Short YouTube interview (video titled 'Transition Mission: Woman Veteran Starts Juice Company') featuring Carlina Williams, owner of Juice Hero, describing her transition from the Navy to entrepreneurship. Carlina explains that she makes fresh vegetable and fruit juices, attended the Boots to Business workshop which helped her create a business plan and encouraged her to promote herself as a veteran, and credits Eddie and Mama Art Cafe for providing mentorship, a sales platform, and opportunity to build clientele (including selling out at a street fair). She states long-term goals of operating a juice truck in San Francisco and franchising internationally. Tone is positive and community-oriented.
Chapters
My name is Carlina Williams and I'm the owner of Juice Hero. My company makes fresh juices out of vegetables and fruit. I've always had the passion to be an entrepreneur, and after being discharged honorably from the Navy, I dove into a lot of things, but I finally found something that I do well, that's simple and that everyone really likes juice. My long term goal is to have a juice truck here in the city of San Francisco, as well as have a franchise all over, all over the world, even internationally. I've always known that I needed to develop a business plan for any type of business, but going to the Boots to Business workshop, it got into the nitty gritty of what the business plan entailed. I made great connections. I learned even the government aspects of acquiring content contracts, as well as learning how to promote myself as a veteran. When I asked one of the presenters there, do you think that it's a good idea that I promote myself as a veteran? She's like, duh, yeah, everybody loves a veteran, you know, so that's the one thing that I will forever take with me from Boots to business is them encouraging us to tell everybody who we are and tell our story and make that the face of our business.
Carlina's story, I mean, she is very motivated, very motivated to get her juice truck. And I want to see her succeed. So by her having the opportunity to come to Mama Art Cafe, I mean, I think she's getting on the right path.
At Mama Art Cafe, Eddie basically gave me the opportunity to have a platform for my business. Instead of starting off fresh with nothing, they've allowed me to build my clientele, build my experience up. Just recently, I actually juiced at a street fair right outside of Mama Art Cafe and it turned out amazing. I sold all my juices within two hours. People were wonderful. They gave me great suggestions on new recipes, on things that I'm doing well. A lot of the community came out and told me that they liked my product.
So based on that, we're gonna go ahead and start selling the juices at the cafe.
Meeting Eddie has been a breath of fresh air. He's a great mentor. He's actually the one who sent me to boost a business. And while I'm starting my business, I'm actually in school as well for marketing. So there's so much out there. And Boost to Business really helped me on my track to being focused and to basically help other people as well. And I think that's how businesses are successful when you focus on helping someone else. Then you'll automatically be successful. And that's what's been happening every step of the way.
