EPISODE DESCRIPTION:
Danna is the founder of CaliDanna Boutique CaliDanna
Mission: CaliDanna was created for the joyful, independent, and romantic woman that expresses her passion through clothes and style. We envision her feeling confident while wearing our CaliDanna pieces throughout the special occasion of her life.
Our mission as a brand is to empower women to take on the world and help them make their mark and impact on others with confidence and grandeur. We design clothes the Colombian way and wear them with confidence and style! CaliDanna is a supporter of Colombian entrepreneurs, creators, and designers. Our clothing is 100% manufactured in Colombia, with our designs created by a Colombian designer and entrepreneur Nathalia Nieto – with production centers in Barranquilla, Bogota, and Cali.
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that’s the whole thing about entrepreneurship you know if you want to start you have to take the risk
somewhere and like i’ve had friends that started their whole business on a on a 5000
credit card limit and now they’re making a lot of money they’ve been able to pay all that back so
you just got to find ways and find resources and like i said there’s a lot of uh information online where you can
literally like go on google and say how do i find a loan and there’s also a lot of companies nowadays and a lot of
people who are sponsoring you know young entrepreneurs and who are giving
them grants like grant monies are crazy um like i found like i’ve applied for
some grant um grant monies i haven’t got anyone i haven’t gotten any yet but it’s like you
never know like just apply for them because especially for a woman there’s a lot of grant uh that for like small
business woman owners that they give out and they give out like five to twenty thousand dollars so it’s like just do
the application it takes like 30 maybe an hour and then you never know you might get selected what is going on everyone i’m
your host kevin munoz you’re listening to the layout podcast where we talk about various educational topics
especially those impacting the latin american community this is today’s free episode if you want early access to
episodes and bonus episodes you can find that right now on our
patreon.com and if not then enjoy this one in today’s episode i had the pleasure to speak with donna the founder
of kalidana a boutique created for the joyful independent and romantic woman
that expresses her passion through clothes and style kalidana’s mission as a brand is to empower women to take on
the world and help them make their mark and impact on others with confidence and grandeur they design clothes the
colombian way and wear them with confidence and style their clothing is 100 manufactured in colombia with
designs created by colombian designer and entrepreneur natalia nieto with production centers in barangay bogota
and cali in our discussion donna shares with us her immigration story from colombia to the united states what
inspired her to start kalidana what it means to be an entrepreneur and much more coming up right now
[Music]
uh hello everyone my name is dana or dana i go by both
um i am from cali colombia i was born there and
i um i was i lived until i was five uh my parents and i we immigrated to the
us when right when i was turning five and we came straight to houston texas we had
some family mem my dad had a sister living here and uh you know at that age i thought i was
gonna go to disney world um and that was the plan and uh
turns out the u.s was kind of like my disney world uh and we ended up staying
here uh and i’ve been living in houston texas for already how many years oh my gosh like
23 22 years oh wow okay uh so yeah once i came to houston we pretty much happened
you know rooted our roots here we have our house here i live with my parents my sister and
yeah that’s how i am here in the u.s right now did you you had family that
um that you knew already in houston is that how you guys landed there
yeah we had my dad’s sister um she moved to the us like probably i think like five
or ten years before my dad did and uh she you know she got married here um and
she kept telling my dad like there’s a lot of opportunities here and at the time columbia was going through a lot of
uh changes in politics and um it was it wasn’t really safe
and we had actually like uh one of the things that like scared my dad really a lot was he got he
got kidnapped and robbed um and that was in like
you know we were in a motorcycle and like they all cars pulled up like i was there i don’t vividly remember this
because i was i think i was like three or maybe four uh but yeah that kind of like shook like
my family up and my dad was kind of feeling unsafe you know being in colombia um with everything that was
going on at the time and so my aunt was like well why don’t you just come over here like get your visas go you know how you know like take
a three-month vacation over here in the u.s you can stay with us and then you kind of kind of check it
out because my dad and my mom were like i don’t know like you know it’d be nice to go visit but live there yeah i don’t
think so um and then when we came over here my parents loved it um
and yeah so the initial thought was like we’re just going to go visit um like your family member recommended and
yeah yeah it was just we were going to go visit like we didn’t like no one packed to like pack like if we were going be
moving here so oh wow it was just like let’s just go visit let’s take some time off and
um and my dad was gonna like uh like work a little bit over here just so he can like get some money and bring
it back to colombia and then we ended up staying in uh awesome and you know we’re going to get
into the how you started um caridana which is like your fashion company uh business
and shop um but do you do you have any like entrepreneurship
like family members that inspired you um or was this something you kind of just
started as you know something that you’ve been always passionate about
um yeah i’ve always been passionate i would say number one i’ve always been passionate about i’ve always been intrigued about like entrepreneurship
and how it works and then i i have you know my dad has this construction
company um that he’s been working with himself for like the last like 25 years third almost 30
years um and i’ve had some family members that have like their own businesses in colombia and so i guess it’s you know but most
importantly i think it’s been awesome myself like i didn’t do it just because my parents were doing it i did it because i was very intrigued by it
um i worked in the corporate field and um i’ve seen the difference what it is
