 It feels really, really good to have found my calling during a pandemic. I'm Kat Hernandez and I am the founder slash owner of Juanita's Plants. The pandemic happened. I was super broke and I was just kind of like, hey, I'm going to take this time to like reflect what's next for my life. I've always been a plant lover and things like that, so I started selling plants on Facebook. I love doing this, so why not now? Juanita's Plants is a plant delivery service here in New York City. We deliver it to all five boroughs. We also do plant decor for offices and people's apartments. Offering the delivery service, especially during a pandemic, that was definitely super helpful for my business. People were now working from home. You care about the environment that you're in. Maybe you're like, my apartment is kind of crap. Like I need to make something happen here, so let me bring in some plants. Okay, and I'm not saying this like so people can buy my plants, but one of the largest comments is that people say that my plants look so healthy that they look fake. And that's because I feel like the bread and butter of my business is the fact that I make sure I pick out the best plants, you know, the most healthier plants, potentially, you know, do some trimming, maybe some like repotting just to make sure that the plant is in the best soil possible so that it can grow nicely in your home. I would kind of wrap it up, you know, put my little logo on it and you would get it delivered to your door. My mom and my partner helps me run the business, so it's kind of us three grinding it out. Sasha, my partner, is my manpower. Some of these plants are super heavy, but he also helps me out pop-ups because I can be a little timid and a little shy. And he's very extroverted, so he definitely helps me talk to people and just kind of get myself out there. My mom, she's a hustler. Ever since I was a young girl, she'll buy something, she's always trying to flip it. I've gotten the hustle from my momma and she's just my support system and always to just encourage me to keep going. You need emotional support when you're starting a business and these people have definitely helped me. I started selling plants on Facebook. It was kind of difficult to keep track of orders and inventory and I was just winging it as to what was like available at nurseries. Creating my website on GoDaddy definitely impacted my business in the sense that I was able to monitor the orders, the sales, what was selling, what was not, how much inventory I had and sort of really just organized myself in that way. Now I have something a little more structured and organized, you know, to really run a business successfully. As well as a presence, I needed an online presence to show people like, hey, we're like a legit business and like, you know, we got it going on. Getting the first sale on my website was really, really exciting. It was a $200 order which I personally delivered to her house and she posted it on social media and I got like 30 orders and like a bunch of followers. Like that same night it just took off and it was a really, really, really good feeling and I just felt like I was definitely doing something right. Like my first order kind of like led to this sort of thread of like more orders and more sort of like attention on social media. Getting sales is definitely one of the challenges because ultimately you need more people to know about your business, your brand. So I'm always thinking about that. Trying to be creative because I don't have a large budget because once people know your business exists you have a good product. Like it kind of just flourishes from there, right? But it's getting over that hurdle. At the end of the day, I don't know if this business is sustainable but all I'm doing is I'm just going to keep going. I'm going to keep going with it. And I feel like if I keep going with it it will be sustainable because I'm giving it my energy, I'm giving it my time, I'm giving it my creativity and believe in yourself. It's a lot of just believing in yourself. Keep going, keep believing. It doesn't matter if anyone gets it because it's ultimately that. Like you have to believe in it and just keep doing it.