Today we’d like to introduce you to Mariel Cuervo.
Mariel, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m a creative entrepreneur that grew up on both sides of the US/México border, in San Diego and Tijuana so I’ve always considered myself a bilingual, bicultural, cross border person. I’ve always been business oriented and a serial entrepreneur at heart since I have a lot of different interests but all lead to creating projects and businesses that have something more to offer than just a product. Before opening Nativo Coffee, I did not know anything about coffee other than drinking it on a daily basis. The opportunity to open a coffee shop was really a right place right time type of thing. There was a space available at the recently renovated mixed use space building, Estación Federal, which was the first building to integrate living, office & coworking and retail spaces in the city of Tijuana. Nativo Coffee Community opened in mid-2016 as Estacion Federal’s first commercial space, becoming the closest coffee shop to the border, with both Mexican and American customers. Since our first location was so close to the border, it was part of our vision to offer great coffee, create a digitally friendly space and open the conversation with our clients on social media in order to incite them to create user generated content in both English and Spanish. We recently opened our second location over the summer of 2018 and are excited for future opportunities and growth.
Has it been a smooth road?
The road as an entrepreneur is never smooth. One of my favorite sayings is “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor”. This just means that you have to go through some rough and difficult times in order to learn, move forward and keep getting better. I’ve tried to learn from my mistakes so that I can get better, I also try to surround myself with people that I can learn from, having mentors has been very important for my personal journey. I think that one of the biggest struggles is when people (even close friends and family) try to discourage you from doing something that you feel very strongly about. This is true especially when you are diving into new waters, or doing something that has not been done before. Sticking to your vision and listening to your gut is one of the biggest advices I can tell someone who is starting a project, or new business, it’s easy to get discouraged in the beginning when you don’t see any traction or results. The key is persistence and when no one else believes in you, believe in yourself. The pieces will fall into place eventually.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Nativo Coffee Community, WISE Studio, LMNTEE – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
My background is in Marketing and Branding. Besides Nativo, I have a content and branding studio called WISE that works primarily with food & beverage, fashion, real estate, and hospitality brands some of which I co-founded. My first brand that I created while I was still working at a technology company on a nine-five basis, is called LMNTEE and does custom hand embroidery on clothing such as tees, sweats and baby onesies.
I think all our brands really try to open the conversation with our customers & clients via social media and create products and places that we know will offer a different value proposition as an end result. There is nothing that gets me more excited than turning an idea into something real and helping other young creatives do this as well.
Often it feels as if the media, by and large, is only focused on the obstacles faced by women, but we feel it’s important to also look for the opportunities. In your view, are there opportunities that you see that women are particularly well positioned for?
It is a great time to be a woman in business! The biggest factor that women have in wanting to go into business is pursuing a passion, followed by wanting to be their own boss, which really translates into taking control of our time. That is why we are starting to see so many females led companies breaking the stigma and going into unexplored territories.
Women are also great multi-taskers and we are passionate about our work and I think today, people are looking at the reasons and brand manifestos more than the actual products. It’s not just about the destination, now more than ever it’s about the journey, our journey as female entrepreneurs and how we want to tell it.
Contact Info:
- Address: Nativo Coffee Community
Location 1: Larroque 271 Col. Federal, Tijuana, Baja California (at (Estación Federal)
Location 2: Calle 6ta 8119 Zona Centro, Tijuana, Baja California (at Edificio Emilia) - Website: www.wisestudio.co (branding studio) www.lmntee.com (fashion brand)
- Email: hello@wisestudio.co
- Instagram: @marielcuervo
- Other: @nativocoffee @lmntee
Image Credit:
Violeta Samaha, Wise Studio
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