Today we’d like to introduce you to Leslie Aramburo.
Hi Leslie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
As a teen, my mom had a beauty salon that provided multiple services so at a very young age, I was exposed to the beauty industry. My attraction to beauty & aesthetics didn’t stop there. That attraction continued to grow once I graduated college & became a Certified Medical Assistant. I’ve had the pleasure of working along one of San Diegos’s Best Cosmetic Dermatologist for the last nine years as a Medical Assistant & Cosmetic Consultant.
The idea for FSHNVENUS started Mother’s Day weekend of 2020 while coming home to San Diego from a Santa Barbara road trip with a few friends. We made a quick stop in the LA flower district to get our moms some flowers given the holiday. I was blown away by the different districts in the downtown area and became very curious in particular with the Fashion District known as the heart of the fashion industry.
Because of COVID, I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands around that time so I thought opening a boutique would be a good way to stay busy. I started doing some research on what it would take & what requirements there were for opening an online boutique. I started looking into everything from business licenses, permits, branding, packaging. I remember going down checklists & thinking to myself “I can do that! Check! What do I need next?” It all just kept going from there. Everything seemed achievable so I went for it & one thing I wasn’t afraid of was failure. I didn’t want to wonder “What if I had given it a try?” Whether the boutique was going to be a success or not, I would have been ok knowing I tried.
My mom has always been a big role model in my life & I’ve always admired her strong work ethic so I knew when it came down to choosing a name for my business, I wanted to incorporate her old beauty salons name Bella Venus in her honor. So I combined what I was doing which is “Fashion” & the word “Venus”. However, I wanted some uniqueness to the name so I abbreviated it & removed the vowels in the world fashion. And that is how the name FSHNVENUS came about. It took about four months of hard work and dedication for FSHNVENUS to happen and finally on September 7 of 2020 it launched!
There is also meaning behind the name Venus which is inspired by the Goddess Venus who encompassed love, beauty, desire, prosperity, victory & sexuality. The Venus symbol is commonly used to represent the female sex and feminism. It is also an iconic symbol of the women’s liberation movement which has played such big role in women’s rights today. Here at FSHNVENUS, we are all about women power & encourage women entrepreneurship & empowerment. I am proud to call myself a woman & Latina business owner.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Finding a balance between work and fun and not overworking myself. Also making sure I still make time for family, friends, and boyfriend. A lot goes into running the boutique and for the most part, it’s just me running it all while working full time.
It’s quite the process before new inventory makes it onto the website but here is a little quick breakdown of what it takes. First step is choosing/finding new inventory sending it to a private labeling company, inventory, website product descriptions. From there, I start planning a photoshoot & making sure everyone’s schedule coincides. It takes a whole team of people for a successful shoot, a photographer, their assistant, models, hairdresser, make up artist, finding a location for the shoot and praying the lighting and weather are good that day. Photoshoots are a lot of work but also very fun & I enjoy them. From there, I go through hundreds of photos, choose favorites then edit them. One of the challenges I’ve been faced with is content creating because although it may sound easy, it is very time-consuming.
Any big plans?
I’m always striving to be a better person than I was the day before. Same goes for my business, I will always try to find new and better ways on improving it. I’m definitely a strong believer that there is always room for improvement and without failure, you can’t succeed.
A few things I plan on working on is growing social media, creating more content, network with local businesses, participate in more pop up events.
One thing I feel very passionate about is giving back to the community and someday, I would like to start a leadership programs to support young women in achieving their dreams. I feel like I have a lot to offer and love helping others so that is something that would be very rewarding for me to be able to do.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@fshnvenus.com
- Website: https://fshnvenus.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fshnvenus/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FSHNVENUS
