ANA FLORES, founder of #WeAllGrow Latina, supporting Femme-Latines

#WeAllGrow Latina is a Los Angeles-based, lifestyle community of Latinas and Femme-Latines, who make up more than 2 million businesses in the United States, according to the National Women’s Business Council. Members of WeAllGrow Latina not only support and inspire one another, but uplift each other to create social and economic impact. 

“We are living as a community-driven platform that provides Latina and Femme-Latines with access to resources and relationships for professional growth,” said Ana Flores, the founder and Co-CEO of #WeAllGrow.

The #WeAllGrow community offers support in multiple ways, through their AMIGAS Program – where members have access to original content, virtual events, mentorship, wellness sessions, resources, connections, and exclusive perks – as well as their Small Business Directory, Ads Program, partnerships, events and editorials. 

But this Latina-owned network didn’t always look and run the way that it does currently. Now a fleshed-out, successful community in #WeAllGrow, which is Co-CEO’d by Flores and Vanessa Santos, was once Latina Bloggers Connect (LBC). LBC was the first-ever network of Latina content creators and bloggers committed to elevating the stories of the Latina community, and was created by Flores in 2010. 

Flores was born in Houston, Texas in 1973 to two Salvadoran parents, who later divorced. As a child and young woman, Flores traveled back and forth between Central America and the United States alongside her sister until she was a legal adult. Flores moved permanently to the US at the age of 18 and settled in LA, which has been her home for 16 years. 

Flores received a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications-Production from the University of Florida in 1996, and worked at her first post-grad job at Univisionin Miami, Florida in 1998. Flores said that she had a strong passion and desire to work in the Hispanic and Latino media space, despite how limited her options were at the time. 

“That’s where I started my career, creating content by and for Latinos in Spanish,” Flores said. “This was during a time when Shakira first boomed and came to the US. I actually was one of the first people to interview her for one of the shows we had. This was back when Ricky Martin was on the Grammys doing La Vida Loca, and that really changed everything. It was a really exciting time because we were starting to do this famous crossover.” 

In the following years, Flores moved to Mexico City in 1999 and began her entrepreneurial journey by working at MTV Latin America, building their first production team. She said that being in charge of content for the entire Latin American community rather than that of the US taught her how different content truly is depending on the country.

“I learned how to speak in a way that all of Latinos, whether you’re in Colombia or Mexico or Argentina or Chile would be relatable to,” Flores said. “It’s very different to program in Argentina than it is to Mexico. There are words that mean the complete opposite or could insult someone. That really gave me that muscle and that know-how.” 

From there, Flores moved to LA in 2006 as one of the founding members of mun2, now known as NBC Universo. She worked as a producer for MTV Latin America, MTV News and the 2010 People’s Choice Awards, co-authored Bilingual is Better: Two Latina Moms on how the bilingual parenting revolution is changing the face of America and discovered the world of blogging and social media. 

Flores grew up bilingual, speaking both Spanish and English, and says that she made it a point to raise her daughter to be the same, which inadvertently led her to the career she has today as a Latina entrepreneur. With content creation already under her belt, she entered the media space where no one was telling her what she could or couldn’t do, nor was it based on ratings. 

“It really is ‘What do I need to talk about? How does my audience and the audience around that give me the feedback in the comments that I need?’” Flores said. “And I saw these limitless possibilities, but I also saw this space that democratized our voices. I think that that was the most important thing for me.”

Flores launched her blog, SpanglishBaby, with a friend in 2009 for parents raising bilingual, bicultural children. As a stay-at-home mom, raising a bilingual daughter and unable to get her hands on any supportive information, she decided to provide a space where parents, like herself, could find advice and community. As the first blog network for the Latino community and one of the few Latina mom blogs ever, it quickly became successful with a large audience and recognition. 

Flores said that she realized that if the blog were to continue, SpanglishBaby would need to partner and collaborate with brands, such as the Today Show, CNN, Scholastic and PBS, to earn revenue. As she was navigating how to monetize the blog, a process she was unfamiliar with, the question ‘Why don’t you do this for Latinas?’ was brought to her attention by fellow mom bloggers from both the white and Black communities. She followed some of the advice. 

In 2010, Flores launched LBC for herself and other Latinas to support each other and learn how to monetize and pitch to brands. 

“All it was a WordPress site that I built myself, a logo that a Latina mom blogger and friend, who was a designer, created for me, a Google form that said, ‘If you are a Latina blogger and you want to work with brands, sign up here,” Flores said. “And within a week, we had over like a hundred Latinas who had signed up.” 

While she was a liaison between Latina bloggers and brands who were trying to market to people in this space and creating connections for LBC with Sprint, McDonald’s, Neutrogena and Clorox, Flores was also creating content and providing resources for Latinas on how to pitch themselves, how to write and how to code. 

Within 10 months of launching LBC, in 2010, Flores hired the first person on staff, which turned into another hiring the following month, and so on. The blog was growing into something bigger than she could have imagined and, within three years, LBC hit its first million dollars in revenue. 

