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

Hi Isabella, thanks for joining us today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today.

4 Things I wish I knew before starting my small business

1. Did not have a target audience
– When I started Lucrecia, my target audience was the whole world; I had no target market nor direction. I started seeing success once I found my niche.

2.Did not know how to price my items
– I had absolutely no idea what my margins were for the first few months. I was just excited to make a sale and have people interested on my items. When I finally sat down to crunch down the numbers (boringgg) I realized I was loosing money or breaking even.

3. Underpriced my products
– To be completely honest, I was comparing my prices to big retailers which is SUPER unrealistic for a small business. I was worried potential clients would think my items were priced to high and aimed low.

4. Did not know how to delegate work
– This has been and still is the hardest part for me. If I feel I am capable of doing something, I rarely let someone else do it or micro-manage (employees worst nightmare!) If there is something I don’t know how to do, I prefer to research and figure it out rather than delegate down. This past year, I learned that in order to grow you need to learn to lead and trust your team!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Lucrecia started as a creative outlet for myself; it became a diary of my life! I wanted to create something where I could fully express my inner thoughts and eventually decided to invest in my first embroidery machine. I wanted to give others the opportunity to do the same by allowing them to DIY their apparel.

One random afternoon, I thought it would be fun to digitize and embroider my chihuahua, Salo, on a sweatshirt; it was a huge hit! Since then, Lucrecia has grown at a fast pace and I am proud to say we are now a team of 3! I have been given the opportunity to work with some of my favorite bloggers and businesses in San Diego. I am beyond grateful for the support I have received from the community!

Lucrecia is an independent latina woman-owned brand creating every design with you in mind. We are a boutique shop that specializes in digitizing and embroidering premium and wholesale apparel. We work with multiple businesses to provide wholesale logo embroidery and custom designs; quality is our main priority; super soft and comfy.

Lucrecia is especially known for our best seller: pet embroidery! We work hard and dedicate countless hours to each design to make sure you love it. We use over 45 thread color changes in each design to give a realistic effect on our embroidery.

Lucreica is the perfect gift for that special occasion; we work closely with our customers to make their DIY ideas come to life!

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

As Lucrecia grew, I always knew I wanted to get into wholesale embroidery. I decided to take a HUGE risk and purchase my first 10 needle machine; I was scared of making such a big investment as a small business owner.

Fear started to hit as soon as I gave my credit card to the sales associate! Questions such as: “What if my sales decline? What am I going to do with the machine? etc…” began to cross my mind. I decided to block those thoughts and knew I had to make it work.

By this point, I had done multiple research on wholesale and began to promote Lucrecia on different outlets. My first goal was to get a wholesale order of 40+ items. Today, I am working on wholesale orders of over 100+ items. Despite being scared, I always recommend small business owners to take the risk!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Lucrecia is known for our premium apparel and embroidery. I am very strict with quality control. I send mock-ups to all of my clients for feedback and approval prior to embroidering. This allows them to get an idea of what the final design will look like and it gives me the opportunity to make edits if necessary.

It took me months to find the perfect sweatshirt and tee! I always want my clients to be excited with Lucrecia. As soon as they reach out with questions or place their order, I focus on making it a fun and great experience for them. I constantly take courses on digitizing to improve my work. A lot of my clients come from word of mouth or are repeat customers which always makes me smile!

Contact Info:

• Website: thisislucrecia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisislucrecia/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisislucrecia
• Other: Etsy Shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/thisislucrecia