We were lucky to catch up with Verena Arus recently and have shared our conversation below.

Verena , appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

We are Açaí Brasil USA, if you don’t know us yet let me introduce ourselves as a company. We are the only authentic açaí shop in Houston. Açaí shops are not something very common in Texas yet but very popular in California and I believe US is becoming familiar with this superfood called açaí.
We are a Brazilian couple passionate about açaí.
Me being a daughter of a successful restaurant owner in Brazil “my father” whom has owned a restaurant since 1985 I had already the background of an entrepreneur. I was born inside that restaurant I started working with my father at his restaurant when I was 7, he placed me at the dish washer position, he would stack boxes so I could reach the sink, once I turned 11 I was promoted to the cashier position and I worked with my father until I was 17, that’s when I left Brazil to come to the US for a volleyball scholarship in a community college in Iowa. After I graduated college I started working in the oil field but the passion of running a business never left my heart I just didn’t know what kind of business I was going to run here in the US. I knew it needed to be something unique.
My husband and I met back in 2014, he is from Rio de Janeiro and he had just arrived in Houston, when we met, as I have been in the US longer since 2005 he asked me where could he find açaí bowls here in Houston. So I started my research for açaí bowls here in Houston. Being from Brazil we are used to açaí bowls never diluted, nor mixed with other liquids as water, milk or juices. Every single place that I found in Houston that served acai offered a very poor quality product. We tried and nothing tasted like back home.
As I worked in the import and export department of an oilfield company I decided to import some açaí directly from Brazil so we could eat a good açaí. The day that açaí pallet arrived at our door I looked at it and thought “we can’t consume all this acai by ourselves, why not start selling it at farmers market on the weekend when I am off work?”
So during the week my husband was a jiujitsu coach and I was a global logistics manager and on the weekend we were the açaí couple that you found at your neighborhood farmers market.
After a few farmers market we started having people asking us for a location because they wanted to eat our product during the week as well.
That’s when we started delivering all over Houston, Katy, sugar land, the woodlands, etc areas. There was days that we would finish our deliveries at midnight.
That’s when we decide to start placing açaí bowls inside jiujitsu gyms. We would provide the freezer and they would buy the bowls, until that one gym that asked me if I had a permit 🤔
So on October 2016 I said; time to get a small kitchen location to be permitted.
We rented a space inside an industrial warehouse location. I thought my whole retirement funds (it wasn’t that much) to build that location to a kitchen. The location had no foot traffic it was gated, gates opened at 9am and closed at 7pm and on Sunday it wouldn’t even open. So we were very limited but we got the place anyway got the permit and keep doing our events. I decided to place our business on yelp page, as the indústria location we were at was near the airport people that arrived in Houston would search for a health option would find us, take a Uber or drive to our location thinking they were scammed because no one could believe there was a business inside that gated warehouse lol
Being near to the airport brought us people from all over the US sometimes even from other countries and their expression was always the same “this is the best açaí I have ever had” we knew our location was terrible but we knew our product was great and that’s what kept driving people back. Word of mouth to mouth keep bringing more and more people. Our space had 300 sq feet we could barely fit anyone inside and we keep getting busier and busier.
Then COVID 19 came and we thought what now?
As we were a 300 sq ft space we didn’t have inside sitting area all orders were pretty much to go so we didn’t have to close.
On the first week of COVID we had a line outside the store, people started showing up non stopping because we were the few business that showed as open online. I almost had a heart attack it was more people than I could serve so I said to everyone “30 minutes for a bowl” everyone said ok set outside and waited. After that day we never stopped being overwhelmed busy at that location. That’s when we start running out of space for inventory and the location that we are today came up as a good deal in a good timing for us. 2020 we closed a lease at the west lake location it was a perfect deal because it was COVID time where things were cheaper and landlords were desperate to sign leases. We got 6 months free rent and a bad contractor that didn’t allowed us to use one month of our 6 free. So we fired the contractor and finished up the store on our own and without believing we were able to turn it into a beautiful space for our customers.
Growing wasn’t easy but the key for us was always using the extra money to invest on our business,
Any money left we bought a food truck, we bought machines to help us produce açaí in a bigger scale and our last investment was to turn our business into a Franchise.
To us see other people opening stores with our brand is such an accomplishment.
Now we can share our passion and vision with others that have the same business drive and wish to gain freedom in the financial life.
Acai Brasil designed a business structure that is easy to manage.
In a business the biggest expense we identified along the years was rent and payroll so we developed a work flow where is needed minimum labor.
We were the main labor from the beginning for today provide our franchisees no need to do so.
Also the key is persistence and do not give up. So many times I wanted to give up because we served two people in a whole day of work, and my husband always said; “if we close one day and a new customer come by that person will not come back”. First of all the quality of the product kept us growing and our persistency of being open everyday and work from open to close brought us to where we are today.

