We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marilyn Colin Geiger a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Marilyn, appreciate you joining us today. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

Growing up as a first Generation of Immigrant parents impacted my life and career so much. Watching my parents build a small little fruit shop into a successful Mexican sandwich shop was very inspiring.
When my mother received the opportunity to take over a produce store, she had spent most of her career as a house cleaner and had prayed on receiving a better job closer to home and us kids, my mother received that prayer a little after saving up for a home and buying a house here in Anaheim Ca. She had no idea on where to shop for items, had very too little knowledge on business license and permits yet alone any money since she had just bought a home only a couple months before. My father and Mother worked there 9-5 jobs for 2 years and managed the store as well to just keep it afloat and be able to fund it as well, as young girl I was with my mom everywhere she needed to go weather it was at City hall to ask about licenses, Accountants to learn about money and help and even looking for the best deals on items to restock and replenish her store. I was an observant young girl whose sole purpose was to translate from Spanish to English, but little did I know I was also learning along the way and seeing my mother be able to grow her business all through hard work really shaped me to who I am 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?

For a while my husband and I had plans to open up a restaurant of our own but during the time we began the pandemic had hit and we saw a huge hit in the food industry and decided to change. career paths. During those times I had begun selling Mexican women boutique items and would do popup events every weekend, as business grew, I began to introduce Pet sarapes and items and noticed a lot of customers loved shopping for their pets and the idea of opening a pet boutique came to life. After some research I had realized that there weren’t any pet boutiques in Anaheim and knew that with all the new development and growth within the city this would be a great business opportunity. After a while I became pregnant with my little girl and my life had been filled and blessed like nothing I had ever experienced before. Navigating motherhood for the first time was harder than ever but I knew more now that I still wanted to open the pet boutique, as time went on, I had been doing research on commercial leasing opportunities, but found myself realizing the dream seem farther because of how expensive it was, one day I had driven by and came across an old tore up building that had a Leasing Now sign I had called and booked a appointment to see the place, it was a building with a lot of work that needed to be done. after 2 weeks I decided to sell my car and use the funds for the deposit and begin this store. With all the remodeling and fixing we did we had about no money left to even begin the store, I knew I had a find a solution quickly and decided to reach out to various pet makers and brands and invite them into the store as sellers this was a blessing we had a couple of small business take the risk with us and decided to join our store within a couple weeks we had about 70% of our store filled up with inventory we were ready to open the doors. As time went on our little store began to take form and become a small community small business owned shop and a lot of locals and pet parents love the concept. we have been in business now for about 10 months now and have partnered with over a dozen small businesses and brands we also host monthly photography events and Paint your Own pet portrait workshops in store.

Citi Pawz has become more than I had imagined and continues to grow little by little its been such a blessing to be a part of a large pet community.

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

I think what helped our business build the reputation is how grounded we are in supporting smaller local businesses out of OC & LA they all have a story on how they started their item, brand or idea and we just love to share that in our store and watch them grow. They all have played a large role in our store in many ways and they truly make our store.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The most effective strategy for growing customers is Customer Service 100% I love helping all customers that come through the door and get to intimately meet them by starting up conversations and of course getting to meet their pets.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @Citipawz