needed to stay on for a year to help with the transfer. We also agreed to monthly payment. This was our seed money that we could use to start expanding our card business. We start going to wholesale shows, we built two studios. One for each hermana.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

Whenever I go on a trip now a days I travel with some catalogs and sample cards. You never know. I went to Santa Fe, NM to visit an uncle. He took me to the Santa Fe Folk Art Museum, which is a must visit. I was looking around the gift shop to see if our cards might be a good fit for design style and pricing. I thought we would be a good match. I took a deep breath and asked the clerk if the store manager or buyer was available to show them our cards. The clerk said the buyer was at lunch and not sure when she would be back. I said okay and asked her if I could show her our cards. I did and she loved them. She asked me to wait a minute and she called the buyer to see if she would be coming back and so what time. She needed to see our cards. The clerk asked if I could wait around for about 30 minutes. The buyer was heading back. I said of course and my uncle and I waited at the cafe and enjoyed New Mexico weather. I took another big breath and went back to meet with the buyer. I was so nervous that I would blow this opportunity. The buyer was very lovely and couldn’t have been nicer. They placed our largest order to date. As we were taking, I mentioned that we can do custom too. Since then, we have done a custom design with their logo and some other cards. The buyer and clerk even gave us some great leads to other shops that might like our cards too. And some card design ideas. They are still one of best customers to date. And I love visiting their museum and keeping our relations growing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.twohermanas.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twohermanas
• Other: Faire Wholesale – www.twohermanas.faire.com

Image Credits
Elizabeth Eguez – two hermanas