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

Josseline, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

The biggest risk I have taken was to quit my career in the medical field and pursue business full time. I was worried that I was not going to make enough money to support myself and family. I am three years into this business and so far it has been the best risk I have taken.

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

My name is Josseline Estrada, I am the owner of Vizcarra’s Macarons & More. I work alongside my mother; and we specialize in buttercream cakes, macarons and other specialty desserts. How we started our business is actually quite interesting. My mom has been in the bakery/baking industry for over 16 years and she has a lot of experience with not only cake decorating but also owning a business. She had to part ways 5 years ago from her bakery that she once owned, and thought she was going to quit baking for good. She started to make cakes for family and friends on the weekends again but now from home. At the time I was pursuing a career in the medical field and was not involved at all. My mom does not speak English, and understands very little of it. When she started to get clients outside of her friend group and family, she needed help with translating since most of them were English speakers. I remember very vividly the moment I got involved, my mom asked me to go outside with her to go give a cake because they spoke English. At the time my uncle was helping my mom with setting up a Facebook page for her Cakes and that is where that client came from. As my mom pulled the cake out of the refrigerator I realize that the color of the shirt was not the right color. It was suppose to be a sherrif’s shirt. Well when I helped my mom take the cake outside the client was not happy. She refused to take the cake, I apologized for my mom and took the cake back inside. My mom was so heartbroken because she didn’t realize she made the wrong color. She had worked so hard on the cake, and it was upsetting for me to watch her be so sad. Since that moment on I stepped in to answer all her inquiries. Little by little I started to set up her business name, social medias, etc. In 2020 I got pregnant and Covid hit. During quarantine it’s when I really got involved in the business. My mom and I made the decision to take our business serious and I was fully involved. We started our macarons page and cakes page. Our business was growing rapidly and we faced many challenges. I had never decorated a cake in my life, but I quickly had to learn. I was getting further along in my pregnancy and it was getting more difficult for me to keep up. I suffered from severe back pain and was hospitalized at 35 weeks because my baby was going to be born early. Luckily I was placed on bed rest for a few days and was able to make it to full term. I decorated my last cake in between contractions and had a beautiful baby girl that same day. I was managing being a first time mom and business owner. Having a newborn at home and running a business out of your home was challenging, specially during Covid. We have been very blessed and fortunate to have the best clients, which makes our job soy joyful. I am learning everyday how to become a successful business owner and how to be the best mom possible. I am learning from the best herself. My mom is not only teaching me everything she knows on how to run a bakery business but on motherhood.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The most difficult lesson we had to unlearn was not pricing our orders correctly. Since we started this as a side hustle and it was only extra money we were used to not including our labor into our prices. There were a lot of sleepless nights and early mornings. The profit did not match the workload. I had to sit down and recalculate into our pricing every ingredient, material and time we were spending working on each order. Even though my mom has business owner experience there’s a lot of business things she did not have knowledge in, and I had to learn for myself. Every time I speak with another small business owner I find that pricing is one of the challenges when you are starting out.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I feel one of our most effective strategy is communication. We try our best to communicate with our clients to meet their needs, and ensure we are providing them with the best service possible.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @vizcarrasmacarons @cakesbyvizcarras
• Facebook: @vizcarrasmacarons

Image Credits
Portraitsbytatiana on instagram