 Hi, and welcome to our pilot of The Savvy Entrepreneur, where we discuss entrepreneurship and economics. In today's episode, we'll be meeting Mandy, who is the co-manager of La Vida Belcafe here in downtown Longmont, Colorado. We will be discussing the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 virus. Hello, everyone. This is the pilot episode of The Savvy Entrepreneur. I'm your host, Tallas, and today we're here with Mandy, one of the managers at La Vida Bella, a local cafe in downtown Longmont. Mandy, how are you doing today? I mean, pretty good. All things considered, you know, the world is the world right now, but overall, optimal and positive spirits. Awesome. Best that can be expected based on the circumstances. Yeah. So for those who are not aware of La Vida Bella, do you want to tell us a little bit about the business and tell us how this outbreak has impacted what you guys are doing? Yeah, absolutely. So La Vida Bella is a model that's being developed in Longmont, Colorado of a gathering place essentially for creatives, anyone looking to try out new coffee variations, cocktails that are craft made. We have delicious cuisine. And of course, we emphasize community with a variety of different events. And it's impacted the business in a variety of ways. As a startup, one that had actually just campaigned to gain some capital and take off in a variety of different directions, such as with a new menu, we've had to entirely halt. And that's put us in a very precarious position to say the least. Yeah, so your fundraise was like a week before this whole outbreak happened, right? Yep, yep. And we had some pretty good interests, I'd say by a variety of investors, but of course, following the stock market crash and just the uncertainty of how things are gonna play out, that's been put on hold as well. Which is understandable. I don't blame anyone for wanting to just play it safe in the time being, but as people who are taking a bet on a business that's for the community, it's very difficult. And I mean that in place of the owners as well, who have given so much to develop this vision. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if you think about it from an investor perspective, you can't really blame them because is there hard earned money and they're trying to come back to them at some point. Yeah, definitely. But at the same time, a lot of people I think have the perception that there's good communication between the federal government or state government and local businesses. What kind of communication have you guys had with the state or federal governments? Yeah, so little to none, thanks to our general manager, Matt, who has been doing most of the research to figure out just what options are available to employees, what the business needs to do. We've been able to get an idea of what we should be doing during this mandated 30 day shutdown. But overall, no one's contact the business. Todd, the, I'm trying to come up with the right word, he isn't like owner. But Todd, the owner, he has been able to postpone the mortgage payment for a couple of months, which is helpful. And these are things that had to be sought out, though, as well, you know, in terms of like postponing taxes, for instance, as well, so that we can get back up and rolling. And as small business owners, or as small, I'm sorry, I'm stumbling right now, but as developers of a small business, like other people, we've had to basically seek out what options there are. Yeah, and those options haven't been clearly defined or offered to anyone. As far as I know, the Simmons back is still having passed the house and not gone through the Senate yet. There are some interesting legislative fixes that they're trying, but it's gonna be interesting to see what actually comes out because the starting point is not gonna be what it finished you. Now I'm stumbling on my words. So when legislation is going into the Senate from the house, there is often massive changes that occur. So while there could be some really cool stuff in this current iteration, chances are with the Republican-held Senate, there's gonna be a bunch of things that we would have liked to have in there, but aren't. What kind of things do you think would help your business? Well, there are a few things. I mean, in addition to potentially taking care of Americans themselves or the stimulus package, it'd be great to see an alternative to taking out a loan just because it's gonna put businesses back even farther from where they are. And there's mixed feelings about it because billions of dollars have been funneled to Wall Street, but nothing's coming to small businesses which are made up of people who need to pay their rent. And just any alternative at the moment would be ideal. Yeah, it's tragic. Statistics I've read said 25% of the working population are being dramatically impacted by this. And that's predominantly just the service industry people. If you think about the knock-on effects to that, I would say that's probably at least 75% of the working population is being impacted by this type of disruption in economic activity. Yeah, and this is one of the most vulnerable populations. And according to a recent statistic that I was reading about, approximately 70% of Americans don't know where their next paycheck's gonna come