to work a nine-to-five job and what it is to be an entrepreneur and i a million times prefer to be an entrepreneur than
working on our job which is no just you know i don’t hate towards anyone working an nff job everyone has its own
you know um lifestyles uh but my lifestyle fit a lot better with you know
being an entrepreneur and doing what i love to do i love that and i mean tell us since
we’re already into it i’ll be a bit about um your business and you already told us how you got into it
so just tell us what you do yes so i own a clothing company called
kalidana uh the name and the name is very uh
interesting and like we it literally took me 10 minutes to come up with this
i was going to ask you about it yeah so the name kali represents my hometown
colombia and colombia and um and then my name donna
and when you put them together it actually spells out quality in spanish kalidad which is one thing that i wanted
the clothes to be known for um so when i was thinking about like the process of the name i wanted three things i wanted
to represent colombia i wanted to represent me and i wanted to represent quality and it’s just so happened to me
that we were able to find the perfect fit for that um so yeah i want a clothing company
kalidana i started off as a boutique um an online e-commerce boutique um
and i met manufacturer and get all my clothes from columbia i work with local
designers in columbia and then i’ve also designed my own pieces and everything gets made in columbia we have a
production center um in barranquilla and kali as well where uh all uh it’s
100 run by woman so the colombian women who are head of the household are the ones who are making
the clothes um and then everything gets shipped here to the to houston where i run the
e-commerce business um and yeah that’s what i’ve been doing for the last uh almost two yeah over two
years now um but i’m looking to spend in different ways um
with kalidana um into making it more of a brand um because the boutique lifestyle is
awesome it’s great but it’s just um it’s not like it’s a lot of work and i
have a lot of i have also another full-time job and so i want to be able to scale it big um
i want to be able to uh you know pass this off fully commit
and i also have other plans that i want to do i want to do other things and so uh a boutique is
uh it’s a lot because you have to be like present i have to be doing pop-up markets i have
to literally put all of my clothes in my car take it to a pop-up unload and then reload back and then put it back in my
garage so it’s a lot um but i’ve i’ve proved my market um i’ve tested it out
by by seeing that there is a demand in clothes that are from colombia and people really have enjoyed it so i’m
expanding i’m currently right now i’m in the phase where i’m trying to rebrand uh karidana into something more than a
boutique oh wow okay well we’ll definitely get into that later on um
but as of now did you did you go to school for fashion or was this just something you always did like
on the side um and then you found that you kind of had like like the talent for it and just
kept doing it um i did not go to school to fashion i in high school i did i took like two
fashion classes and i loved it um but i just didn’t really like i i i enjoyed it a lot but i just
really at that time i wasn’t when i was looking at call it like i colleges i wasn’t sure what i wanted to do and then
i also saw the price of how much it cost to go to a fashion school and it’s very very expensive
um and at the time i had daca and so i was kind of like uh i don’t know if i can
afford that right now i was paying for my own college and so i was like i don’t know if that’s
going to be like the end goal yeah um so um i ended up going to like a community college and my associates and then i
transferred to university of houston that’s the move that’s that’s really the move like that’s right you give a lot of
money for a class that you’d be paying like almost like fifteen hundred dollars you paid out of
community apology for like three hundred bucks so you save a lot of money um so then i transferred university
houston and i was originally planned to major in accounting um and i worked i worked in an
accounting firm and i realized that i was not really in love with the job it pays very well but it just wasn’t for me
and so um and that’s where entrepreneurship came in where i found out about a program
here at the university of houston uh it’s an entrepreneurship program where you learn uh you you more than learn how to start
a business you actually do start a business while you’re in the program and you started awesome that’s a great let’s cut you off but like
um how did you hear about that program you know just is it still around is it a program that people can still like look
for and maybe if they’re interested to enroll in as well i am the program manager for the wolf center for entrepreneurship the program where i
graduated um so yeah it is it is a program here in the university of houston we’re ranked number one in the
nation for undergrad in entrepreneurship um it’s a three semester long program where
it’s very selective only around 30 to 40 students gets elected to be in the program to major in entrepreneurship
um and yeah that’s i found it out i i was doing research when i at the university
of houston i had searched it up and then um i was like oh it seems interesting and then i ran into a friend that i knew
that was actually applying for the program and we ended up you know getting involved with the program volunteering
and i ended up like uh we do this crazy thing called wolf fest i volunteered with them where students literally build
their own like restaurants business and bring it to the university of houston for papa festival
and uh i it was crazy but this was like something that i was like okay i’m i’m 100 ready to commit to doing this and
that’s actually where like karidana and started like i started my second the end of the second semester when i was in the
program um that i came with the whole concept of kalidana
wow that’s awesome that’s awesome that you started it from there you know often the biggest like ideas comes from
when you’re kind of in that environment and and you can all just like bounce ideas off of each other so i feel like
that’s a great um resource for people to go to so i’ll definitely if that’s okay
with you get like maybe a link to the website or maybe more info and i’ll just put that like in the show notes and and
share it with people yeah um one thing i didn’t know about you was that you were you said you mentioned that you were
daca before mm-hmm yes i was okay so you’re not currently under daca anymore though right no i’m cool uh i’m happy to say
i’m a usa uh resident one in
