We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful George Puga. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with George below.

Hi George, thanks for joining us today. 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.

Before covid started La Cajita was participating in different community pop-up shops and I also got the opportunity to partner up with a good friend Xochitl at Casa XoVi in Barrio Logan where I was able to have La Cajita Dulces & gifts at the shop. Months later when Covid hit, La Cajita took a big hit due to no longer being able to participate in pop-up shops and retail stores. During that time I took some time to look into new products, and make changes to the website and work on my advertising.

During Covid, mail orders started to increase and to my surprise, I received several orders from companies wanting to send their employees some Dulces and gifts. I was shocked and excited about the opportunity. One of the first companies was Thoughtworks based out of Chicago which sent all their employees a Tasty Cajita with Dulces. Chime bank based out of San Francisco was another company that we partnered up with to send their employees some Dulces!!. We also had the pleasure of mailing out Cajitas to the employees at Horizons Unlimited Inc based out of San Francisco. Voto Latino a grassroots political organization focused on educating and empowering a new generation of Latinx voters, also helped La Cajita grow by giving us the opportunity to share La Cajita with it’s employees.

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?

La Cajita was born out the idea of a family fiesta. Growing up with my family, any reason to have a party was a good one. And everyone knows that a good fiesta can’t be without the sweet treats and family games. That’s how the idea of highlighting the fun and flavors of our Latino heritage. Fun and dulces, childhood memories and traditions that is what La Cajita is about. We are a family-owned business bringing you more than just candy; we are bringing you memories of family gatherings.

La Cajita is a Dulceria! La Cajita offers a variety of Mexican candy gift sets. La Cajita offers tasty dulces y botanas Mexicanas (Mexican candy and snacks) with a very special touch. Handpicked from the San Diego border region, La Cajita will have items such as mazapanes, pelones, paletas and more, giving you a mixed selection of your most memorable dulces. The unique thing about La Cajita is that is can be found in various stores in Barrio Logan and at pop up shops around San Diego. La Cajita can also be found online, where one can send a care package or special gift to anyone. What sets apart La Cajita from others is its accessibility and promptness, with La Cajita, there is no waiting time, no subscription need simply visit one of the stores here in San Diego or one can make a purchase online.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Covid definitely brought the need to pivot. La Cajita was hit hard, but this time also allowed us to get creative, seek resources, boost our marketing techniques, improve our website and add more products to our platform. It was defiantly something that needed to be done, however due to the situation we had to move at fast pace in order for La Cajita to continue providing products and growing.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

Our primary source for taking orders in on our website, however we have been actively offering our product on the Etsy platform. Our Etsy page has really helped increase our sales. The platform offers a variety of “easy” tools to help sellers post new products, faster payouts etc. Personally using the Amazon platform is more difficult to use and not so seller friendly from a personal perspective. Amazon also has more rules and limits when it comes down to selling food items such as candy.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lacajitasd.com
• Instagram: La Cajita: lacajitasd El Carrito: el_carrito23
• Facebook: La Cajita: LaCajitaSD El Carrito: ElCarritoDulces
• Twitter: LaCajitaSD
• Other: Snapchat: Lacajitasd Tiktok: lacajitasd