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

Oh I think I wrote all In the first board.
•
We are Açaí Brasil USA, if you don’t know us yet let me introduce ourselves as a company.
We are the only authentic açaí shop in Houston. Açaí shops are not something very common in Texas yet but very popular in California and I believe US is becoming familiar with this superfood called açaí.
We are a Brazilian couple passionate about açaí.
Me being a daughter of a successful restaurant owner in Brazil “my father” whom has owned a restaurant since 1985 I had already the background of an entrepreneur. I was born inside that restaurant I started working with my father at his restaurant when I was 7, he placed me at the dish washer position, he would stack boxes so I could reach the sink, once I turned 11 I was promoted to the cashier position and I worked with my father until I was 17, that’s when I left Brazil to come to the US for a volleyball scholarship in a community college in Iowa. After I graduated college I started working in the oil field but the passion of running a business never left my heart I just didn’t know what kind of business I was going to run here in the US. I knew it needed to be something unique.
My husband and I met back in 2014, he is from Rio de Janeiro and he had just arrived in Houston, when we met, as I have been in the US longer since 2005 he asked me where could he find açaí bowls here in Houston. So I started my research for açaí bowls here in Houston. Being from Brazil we are used to açaí bowls never diluted, nor mixed with other liquids as water, milk or juices. Every single place that I found in Houston that served acai offered a very poor quality product. We tried and nothing tasted like back home.
As I worked in the import and export department of an oilfield company I decided to import some açaí directly from Brazil so we could eat a good açaí. The day that açaí pallet arrived at our door I looked at it and thought “we can’t consume all this acai by ourselves, why not start selling it at farmers market on the weekend when I am off work?”
So during the week my husband was a jiujitsu coach and I was a global logistics manager and on the weekend we were the açaí couple that you found at your neighborhood farmers market.
After a few farmers market we started having people asking us for a location because they wanted to eat our product during the week as well.
That’s when we started delivering all over Houston, Katy, sugar land, the woodlands, etc areas. There was days that we would finish our deliveries at midnight.
That’s when we decide to start placing açaí bowls inside jiujitsu gyms. We would provide the freezer and they would buy the bowls, until that one gym that asked me if I had a permit 🤔
So on October 2016 I said; time to get a small kitchen location to be permitted.
We rented a space inside an industrial warehouse location. I thought my whole retirement funds (it wasn’t that much) to build that location to a kitchen. The location had no foot traffic it was gated, gates opened at 9am and closed at 7pm and on Sunday it wouldn’t even open. So we were very limited but we got the place anyway got the permit and keep doing our events. I decided to place our business on yelp page, as the indústria location we were at was near the airport people that arrived in Houston would search for a health option would find us, take a Uber or drive to our location thinking they were scammed because no one could believe there was a business inside that gated warehouse lol
Being near to the airport brought us people from all over the US sometimes even from other countries and their expression was always the same “this is the best açaí I have ever had” we knew our location was terrible but we knew our product was great and that’s what kept driving people back. Word of mouth to mouth keep bringing more and more people. Our space had 300 sq feet we could barely fit anyone inside and we keep getting busier and busier.
Then COVID 19 came and we thought what now?
As we were a 300 sq ft space we didn’t have inside sitting area all orders were pretty much to go so we didn’t have to close.
On the first week of COVID we had a line outside the store, people started showing up non stopping because we were the few business that showed as open online. I almost had a heart attack it was more people than I could serve so I said to everyone “30 minutes for a bowl” everyone said ok set outside and waited. After that day we never stopped being overwhelmed busy at that location. That’s when we start running out of space for inventory and the location that we are today came up as a good deal in a good timing for us. 2020 we closed a lease at the west lake location it was a perfect deal because it was COVID time where things were cheaper and landlords were desperate to sign leases. We got 6 months free rent and a bad contractor that didn’t allowed us to use one month of our 6 free. So we fired the contractor and finished up the store on our own and without believing we were able to turn it into a beautiful space for our customers.
Growing wasn’t easy but the key for us was always using the extra money to invest on our business,
Any money left we bought a food truck, we bought machines to help us produce açaí in a bigger scale and our last investment was to turn our business into a Franchise.
To us see other people opening stores with our brand is such an accomplishment.
Now we can share our passion and vision with others that have the same business drive and wish to gain freedom in the financial life.
Acai Brasil designed a business structure that is easy to manage.
In a business the biggest expense we identified along the years was rent and payroll so we developed a work flow where is needed minimum labor.
We were the main labor from the beginning for today provide our franchisees no need to do so.
Also the key is persistence and do not give up. So many times I wanted to give up because we served two people in a whole day of work, and my husband always said; “if we close one day and a new customer come by that person will not come back”. First of all the quality of the product kept us growing and our persistency of being open everyday and work from open to close brought us to where we are today.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

What helped us build a reputation is one word QUALITY we prioritize to serve a high quality product verses making tons of profit.
I didn’t make any money in the first three years, I always say we rotate money that’s the true. We got the money bought more product and paid bills.
We started seeing profit after 3 years of work.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

My advice of managing team is first listen to their interest, give to your team what they are searching for, most of them like the in title of a position and flexibility we all like that right? So why am I going to make someone to work from 8-5 if they want 4-9 or 7 days a week if they want 3. Always listen to your team a lot of things they say make sense and what doesn’t just listen. Everyone likes to be treated with respect.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.acaibrasilusa.com
• Instagram: @acaibrasilofficial
• Facebook: Acai brasil usa

Image Credits
All pictures are taken by us and only shows ourselves and our product