from. So being forced to shut down for 30 days, there's going to be a reprobable damage. Things are going to change as a result. But the clumsy response to all of this is going to make it worse. Unfortunately, that's why we need competent leaders who understand the needs of all people. What is it? I wonder what that's like. I don't know what you're gonna remember. Hey, Dreamy. But yeah, I think that if there was a centralized response, this thing could have been handled more effectively. But... Yeah, look at South Korea, for instance. Yeah. They isolated the elderly population. Business actually resumed as normal, but they took certain precautions and had a curfew from my understanding. And within two weeks, it was gone. But because we have such a mixed and convoluted response to what's going on in the United States, and we are always such a divided nation, there hasn't been a concise effort to tackle what's going on. And that's going to hurt the workforce even more, because who knows how long this could last? Yeah, that's a very good point. I grew up in Bakersfield. My mom is in the medical industry out there. And she was saying that Bakersfield wasn't having a ton of instances of coronavirus until San Francisco and New York had a shutdown and two idiots drove to Bakersfield because they thought, oh, let me just stay out in Bakersfield and live normal out there. But then they end up affecting a bunch of people. And now, based on the demographics there, I can see some massive things happening. Just today was when they shut down the mall. Places in LA had their mall shut down for two weeks. How are you able, how are you gonna be able to curtail an outbreak if one place is shut down, one place is completely open a hundred miles away from each other? There's gonna be a ton of people traveling between one place and the other. Absolutely. It doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, it's in there. So tell me about your employees and what you guys had to do in order to make sure that your business is doing the right things financially. Yeah. So tackling the COVID-19 issue, we've taken a few different approaches to tackle it. First of all, because we don't have the funds to pay payroll for all of our employees, we've created a GoFundMe campaign. And it's something that is very humbling, having to ask the local community for that assistance because we love our team. They are a family at the LaVida Bella. And everything that's being done there is from the heart, it's to nourish people in a variety of ways. And when we can't give back and take care of our employees in that same way, it's crushing. But through this campaign, we've raised a little bit so far and that's really heartening. I know that so many people are struggling in this moment but yet the outpouring of love, even if people aren't able to make a financial donation, shows just the spirit of the human race and the spirit of this community. And so that's been heartening. From a business standpoint, we've cut as many expenses as possible. The moment we heard that restaurants had to close for 30 days, we sent back all perishables. Fortunately, that was the day of the delivery that helped cut some of the costs. We went through all, and took inventory and everything that we had. We gave a lot of our perishables to our staff, that which wasn't taken, we gave to the homeless shelter and we're able to just sort of create a clean slate for when we're able to start back up. Some of our staff members have actually taken on temporary employment, such as King Supers. And that's a local supermarket, which has been very gracious with people who have been hit by these hard economic times. And for instance, when Lucky's Market had to close down, they in a variety of other stores offered employment without even having to really go through many hoops. So the community supporting Louisville employees in that way is encouraging as well too. And in this time, because it's not feasible to stay open and still offer curbside takeout or delivery, just because that's not really our model. And even businesses like Rosalie's, which primarily could do pizza deliveries, they're closing down. So in this current state, what we're doing is we're conserving resources, we're pulling energy back into the business, we're reorganizing, we're getting all of our ducks in a row so that the week before hopefully everything opens back up, we're just gonna launch harder than ever. And hopefully have really solid footing to welcome employees back again. You bring up a good point. When you do welcome employees back, what if they are gainfully employed in some other industry and don't necessarily have the ability to come back? Yeah, I mean, and that's a risk, one that we accepted when we had very honest communication with all the employees as well too. We said, hey guys, this is a situation, we don't have enough paid leave essentially for all employees. Those who want to collect unemployment, you are able to do that. We gave them that option. One person did. Quite a few people said, I have another job or I have a little bit of savings, I'll be okay right now. Some other people even donated to the campaign, which was like. Yeah. Talking at your heartstrings right there. It's a great group of people. But for those who have had to take a