two years from now well congratulations i’m always looking at it like it’s a it was god god’s work
when uh that the whole reason that i became a resident because i tell people the whole story about how
it happened and people are like no way um so yeah well now well now you got to tell us
yeah no yeah i’m happy to share that story with you guys um
i was that guy because like i said when we when i came here i came with my parents and we were um
we came with a visa we overstayed our visas um and then uh
we were the whole plan was my my aunt was a citizen she was going to petition for us and at
that time like in the early uh like two uh like in
before before 9 11 it was really easy to you know get residency in the
um u.s you know people used to go walk into the social security office and come out with a green card
uh it’s so nice that’s like paradise yeah and so and my aunt had this plan to
petition for us and to have to like have a stay here and all this stuff and
uh long story short she didn’t submit the papers after after 9 11 happened and
then after 9 11 happened a lot of immigration like stop change in the way
that how people can become residents and who can come to the u.s um immigration got really like crazy
with you know like all these all these laws all these rules everything it
changed a lot of it so it also changed our petition the way that we were being petitioned by through my dad’s
sister and basically they’re like it’s a five to ten year process
uh for us to get approved um so we waited that whole entire
five to ten years became 15 years and became almost 20 years and um
when we were we got a lawyer we heard back from the lawyer and we were meeting up with them
and they’re like okay we’re starting to kind of like they’re starting to get to your file now finally
um and uh but at that time i was i believe i was 23 yeah i was 23 um and
they said that my dad and my mom qualified um to
move on to the next step but the lawyer looked at me and said you unfortunately don’t qualify because you have aged out
after you join after you turn 21 you age out of a petition
so that’s ridiculous like you gotta wait like five to ten years and then you get to get aged out like that’s done on
purpose for sure yeah so that was that that was very like it was i did not understand any of that i was like that’s
stupid like why would i mean i’ve been waiting all these years like it’s not my fault that it’s been taken so long and
basically they were like yeah it’s your age out your only options is if you get married with someone that’s a citizen or
if you know at the time they do something with daca residents to make them like usa a residence
and so i was like uh i have to depend on two idiots great
um we uh like i was kind of my parents were really upset that this was happening and
um and i think the lawyers also like they had been working on our case for a really long time and they saw the
frustration that there was um and during that time i was applying to the program
and i don’t know to this day like i still don’t know someone watched my video on my application um which was like the
first time that i kind of like said that i was not that i was a dreamer and then i was like
i said it like in a very cheesy way like hey i’m dreamer which people got the reference and some people didn’t get the reference yeah i was like the first time
i probably like came out because not many people really knew that about me not even some of my closest friends right um and
some someone in like the law firm side and they’re like we want to try to help you out we’re going to try to find a loophole
and long story it’s a really long story but long story short um they were able to find a
loophole that says that i came here with the visa and so i legally was allowed to come
here to the united states and uh and when i came here i was petitioned
under my aunt and i didn’t come here i was i was under the age of 18 so
i did not have a choice to say yes i want to come to the united states no i don’t want to come to the united states
i was little so that petition covered me and i got that guy in december of 2012
right before i turned 18. so when i got that guy i was under age i was 17 years
old and i turned eight and i literally i qualified i turned 18 in january i mean in january
of 2013. so i qualified by like 20 something days
i think it was like 26 days and so technically when i got daca i was
underage and so they were able to fight that saying that i have never been here illegally that i’ve always been here
with like something that to back me up um and immigration
somehow approved it and the process it went from like i got a
notification in november that it was approved and then in
the beginning of january of 2019 they got immigration sentence letters saying that we had to go to colombia in
april okay go get uh to go to the u.s embassy and to
uh go for our residency and we went to columbia in april and i came it was a
month process that we were in columbia for a whole month uh me and my dad trying to get that and then when we came
back to houston um i think it was like april 29th um we became usa residents so
it all happened in six months it was really crazy like i still can’t even believe it um so yeah
that is an insane story but i mean i’m glad it worked out because it just it seems like you just the stars kind of
aligned because you kind of just were you know luckily like you came here illegally and
that you hit the before the deadline so i’m glad
that worked out for you um but that was when you went back for you said you went back for like a whole
month was that for um that was the first time that you’ve gone back since you came back right yeah
first time since i came back so i came to the us which was i was five when i
came to the u.s i went back i was 24 25 it came out yeah i was 24. so how was
that experience i mean it was like i don’t i don’t vividly remember columbia at all when i
was a little kid so i was like to me it was like like going to a new place for the first time yeah and i also saw a lot
of i i saw i would say like 90 99 of my family members that i haven’t seen
and since i was five years old um so it was uh it was a little like it was kind
of like you do get a little bit culture shock because you’ve been living here in the us for such a long time and yeah
definitely he has been here in the u.s you haven’t been outside of the us um
but i mean i loved it i loved being around my family i loved you know getting to
visit my country and go to all these cool places and um it was it was a lot it was a lot of fun
a month was a little bit too long because i started like okay like you know i’m so used to like you know here and like being on my own schedule and
