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

Marina , 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?

Most of my companies names are from cats that have been part of my family thorough out the years..

I thought it would be a fun way to remember every time I was doing any type of work and made me think about simple things. like loving animals and caring for them.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I have always been an entrepreneur. I started selling candy in school when I was 6 years old. I would save my Sunday allowance and would buy a box of candy with my savings. After that, I would do a raffle or would sell the candy at recess time in school. I love the idea of having money of my own to do whatever I wanted. As long as I can remember, I have always envisioned myself being wealthy and successful. I wanted to live a good life with nice things.

In my early twenties, I was working for a fast food restaurant making minimum wage. It was hard work with no money. I realized that it was not what I wanted in life. I quit my job and started working at a lending institution in the real estate loan department.
At 24 years old, I decided to go on my own and started working for a mobile home/real estate company and started investing in real estate and doing real estate loans .
With in the first couple of months I had made more money of what I was making in any of my previous jobs in years.

I concentrated in purchasing distress properties, fixing them with the help of my husband and renting them. It was hard work and long hours however I felt that someday it was going to payoff.

After that, I started acquiring more properties. I quit working as a real estate agent and loan agent and became full time real estate investor.

I took advantage of the mortgage collapse in 1986 and in 2008, and purchased foreclosed properties.

30+ years later, I have diversified and currently own properties in 5 different states, I own a combination of Government building, apartments, shopping center, Retirement facility, Residential properties and Re-Maxx headquarters building.

I have also wrote my first children’s book called Paris and hope to be write others as well.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

I purchased an 8 story building in Tulsa Oklahoma as a Tenants-In-Common with 14 other investors.

I quickly realized that dealing with that many different personalities was very difficult to agree on anything.
It was an absolute nightmare and even though the property was 93% occupied, we always lost money.

The only people that made money were the property management firm and contractors.

The building was purchased at 16 million dollars and was sold it for 10.6 Million dollars.

It was a terrible investment and a complete loss. I contemplated the idea of suing all the people that did me wrong. However, it was going to be very costly and I would have endured many headaches and money.
At the end, I did nothing and decided to count my losses and move on.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My husband is an engineer that has worked in the aviation industry for 35 years. He is also a US Navy veteran.

My husband and I have been business partners since day one. We have both worked hard to be where we are today as we started with nothing. In the beginning, we used to do most if not all of the maintenance and cleanings ourselves. As time passed, we were able to grow our business so now we can hire a company or person to do the work.

Bottom line, hardwork, dedication, integrity and trust are key if not critical to success.