temporary employment, I understand it's like investors choosing to hold. If I was an investor, I would as well. It's a very uncertain time. But for those who have had to temporarily leave, there's a chance they might not come back. And that sucks, but ultimately, we want what's best for everyone. Yeah, absolutely. If that's what they have to do to make things work in their life and support them and love them, yeah. Yeah, hopefully our legislators come up with a solution to give some stimulus to these small businesses because honestly, I can't imagine the financial impact and toll that this is going to have on this community. Downtown Longmont Main Street, that's the heart of Longmont. How many restaurants are, I mean, I would say at least 50% of the businesses on Main Street are restaurants. And they're all probably experiencing a very similar situation as Liberty Development, maybe even a worse situation because they maybe don't have the flexibility or the resources that you guys have. And what would this town even look like if half of the businesses on Main Street are shuttered? It would be crippling to say the least. Longmont was named as the number one boom town in this area. I think it was in the United States, but I don't want to get that out there totally. Anyways, number one boom town and there's so much momentum behind great projects, everything from local setting up period kit, making projects to what Longmont Public Media is doing to what Liberty Development vision. And of course you with all your ongoing projects are doing as well too. For us to lose a lot of these businesses, it would be really paring. I think the other day I was running through the park and it just kind of brought it all back to me in seeing groups of homeless people who don't have anything actually in this time. They're even more vulnerable than everyone else in the situation. And it strikes the reality of persistent conundrums such as homelessness and people not being able to afford rent unfortunately are going to get worse without the right action to assist in this. And without restaurants, which plays such a big role in the entertainment community and inspiring people to come out. I think the culture itself would suffer too just what everyone is trying to develop here. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, Lavee de Velo is the last concert venue in Longmont and music I think is very important for livelihood and the community morale. So where do you see this going? Oh, I honestly don't know. I don't know. And that's on my own platforms. I've been speaking a lot about, this is a time when we have to have faith and we have to think intelligently about what action can we take right now and what things are out of our control and those things that are out of our control such as knowing where this is going or how the community is going to be affected. To some extent, we just have to trust that those people in this community will rise up and work together. And no matter what happens, we'll figure out how to support each other and how to come back from this because that is the human spirit at a nutshell. Like the fact that people have been in lockdown and dancing in Spain, for instance, and singing songs together and just keeping their spirits high and coming out with comedic gold in memes, for instance. That shows that I think collectively we're getting stronger as well. We're bonding through this tragedy and finding humor and that will be a cornerstone in moving forward and figuring out what to do with this mess. Yeah, that's a good point. Thinking about moving forward, this is an opportunity for anyone who has unfortunately been displaced because of the virus to spend some time doing something that they're passionate about. Absolutely. So I know you have a pet project, too. Do you wanna talk about the venture that you're putting some time into now that you've got some free time from the cafe? I've had several pet projects which I'm gonna be talking about. The business you're looking to raise some funds on. Oh, got you. Okay, so thanks to Talis and his mentorship. I've been developing a wholesale cannabis grow and we have put together all the financials, a solid business plan and have a pretty solid plan in terms of how we would move forward with that. And so that's something I'm enjoying spending time on. I'm actually kind of looking forward to quarantine because there's a lot of stuff to do. A lot of things to write, lots of just hobbies to give energy back to. But the business itself, the vision for it came together thanks to this time. And so that's sort of a benefit from that as well, but yeah. Do you guys hear that? So try to be productive with your time. I know you're all sitting on the couch, locked in with your tissues and hopefully rolls a toilet paper. And yeah, food too, yeah. But yeah, use this time to do something you always wanted to, whether it's learned code on Udemy or starting a new business or even pick up a fun thing like knitting or just anything productive. Functional. Yeah, so yeah, functional. Make yourself a hat. And with high tech ventures, you need a lot of capital in order to do the R&D that's required in prototyping. And yeah, my team of five are just basically sitting around. It's very unfortunate because we lost a ton of momentum. We