driving myself over there in columbia there’s no way in hell i would drive myself they drive crazy over there
um they drive crazy but they drive really good it’s wild that’s how i describe my
driving by the way crazy but good all right i was terrified to go on the streets and drive there and
then all the cars over there are um oh my gosh what’s it called they’re not uh automatic yeah standard like yeah
standard yeah i don’t know how to drive a stick yeah it was uh it was fun
and um i really enjoyed it and it was uh it was something different like i experienced a whole another
different world do you think that had some sort of impact or inspiration
um in starting your business caridana yes that was one of the reasons why i
started it um so when i went back i fell in love with the like the textile
industry and like the fashion industry in colombia and i saw there was a huge opportunity i was like oh my god like these clothes
are so like awesome like i love the material of it the fit is amazing
you get them at a really good price um and i literally brought back like another suitcase full of clothes oh and
um when i came back here and i was wearing all the clothes everyone kept complimenting like oh my gosh where did
you get this that’s so cute i wish i could find some clothes like that and so i started seeing like that there was a demand and like people were
actually liking the clothes there’s always like a stereotype when you say oh i have i sell clothes from colombia
people think either i sell like fajas or waist trainers or the jeans that like make your booty look big
and i’m like we actually colombia is like number two when europe with fashion when it comes
to fashion and they’re very well developed um in the fashion industry over there like medellin is the product
our capital of fashion um where there’s hundreds of manufacturing
companies over there where they they distribute some of the best like material for for jean
for bathing suits um for literally anything and so i not many people know
that about colombia often one of the biggest like obstacles to starting a new venture um is funding right what’s
what’s something that um you did to help you with that or is that something was that something that you
had to struggle with like finding funding for um buying the textiles right or
paying people um to help you build this up
um it’s definitely something it can be very intimidating when you’re gonna think okay like i have a business plan i know
what i want to do but yeah how do i do it if i don’t have any money or where do i even start
um i have always uh i’ve always had the savings account where i lit it i was
like i didn’t know exactly what it was for but i knew i was going to use this for something very special and very important
um and thankfully i was not i didn’t have to get a loan for anything um i
used all of my uh not all of my savings but i used a majority of my savings to
invest in starting calidana because i always knew that i wanted to do something on my own but you know i
never knew what it was and then when i got the chance to know what it was i was like okay perfect i have the i have i
have a good money amount saved up so i can use that to start somewhere um and then you know if
you do if you if you have like a savings account like do a lot of research and try to find cost efficient ways that you
can save money um like i did before i like spent any of my own money
um i literally like looked up videos on like youtube i spent hours on youtube just looking at people who have started
their boutiques and you’d be surprised how much information like the internet has and how much free free resources
they are on online where you can kind of get an estimate of like how much you’re going to be spending for
like how much like what you should buy and what you shouldn’t buy um so that helped me a lot and to not go
like not spend my money on like stupid crazy things just putting my money on the other things that i actually
needed um but and then if you don’t have like if you don’t if you don’t have like a
saving account like i did um you know don’t be afraid to go get a loan go to
your bank i know chase is really good well known for um for business loans um and even like i
know this sounds kind of crazy but like your credit card um you know credit cards are there to be
used so you know use it i’ve seen people who have started their
uh their businesses by spending maxing out their credit card um
obviously like it comes like you know there’s you know there’s some downsides about doing that but you know that’s the
whole thing about entrepreneurship you know if you want to start you have to take the risk somewhere
and like i’ve had friends that started their whole business on a on a 5 000 credit card limit and now they’re making
a lot of money they’ve been able to pay all that back so wow uh you just got to find ways and find resources and like i
said there’s a lot of uh information online where you can literally like go on google and say how do i find a loan
and there’s also a lot of companies nowadays and a lot of people who are sponsoring
you know young entrepreneurs and who are giving them grants like grant monies are crazy
um like i found like i’ve applied for some grant um grant monies i haven’t got any one i
haven’t gotten any yet but it’s like you never know like just apply for them because especially for a woman there’s a
lot of grant uh that for like small business woman owners that they give out and they give out like five to twenty
thousand dollars so it’s like just do the application like 30 maybe an hour
and then you never know you might get selected don’t go anywhere we’ll be right back after this break you’re
listening to the leo podcast i’m kevin munoz support for today’s episode comes from my patrons if you enjoy the show
and are looking for bonus content and to further support the show then head on over to patreon.com
latinamericaneo or visit my website latinamericaneo.org to join the growing level podcast
community because the learning doesn’t stop with this episode there’s also some sick merch on my website everything from
shirts coffee mugs and tote bags all info will be at the bottom in the show notes now let’s get back to today’s
episode you know what does it mean for you to be um like a latina in in this space right
um are there any obstacles that come with that that you’ve faced um
or do you kind of find it as you’re um that’s kind of like your strength in
the space right since you’re all like all um women led yeah i don’t like i i don’t like to look
at it as a i mean there’s there’s there there can be a lot of weaknesses when it comes to like you know being a female
and owning your own business but and in reality there’s more positive and more
