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

Grizelda, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Nobody can really be sure if risks will pay off, no matter how calculated they may be. But this should not stop you from taking risks which has always been my mindset. I’d rather try and fail at something than to say “What If” Growing up in Texas. I’ve been told numerous times that Fashion will not be successful in Texas., that my dreams & goals would be more realistic if I moved to New York or California. I just never really settled for the advice given to me and have always done things my own way even if I would be wrong. Taking a risk means not being afraid to hearing No’s and personally failure to me is when you don’t try and just give up! Many times, I have felt discouraged but perseverance is what kept me going. Taking a risk has helped me succeed a online boutique, working along side with famous celebrities & athletes, and I just know If I had given up at the many times I have felt discouraged, my career would not be what it is today.

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?

I have worked in fashion for over 11 years of constantly perusing the career I have always dreamed for since a child. My career began as an intern and worked my little tail off to build my own name and brand in the fashion and entertainment industry. I never gave up and did many jobs with no pay to a little pay to just earn recognition in this field. Work ethic & talent is very important in this field, but personality always wins the deals. I do my best to keep a great attitude and be remembered that this is a Huge passion for me and at the end of the day, people can see my genuine love for this industry. While I work on many commercials and films, I have a huge passion for personal styling and building a brand image to what my personal style is by incorporating that into my fashion brand called ZEELAS.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

As a full time freelancer, multiple streams of income is important especially in the field of production for film and tv. So I created ZEELAS apparel & design as a side hustle a little over three years ago to keep work steady and keep me busy when I wasn’t working on set. ZEELAS apparel is definitely my personal style and a touch of what I love to wear daily. So my goal was to definitely incorporate my vision and have the opportunity to help females feel sexy, confident and help woman take risks in their personal style. Running a small business is not as easy as the Instagram world makes it out to be, consistency and building a team who sees your vision the key to success.

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

My online store is sold online and can be found on ZEELAS.com. The e-commerce platform was definitely a learning experience and a process of building it and investment I decided to take. I chose not to go for the Shopify or Wix platform but instead hired a web designer myself to build my site from scratch to my exact liking for the brand. The world of e-commerce has been quite the learning experience of the pros and cons it all entails. The pros of having an online boutique is definitely earning income through sales online and nothing beats the satisfaction and joy I get when I see a sale transaction come through my phone notifications. Receiving reviews about my product and getting tagged in photos alone is one the best feelings ever. One con of Having an online store is the constant changing in the world of marketing, Social media plays a huge part to marketing and getting an audience to click on your website & seeing a drop in your audience can definitely be discouraging but I always have to constantly remind myself to not obsess over the number to clicks to my site but learn what my customers love vs what they don’t click on. So trial and error is also the key to learning who your customer is.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.stylebygrizelda.com
• Instagram: ZEELAS apparel
• Facebook: ZEELAS apparel