were going into our fourth round of prototypes, getting some very good test results and now we're just kind of sitting and waiting just like everyone else. It's very frustrating, right? Luckily, we can still do some work at home, but the stuff that we have to do in the lab, all that has been put on hold. One good thing that's come up of it though is we're looking for new lab space. And with this whole, everyone working from home, I have a suspicion that corporate rent, corporate office buildings are going to have a real big price drop because people are going to realize that working from home makes a lot of sense. Because kind of thinking that too, just how easily a lot of businesses have shifted to remote working. Yeah. One of our team members is a professor at MIT and he was saying that he doesn't see classes going back to the way they were ever. He thinks that digital learning has, it's the age of digital learning and that things are just going to move continually toward that. Because all of the barriers and the pain points that weren't addressed up to this point are being addressed and worked out because people need to be working at home right now. So after this, there should be no real barrier to doing it and all the solutions should be figured out. So I'm really thinking that it's gonna be a fundamental change in the way certain people are able to work because I've been working at home for a long time and I enjoy not commuting. Like spending an extra hour, hour and a half with my ducklings is a lot better than spending that time in traffic. I think, I mean, I see you have a point in all of that but I just have to wonder what that level of social isolation, if we choose to really all do everything from home, or at least for the most part, even imagine like 60 to 75%, what is that going to do to us as a species? And, you know, especially in the time when we're already very disconnected, although we are hyper-connected through technology. Yes, and when you said that a meme popped into my head, it's the meme said, interverse, put down your book, us extrovers are not okay. And as an extrovert, yeah, I have been really just bouncing off the walls because I need to have this communication with people and luckily my fellow extroverts have been texting and calling and we've been, you know, just getting by the minimal social interactions I've been having but that's another thing that's along those same lines is mental health. I had a friend call me, you know, he has been dealing with depression and some mild mental illness for his entire life and he was really down and unfortunately I wasn't there so he called me to a friend and he was able to go there and hang out with them and he was doing much better but social isolation can wreak havoc on those who are suffering from depression and other types of issues. It's really unfortunate. On that same note though, it's curious how being forced to quarantine and actually spend time in a space and not be able to distract oneself with everything out in the world is forcing a lot of people to go in and sort of focus more on what's going on mentally that may be behind some of the just quantities that are currently existing. I know personally I've had a lot of friends reach out who are in a similar boat too so it makes me just think that the state of where everyone is right now is causing a lot of contemplation and I would think that's good, you know, inward reflection can only make us stronger, if you would hope. But I'm glad that things like Skype and Zoom exist so that we can still all stay connected, talk and yeah, work past the social distancing which we're doing a good job of. I think we're three and a half feet away or so not quite four. But yeah, this brings a really good point. You know, those platforms are getting more robust and people are getting more familiar with them and that's part of the reason why I really think that people are gonna start working from home a lot more and it would be interesting to see whether there's a correlation with mental health. I mean, I could see benefits to working from home because there's less stress environment if you need to take a moment to go meditate or whatever, there's not gonna be anyone looking over your shoulder being like, hey, you know, do those TPS reports? But yeah, it's fascinating to see, to think about what changes are gonna occur because of these types of issues. Necessity is a mother of invention, so we'll see what happens. Well, I think one thing everyone can agree on is that we live in a really interesting time. As, I mean, human history has been interesting itself and there's always something in every generation that we have to go through, but there's just so much change at this moment that we're all kind of navigating it together and figuring it out and the more communication we can have, I think, the easier it'll be, hopefully. So on a brighter note, Mandy, you're also a nutritionist, aren't you? Yes, I am a registered holistic nutritionist. So before this, you were chatting about some of the tips and tricks that you recommend. Do you wanna share any of those with our audience who are probably in dire need of that? Yeah, absolutely. So it's an interesting time because COVID-19 is causing a lot of people to finally think about their health. In Boulder