good things than weaknesses if you’re making them into weaknesses that’s kind of a personal issue yeah um
that’s just my opinion uh but if you like for example like you know any like you’re if one of the things
that i wanted to do was to be able to own a business where it’s led by woman um and
one thing that i’ve always that when i was doing my research was like you know there’s so much right now going on with
you know the word the word fast fashion and you know companies like sheehan and
bash nova zara that um you know they were going through a lot of stuff saying like who’s
actually making my clothes and people are actually wondering like who’s who who’s making them so i was like wouldn’t it be
cool to like have like a woman-owned company where you know that women are the ones who are making clothes and
women that are the head of the household um so you know people love and support
those ideas and sometimes like like i said you got you also have to find like um like a niche where like or
or just like find something where you know you sell your story and people
fall in love with your story and they fall in love with your quest yes use your story yeah no use your
story and you know uh so to me like i i’ve never had any
um you know any any like i’ve never thought about like negative like being being a
latina um and i i understand that it can be hard but you know
that’s a personal choice and you can you can either make it hard or you can find ways to make it even better and i
think with us we have a lot of resources and a lot of people don’t know that and it’s you know focus on those
resources like there’s a lot of companies and a lot of people who support latino woman
and people who are also undocumented too who are on daca they like to give those grants out they have that money so using
that as a positive thing and using that kind of as like um like your weapon so i
imagine that um you know you mentioned manufacturing and people not knowing kind of like where their clothes are
coming from because of fast fashion and such um so i want to get into like the manufacturing and you know you do 100 of
manufacturing in in colombia right um now what are the challenges that come
with that like what are the pros and cons of manufacturing your clothes in colombia versus like the us one of the cons is
that i’m not there i don’t live there right so um it is sometimes hard to kind of like
i have to rely on the people that i work with to understand like not to understand to
like really trust their opinion on like a type of like you know like a fabric that i haven’t
seen personally or haven’t felt um so i think that to me is like one of the biggest cons but there’s actually a lot
more pros um the fact that you know i i could make this us
made in the u.s but one thing that one of the reasons why i started caridana was to
like help my country um and you know create more jobs over
there while i’m here in the u.s still you know creating revenues and creating businesses
um so like a pros is you know i
and what i said when one of my colleagues was like i’m not i don’t live there and so it’s kind of hard to but you have to surround yourself and you
have to know who you’re working with so i’ve thankfully been very blessed to have work have picked the right person
to work with and where i 100 trust their decision and like we have a really great uh business relationship where
i completely trust her and she completely trusts me and um i can
i can literally be living here in the us and not have to worry so much about what what’s going down in colombia so that’s
one thing that i would always stress about is like make sure that if you’re starting a business and if you’re
it’s like if you’re gonna be doing it somewhere and that you need to have like a partner or someone to help you run it
that you 100 have a good relationship with this person that you completely trust them
with your life because that’s like it’s kind of like it’s a marriage
yeah yeah it really is if you’re in this together and it has to you can’t be 50 50 has to be 100 100. um so i always
recommend everyone to if you’re like really investigate and know who you’re working with because everyone can tell
you yes everyone can tell you yes i want to work with you but who really wants to work with you
and who really wants to like get to know who you are where do their values stand are they the same values as your values
do you guys have the same goals do they have any dreams all that stuff is very important when it comes to choosing and
like the people that you want to work with um so i think that helps kind of like relieve like the con situation but the
pros it’s like um you know the pros is that over there um
the quality is is a lot better and it’s 100 source by columbia like i’m
that’s the reason i didn’t i didn’t want to have like you know fabric from china or from anywhere yeah um and then also
it’s a lot it’s a lot it’s it’s better on me for cost issues yeah yeah certainly um so
the dollar in the best situation i get a lot more worth of my dollar than i would if i would have done it here in
the us um and then um i think also just the uniqueness of that
too like that’s a pro like you are not going to find things that you can find here in the u.s easily um
and you can find them in colombia i mean basically what you’re saying is like the way i’m seeing is like you’ve used
the cons and turned that into basically a pro because you’re just like well i’m not physically there i do have
someone that i trust a lot and um i can do uh other things here in the us maybe
that opportunities for the um for the company that might not be over there right so it’s
kind of like just turn your cons into pros yeah that situation um
now i was gonna ask you about your designer uh natalia nieto right um i was
gonna ask how you met natalia and um
how you guys connected and did you know each other beforehand and you know because that’s someone that you
have to trust right and um how was that process did you know her
beforehand no i had absolutely no idea who she was right so when i started this process in
2019 and december 2019 is when i when i got the idea of kalidana and i got the name
um i was going to go to colombia i went to columbia late december and early january to go
celebrate with my family and just see them and then i was also going to take a look at like manufacturers and companies
um but when i was over there i literally ran out of time and i didn’t have um
i don’t have time to go do that so i was like you know what i’ll be back in the summer i’ll take a month-long break you know after i graduate i’ll go back to
columbia and meet with people and cover it happen uh it’s 20 20.
