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

Isabella, appreciate you joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

7th Sky sounds pretty simple yet it is very personal. Both my kids were born in July, hence, the number 7. Sky is my son’s 2nd first name (Alfred Sky), and it came from the thought of his twin brother who became our angel during our pregnancy journey since the company was founded on the same month as well, and registered the following month.

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 was born and raised in a sugarcane estate in the Philippines, a literal “sugar baby”. My childhood revolved around the distillery, agriculture, community service and of course, education (schooling!). Entrepreneurship is in my DNA, as I turn ideas into life, and making things happen. Started selling snacks on my skateboard to my friends, to opening a tea shop in 2016 in Riverview, Florida (which BTW, won Best Tea Shop in 2019 for Best of the Bay) and now to elevating and educating our community about rum.

7th Sky’s motivation comes from empowering local businesses not just in Florida, but globally. Our continuous relationship-building activities sets the precedence to niche problems that we create solutions for. We find solutions to problems that most starting entrepreneurs often overlook as we strive to grow together. This breeds specialty projects that revolve around our core values – sustainable practices, quality, integrity and efficiency.

We are very proud to be a certified minority and woman-owned business in this male-dominated industry – the spirits industry. Being the first female Master Rummelier globally and first Filipina to achieve that designation is a big responsibility as it came with the honor of obtaining it.

Conversations about M&A are often focused on multibillion dollar transactions – but M&A can be an important part of a small or medium business owner’s journey. We’d love to hear about your experience with selling businesses.

Yes, I have sold my 1st business due to health reasons. It was our tea cafe that operates from Monday through Saturday at 10AM til 7PM. Being able to sell the business within 2 years of operation is tough. What helped us is being able to establish a standard from day 1, having a “franchise-ready” mentality on every detail. For example, having a brand that has 3 colors in the scheme of things versus 5 colors is easier to duplicate. Having your books ready and organized regularly helps a lot during due diligence. Knowing your clients by data is as important as how you treat them. Being able to quantify your value will help command and justify your worth as well. So when starting a business, be sure to just have everything done properly, even if it’s time consuming, because you’ll never know when you need to exit out.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think being genuine as a person in general is what helps build our reputation. At the end of the day, we are “the brand”. How we treat people, how we act on certain situations, our choice of words, our involvement with our business groups or the community – when all these are taken as a whole – these define your reputation. Even if what you sell is a USB stick, if you establish a genuine relationship with a single person, good words spread around for good work.

Contact Info:

• Website: 7thskyventures.com
• Instagram: @beahonradorosal
• Facebook: facebook.com/the7thskyventures
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/maisabellahrosal