County, this isn't as much of a concern, but it's still something that I think everyone should be paying attention to in relation or just regarding your vulnerability to getting a virus or succumbing to any sort of disease. What matters most is the state of your body and that's why a holistic understanding of what's going on is essential. First of all, stress will raise cortisol in the body, which actually is going to increase inflammation and lower your immune system. So however hard it is to stress less, I know this is very worrisome time, please do it. Do that by doing things you love. Spend time with your loved ones. You know, the more oxytocin that gets produced in your bloodstream, the better you're going to feel. The more serotonin, if you have some chocolate, eat a little bit of that. It's a really important part. Also, there was a recent study that came out that showed that 50% of people who were contracting COVID-19 actually have compromised digestive systems. And I think that's really interesting just from my understanding of what supports optimal health and that is a really healthy digestive system. And so there are a few things just to give a little attention to. First of all, a lot of people have an underactive stomach and what I mean by that is they don't produce enough hydrochloric acid. When you feel you have heartburn more often than not, it's because you don't have enough hydrochloric acid. Your stomach is training so hard to try and digest proteins and that lack of hydrochloric stomach acid is a result of eating too much sugar, low quality fats and too much meat as well. It's hard for our bodies to process and then we don't support the things that actually help keep it regulated and natural like taking apple cider vinegar, having lemon juice in the morning. No, lemon juice. Lemon juice and water in the morning on an empty stomach. And of course, you can also supplement with betaine hydrochloric acid tablets. There are a few different things we can do to support- Hydrochloric acid tablets? Yes. That's safe? It is safe, yes. They sell those at health food stores. The way you test if you actually have low hydrochloric stomach acid is by waking up in the morning, taking one of the pills, waiting 10 minutes, if you don't feel a burning sensation, you have low hydrochloric stomach acid. If you do feel a burning sensation, drink some milk, it'll go away and then you know that you're PG. So that's one component of this. The reason this matters is because what we eat, if it's not fully digested and broken down in the stomach when it goes into the small intestine, it's at risk of actually leaking into the bloodstream. And when this happens, we get proteins and foreign invaders in the bloodstream. It causes autoimmune response, increasing inflammation and keeping us in a very flight or fight mode. And our adrenals are just stressing out which increases that cortisol, which just sort of perpetuates the system, which is why autoimmune conditions are so sucky. And all of this is related to the immune system. So having good digestion is essential. And we do that by taking into account the bulk of the foods we eat, making sure they're unprocessed primarily and from good quality sources. That's a big first step. Now we also know from studies done in China that high doses of vitamin C have also been shown to be helpful in combating COVID-19. So eat some citrus. Emergency. Yeah, exactly, emergency. We feed greens are a great source of nutrients. They're also gonna support digestion and they're abundant in vitamin C as well too. And then of course, as you mentioned, there's Alderberry, which you can turn into a syrup. I think that's one of the best remedies there is. Getting enough sleep is also gonna be really good for boosting your immune system. And if you have time, do that. The recipe for getting well is sort of within reach for everyone if they just do the things that line up for it. So in this time of quarantine, rest, take care of yourselves, all of that. Yeah, so what I take away from that is, eat healthy, eat natural as you can. Rest, de-stress in any ways that you find most effective. And oxytocin, so be with the people that you care about. Everyone, that's the big part. Four feet away hugs, right? Yeah. Okay, well, those who you're quarantined with, just give each other lots of hugs and you know, Skype your mom or something, enjoy it. Yeah. So many of those are great chatting with you today. Make ways. I think that I learned a lot. I'm sure our audience learned a lot. So I am looking forward to our next meeting together. So until then, everyone stay healthy and if you're feeling sick at any amount at all, please be cautious and conscientious about the people around you. Don't spread it. Take the time you need in order to get better. It's not worth spreading it to, you know, those who are immunocompromised or high risk. So, instantly. We'll get through this. Thank you for joining us for this important discussion about this deadly virus. By you staying at home, you're saving lives. So thank you for taking the sacrifice that it takes to just stay at home and do nothing. We will be having a weekly discussion on topics of business and economics. So if you are interested, please like and subscribe and stay tuned for our next episode. Thank you very much.