We recently connected with Roxana Gomez and have shared our conversation below.

Roxana , appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Wapa Handmade is a brand dedicated to highlighting the handmade work of the Wayuus indigenous tribe from the Colombian coast. We support three different communities of women that showcase their skills through the art of crochet. Our products are handmade and include different types of bags and many other accessories. Our main focus in Wapa Handmade is to support and empower women and promote the Colombian culture through craftsmanship. Wapa Handmade was born in 2018 by the idea of helping others. Rosana Gomez, founder of Wapa Handmade decided to start the business with the mission to help those that need it the most, and at the same time to achieve one of her dreams of owning a small business.
As a founder, Rosana is the person behind the brand, who puts designs together and creates new accessories that she believes can be a good and smart addition to women’s wardrobe. Roxana was born I Colombia and has been in the United States since 2012.

“I attended Texas A&M Corpus Christi University, where I received an MBA in 2015, and then a MA in 2019. While I was enrolled at school, I was the Vice-President of “PorColombia,” a Colombian Student Association. This organization was focused to showcase the rich and unique side of our heritage, and at the same time to put together donation campaigns to help those that needed it the most. While our efforts were successful, it became evident that to make a greater impact, we needed to do something that could provide continuity to the people we were trying to help. I then decided to explore a business opportunity that would directly impact one of the communities we had helped through the donation campaigns, the “Wayuu indigenous tribe.”

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?

WAPA HANDMADE is an online store dedicated to empowering women. Our products are 100% handmade by female indigenous artisans from Colombia. Our items preserve the traditional characteristics of a Hispanic-made product, with a splash of modern fashionable trends. This combination results in the uniqueness of our products and the high satisfaction of our customers. Every Wapa product tells the story of the Colombian culture, history and beliefs.

WAPA HANDMADE sells unique handmade accessories. Some of our items include: crossbody bags, clutches, backpacks, belts, hand purses, over the shoulder purses, cellphone holders, coin purses, straps, hats, earrings, and more. The majority of our items are handmade with acrylic thread, a high-quality material that provides comfort and durability to our products.

WAPA HANDMADE is a brand for people that appreciate authenticity, craftsmanship, and culture. Most of our clients are females looking for something unique to add to their wardrobe.

We are really proud of the evolution of our business. I started selling just couple of bags in markets and now, we are selling many more (hundreds) in different markets/pop-ups, online and we just opened a little boutique at this marketplace called Painted Tree Boutiques, here in San Antonio. Besides of the evolution of the business is also the number of jobs we are generating for our indigenous women in Colombia. The Wayuu tribe is a group of indigenous artisans that live in a very vulnerable area in Colombia where they have many economic problems. The environment of how they live is very sad, where they sometimes don’t have the basic for living like food or water. We started helping one family, now we are helping 2-3 communities which each one have between 6-10 families.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think the most difficult part of having a business is the constancy and discipline of running the business itself. When I started my business I believed in it since day 1. I knew that it had a great potential and not just the potential of the business but the meaning behind of helping these people in need. Although, I believed in my business, I was always worried about the time I would put on it. Against the odds, I persisted of having the business, because when I started it, I was pursuing my second master in Communication and I was working at the same time. By that time I was not very focused in the business because I had many responsibilities. When I decided to be focused and tried to participated in markets/pop-ups the pandemic hit. However, I kept working in the business, I did not have any digital presence. Thanks to the pandemic and quarantine, I spent a lot of time in working in a social media strategy and in my website. During the pandemic, I developed my website and started for the first time in designing my own bags for the brand.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think my business has helped me to grow so much personally and professionally. I have learned even things that are not part of my professional background. I am not the most happy person when we are talking about numbers. That was something that I had to learn. I had to learn very well the finances of my business, even it was not my favorite topic. I took many workshops, webinars and look for mentorship to understand the entrepreneur world. I am still doing it.

I have personally learned that we all have the same opportunities in the small business world. I have learned to be focused only on my business and its growth. I am so focused that I can see the growth it has every day. From time to time I forgot about the noise/competitors you see out there. I just think every day how I can be a better person and how my business can be better too.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wapahandmade.com
• Instagram: @wapahandmade
• Facebook: @wapahandmade
• Other: tik tok: @wapahandmade

Image Credits
Photographer: Andrea Yin @wonderphotosa