so i obviously was not allowed to travel back to columbia and i was like well crap i don’t have uh
like i had i had gotten a full-time job offer um because i also double major in human
resources and when the covert hit the job offer got retracted away from me because of
like the situation and the economy and everything so i was you know recently graduating out of college and i did not have a job
and my business that i was thinking about doing it was not going to go anywhere because i couldn’t actually
travel back to columbia which was because i don’t live there i live here in the u.s so everything was just falling apart
so i was like well you know it’s a good thing we live in the 21st century era where we can literally contact anyone on
through our phones so i was like this is a long shot but i’m just going to start like looking
and doing my research and looking at people and i started looking at like okay who are the bloggers in columbia
that are wearing like that because you know every blogger when they wear something they always tag like who
they’re wearing and so i started looking at like them and okay they’re wearing this person they’re wearing this person
and i was like i’m just going to start shooting like dms and messaging people
and doing that and seeing and asking like the designers if they would like to collaborate i roughly message around
maybe like 300 people to five 300 to 450 almost 500 people and i knew that
for me introducing myself i was like hi i’m donna i’m from the us and i would want to work with you guys my idea i
knew that every single person was going to say yes and literally every single person said yes
wow look at that confidence where do you get this confidence that’s also because it’s like you think
about it it’s like you know you’re coming you’re in the u.s anyone in colombia anyone anyone like in the south america region or anyone would want to
work with someone in the u.s because you know especially in a business opportunity like this
opportunity for them also so uh but now the thing that the hard part was
that was the easy part getting everyone said yes the hard part was finding out who to actually commit to you to
actually say yeah who i actually want to work with you got to put on your uh detective hat now yeah
so that was a lot of research and um i had messaged natalia and uh
their brand and they never responded and like i was about this close to sign with someone else like to go with someone
else and um there was something in me that would just kept like ah i’m not i’m stoned like i like them but i don’t love
them like that um and then uh they accident like natalia’s team messaged me and they’re
like oh my gosh we’re so sorry we accidentally like we opened the message and we forgot to respond and we just left it unread
um but let me get you in contact with her and so then i after that i got in contact with her and i could just tell
rydo off like we hit it off we were they’re very attentive they um like whenever you’re in this kind of process
don’t ask a lot like ask a lot of questions but also stay silent because it’s you know it’s a relationship so you want to
see like what what the other people want to do for you like you know it’s like how are you going to help me and how am
i going to help you now now how are you going to help me and that’s it it has to be a mutual thing and so i started
seeing that from them that they wanted to help me and i wanted to help them and so from there on i was like okay i
like you guys let’s go ahead and do it and i started working with them um and i
absolutely love them i loved working with them i can trust them they’re very creative she does
amazing on what she does um and like i said i was like i’m not a fashion designer i don’t i didn’t go to fashion
school i went to business school i have i know what looks good i know what i like but i need more help and that expertise
because i’m not i don’t consider myself a fashion designer um i do know more about like marketing about how to scale
something about business like we can talk more about that and so i’m like that’s where i need the help and so we
kind of like helped each other out um with business and fashion and all that stuff and that’s how the relationship
developed and i never like it was just resume i had not never personally met her
until last year and i went to barranquilla to go meet her in person after
working with her over a year wow then you guys just instantly clicked
like yeah i love you guys we’re always working with each other anyways right yeah we’ve known each other i mean it
was more like just getting to know each other physically like in person do you guys have a physical
location or um is that something that you’re looking to do in the future or maybe you don’t
even want to have a physical location you just want to to be all online but i know you did mention that you do
like pop-ups right yeah i do pop-ups here in the houston area i’ve done some in dallas and um
but like i said in the beginning pop-ups are a lot of work people don’t really realize how much pop-ups are because you literally have
to move everything and like all your business into like your car and then transport it and then put it back
together and then take it back down and then put it back in your car and then put it back in yours it’s a lot of work
so i have a lot of i have a lot of respect for small business owners who do that who do like three or four pop-ups a
month i could barely do one a month and i’m like tired um do you have to pay for to rent like the
space too yeah you do yeah it’s usually like around like 50 to 100
um and then like if you go if you do like a big conference it might be like 150 to like 200 dollars um like i always
do my research and i if that if i know like my target market is going to be there then i do pay
the action but if i know that it’s like not gonna like it’s not gonna it’s not the look it’s not the right location for me then i don’t go um so i try to do one
one at least one a month um just to get like the name brand out but the end goal is not
to have a physical store um it’s uh i think would now would like i’ve noticed that a lot especially after
covid you know many people don’t shop anymore in store
uh we have amazon we have you know all these people that are delivering like everything to you
um and i think especially in the us like it used to be like people used to shop
online now the majority i would say i think like last time i read it was like like 85 or more 85 or 80 percent
people prefer to shop online than they do in store um to me it’s just not worth getting a store and like
and requiring all that cost and that over here because it’s a lot of money yeah um for rent and all that stuff so i
um the end goal is not to get a store and right now i’m like like i said in the beginning like it’s
it’s in the works um i’m thinking of different ways that i can expand kalidana to make it bigger um
either if it’s an online presence or if it’s a wholesale presence i still don’t know what i’m going to do but i’m still
investigating all that i gotcha and do you do you ship do you currently only ship in the us or
worldwide because i would i imagine worldwide had it has its its costs and i’ve shipped here in the
mostly in the u.s all of my i would say i’ve had i’ve had maybe i have had two
or three orders that went to canada and that was that that’s awesome
lawyers are just here in the us yeah so so you are like equipped for like if someone wants to order um
in like south america or central america or anywhere okay cool you know just because just because i
know some people you know with the shipping costs and it’s it can be a headache for that
yeah it’s a lot more like work when it comes to like you know you don’t you you have to do like a custom label and all
this stuff and but um yeah i mean i i haven’t got any orders from anywhere
outside canada and the us but if it does happen yeah we can definitely do that cool awesome um what changes have you
made to your business strategy over the past few years um you know you you mentioned
that kovid was you know impacted obviously your your plans for how you’re going to take
the business um or i guess how fast you would scale it right but um yeah what
what strategies have you had where have you had to like pivot
in your journey um right like currently right now i’m pivoting
um because i i know like i like i see the potential in it and i
know that i can be a lot more um but i’m trying to figure out how to
do that like in where will it be the best um and it’s a process like i don’t think
i’m gonna have it set in stone until the end of this year um of what i’m gonna do but um
i don’t think it’s gonna i 100 believe that it’s not going to be like in the beginning of next year it won’t i won’t
be just selling clothes online um it might be like am i moved to wholesale i might move to
a brand doing a platform i uh at this moment i really like i haven’t like i
have a lot of ideas and i’m trying to put them all together and trying to just see like what’s going to be the best for
me um and so like currently right now like it’s like
a huge pivoting stage for me and i can’t really like i have a lot and it’s like we can literally go on for about like
hours about this but yeah yeah it’s you know i’m trying like i know that like it worked out for me like i did great i i
sold um you know i know that people love the clothes so now
like i said my goal is not to be stay with a boutique um that’s not the end goal so i’m trying
to figure out ways to make it bigger and grow and grow it bigger so right now i’m in the pivoting stage
funny that yeah you caught you in the pivoting stage yeah but you know you know there might be a whole rebrand of
what katana is um you know i’m trying to go also
uh eco-friendly which we have often we’ve actually done that um right you’re using textiles from
recycled bottles right i think yeah we have officially gone like 100 eco-friendly where all of our materials
are sourced from uh distributors who work with an eco-friendly environment in
the fashion industry um so that’s another thing that’s like playing a huge factor of like what i want to do
with caridana next so i’m still selling clothes um i’m only gonna be selling like like maybe like four or five pieces
uh per like uh i usually drop like three or four maybe four collections so four
to five pieces i’m keeping it very small because um like i said i might
redo the entire caledonia process so that’s currently in the works right now yeah i know it’s funny i love that
question because um as entrepreneurs um you know and business
owners like we’re all like always pivoting so yeah you know it’s it’s something that you have to uh learn to
to deal with um which brings me to how how do you keep like track of your
workflow do you have like any tools or systems um to keep yourself like on track with
your goals yeah um that’s a time management is a big thing
um because yes like entrepreneurship like yeah you can you have all the time in the world but it’s like you really
need to know where you can put your time in um and i also have like i’m the program manager for the wolf center so that’s
another job that like takes a lot of my time um and uh right now the students
just recently graduated so we’re like on our summer vacation break from like now all the way up to like late august so
right now i’m using the time to dedicate more to kaidana um and you know just having like at
least like you know my work days like i like monday through wednesday i work heavily on you know the program that i’m
currently my second my second full-time job and then uh friday thursday friday
and saturday i work heavily on kalidana and just kind of balancing it out and i
don’t i i i love to have a planner but do i really keep with the planner 100
how much time no i don’t be very honest um i like the idea of a planner i have
it sometimes but sometimes i just forget about it and i don’t like write everything in there um and i just have i just try to keep
track of everything like in my head i know something’s the same way i know yeah it’s probably not the best idea they’re always like don’t do that write
it down i’m just gonna do that write it down but it is yeah it’s very important for you to write it down so i’ve got a
lot like uh there’s a lot of tools online like there’s um
like i use google a lot like google drive uh google calendar to help like set like you know i set
meetings up so that way i can have them like on my phone and i don’t forget about them just in case and
um you know it’s just really like if you’re or if i’m a very organized person regardless in my life i try to be as
much working out as i can yeah look at that desk it’s clean yes i was like yeah look at my dad’s like it’s really like
very clean like um and there’s so many because my my co-worker like his dice is like all over the place
but i’m like very ocd because i can’t get work done if my desk is not clean i don’t know that’s me so i’m the same
way if i’m like working um from home if my if like something disorganized like my bed i’m like no i need to clean i
need to make yeah so i think i just just staying on top of it and you know
i think one thing that’s very important too is you know finding out like also giving yourself a break too um
because i know sometimes you’re always like on the go and you’re always like oh i gotta do this i’m gonna do that i gotta
do that like taking care of like your mental health and just craving that time for whatever you wanna
do i’m a big supporter of like your me time um you know like sometimes
you just have to turn your computer off sometimes you just have to be like
i would rather take a nap or like just go for a run go for uh listen to a
podcast do whatever you like to do to get your energy back because it’s like if you think about like i would always
say i could stay up like this extra hour and be like oh my gosh like i’m tired
and like have to do the work but not actually really doing it you’re doing it because you you’re like i have to finish this or i can just you know shut my
computer off you know take care of myself go to bed go do a facial or something i don’t know
whatever you like to do and then you wake up the next morning more refreshed and you’re you have that energy to keep
going um so i think that is very important to create that like cut out that time uh for you to kind of enjoy
like your own time um because sometimes like you know when you’re all when you’re running your own
business you haven’t you might have a job you might be on the go go go you do this this and that you just need a break
from everything just do whatever you want to do yeah something i’ve learned to appreciate during the years is
appreciating like the silence like you know being in your in your own um space and in silence because that’s
where i feel like that’s where the biggest ideas also like um are born yeah
um how do you find inspiration like to do all uh you know just start your your
business to new designs um and to keep you going like where do you get all this inspiration from
um i uh like instagram tick tock all this um all
those social medias out there like you know um you’d be surprised how many ideas have
come up through like tick tock and like oh i like that that’s cute maybe i can do something better um
and uh also just like my friends like you know talking to my friends and getting their opinions and be like hey
do you like this would you like that and um you know brainstorming you know uh
don’t be afraid to like you know talk to your friends or share your ideas everyone’s i feel like there’s like there’s like this theories like don’t
share too much because you know people might give you bad eye or without i really don’t believe in that i think that bubble
uh if i’m gonna be honest um i you know i think it’s like share your ideas like share because
you never know like you might get you might share your ideas you might get a different feedback and that might start
something in you and that might inspire you to be like wait maybe like let me maybe i’ve been looking at it the wrong way maybe let me go take out doing this
way um talking to people and you know getting their feedback um
yeah and like just so you know like i have pinterest i love pinterest i can be on pinterest for hours
like getting creative ideas of like you know what people are wearing what are the colors and the trends
um looking at bloggers that are on instagram and all that fun stuff so when you see
something you just like write it down you’re like oh that’s a great idea or like screenshot it you’re like i’ll go back
like david um you know i think like it’s like a lot of the uh social medias
have a lot of great tools where you can like save your ideas in one place and then whenever you’re ready to start
working on it you can you can it’s like a dream board yeah yeah lastly um to
close out this this episode you know um what what do you attribute your success to
um and how would you define success in your eyes um
that’s a really good question uh first of all to me six to me i always
say because everyone has a different meaning and that’s why i love to ask this question um to me success is
not really about money or about like where i make it in life it’s just to me
success is like where i know that i’m going to be happy doing whatever i’m doing that i know
that i’m like i’m going to look forward to i’m not having to be like oh my gosh i have to do this again or like to me
success is knowing where i’m at stage in my life where i’m completely content with everything that i’m doing
that i’m happy that i’m um like it doesn’t i don’t have to win awards i don’t have to win this or that
like this to me like is that i’m happy that you know my family is happy i’m
happy that to me is success that like i know and i think um when i look at success i you know
look i’m i look at my parents and to see how far they have come we don’t have a lot of money we’re not the richest
people in the world um but you know for me they are successful and that’s why i
say to me success does not have to mean about like how rich you are how many awards you want it’s about like where
you are in your life and um and that you’re truly able to express that and people are able to
view that like by just looking at you like wow like they have a very successful life without having to look
at your bank account or without have to look at all this other stuff yeah wow no thank you donna that was
beautiful um and where can people reach you and purchase from caledonia you can go to kalidana.com
it’s just c-a-l-i and then my name d-a-n-a um i have an online store and then you
can follow us on uh social media at shop.calidana
which now social media is a wonderful technology where you can literally like
i have like i would say eighty percent of my people shop through instagram directly they i mean they don’t even make it to my website so you can shop on
instagram you can shop on facebook you can even shop i think tick tock even has something like that um but all my social
medias are at shop.calidana and i’ll definitely put that in the show notes um and all that
information as well uh and if you have anything else to add that you wanted to know and if you’re in the houston area i
don’t know who’s in the houston area but if you’re in the houston area you’re watching uh like i’m i like just like i
do at least once one pop-up a month i’m actually gonna be doing a pop-up in
june at this uh small business uh festival and i’m also
doing an event with spoiled latina they are doing a huge conference and it’s a
latina conference and i will be there as well too in july thank you for listening to today’s episode if you enjoyed it
please share it with a family or a friend and rate it five stars on apple podcast and spotify it helps
tremendously in order to bring more awareness and educational resources to our community for more information and
to stay up to date with what i’m doing you can follow me on instagram latinamedicaneo and if you need more
information and resources you can visit my website latinomedicaneo.org i’m kevin munoz this has been the leo
podcast and i’ll see you next time
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