“I can’t tell you that I even understood that I was being an entrepreneur,” Flores said. “There was no “Girlboss” movement back then, this was just going to help me bring in money in the middle of the recession.”

LBC hosted its first in-person conference in 2015, called #WeAllGrow Summit, which has now become an annual event for Latinas and Femme-Latines to connect and thrive as people and in their businesses. The event aims to help women connect with each other to build themselves professionally and personally. 

“Women were contacting us saying, ‘I am not a blogger, I am not a YouTuber, but I feel that this is the space where I belong. Can we go?’ And I was like, ‘Absolutely! You can buy a ticket, you can be part of this,’” Flores said. “So, the conference itself started shifting and started teaching us who our audience had become, which was no longer just bloggers.” 

In 2016, six years after launching the blog, Flores rebranded LBC into #WeAllGrow, which sprouted from a small action that became the foundation of an empowering community. 

“The reason why it’s called #WeAllGrow is because, from day one, the day that I launched the WordPress site, I launched with a blog post, and at the end, I said ‘When one grows, we all grow,’ and we kept that as our motto as we continued shifting and pivoting,” Flores said.

CALÓ NEWS sat down with Flores to discuss the notion of supporting Latinas and Femme-Latines and to share advice for fellow Latina entrepreneurs. 

ANA FLORES, 50, LOS ANGELES, FOUNDER AND CO-CEO OF #WEALLGROW, SHE/HER, LATINA

#WEALLGROW STANDS ON THREE PILLARS, HEAL, COMMUNE, AND GROW. WHAT DOES EACH PILLAR MEAN?   

Now you’re going to understand why I call myself a soul-centered entrepreneur. It was a download. I receive a lot of intuitive downloads that I have now learned to trust when I didn’t trust them. When I look back on my early years, where I was just very focused on being this businesswoman, reading the books that the white men have inherited from us and all that, and always feeling inadequate. I didn’t have the right business acumen because I didn’t attend business school. I didn’t have an MBA, I don’t have, etc., so who am I to think that I’m a business person? But the reality is that I am led by my intuition and by the vision that I have and sustained by the community. Heal, Commune and Grow, for us, is in that order. We know that as entrepreneurship grows and, because of that, again, that feeling of inadequacy, also the traumas that our communities have gone through and that systemically continue happening. So we know that there is a lot of healing that needs to be done within us to even understand that we are worthy of going after our dreams and our vision. The healing that has to happen within our own families and within our own circles that love and protect us.

And because they love and protect us, sometimes it can come from their own fear of not wanting us to grow because they want us to be safe, because they sacrificed so much for us that they need us to stay within the safe place of, ‘Go the safe route. Be an accountant.’ Which, there’s nothing wrong with that, right? But maybe that’s not your dream, and they’re doing it because that’s what’s going to bring money to the table. And that’s why there are healing wounds. We have to heal money wounds. So for us, #WeAllGrow, healing has to be a base because as we start growing as entrepreneurs and business owners, it’s never going to be easy. We’re constantly going to be faced with challenges, whether it’s a global challenge like Covid-19, or a day-to-day challenge and bringing in the clients, bringing in capital, sustaining cash flow, etc. And what we need to be able to sustain that growth is to do it from that spiritual toolbox that we need.

But we also need to be able to sustain that in the community. So, as we heal, we also learn how to receive and how to get ahead and be in community. And that community that’s so important to us is our sisterhood, what we now call our Amigahood. And that’s why, in 2019, we switched over our membership site from being paid, which used to be called Changemakers Collective, to a free portal, which is a Mighty Network, that’s called, AMIGAS, which was exactly what we needed in 2020 when the pandemic hit. We already had AMIGAS and, for us, we switched it to AMIGAS because, at the end of the day, yes, we need these hard-core business skills and corporate skills, but we need to build the soft skills and we need to be able to rely on each other. And that Amiga part is what we have seen manifest itself at the Summit where, at the end of the day, what people really leave with is a new sisterhood, new partnerships, new friends and new businesses that launch. Because there’s that woman who says ‘Of course, you’re capable.’ That pushes you ahead and becomes a role model because we haven’t traditionally had those role models. 

It’s Heal, Commune and, from there, we can sustainably grow. That’s how we see the three pillars. So we create our content based on those three pillars. We also internally ask ourselves, when we’re looking at our roadmap of growth, ‘How do these three pillars continue to be sustained and manifested?’ Everything from business plans to content plans to editorial is set around those three pillars.

WHAT IS #WEALLGROW AMIGAS AND WHAT ARE ITS EXCLUSIVE PERKS? 

#WeAllGrow AMIGAS is our digital community of Amigas for Latinas and Femme-Latines. It’s completely inclusive where each person gets to identify however they want to identify. We really cater to that woman with an entrepreneurial spirit. They are able to find everything from weekly Monday holding hands circles. It’s a one-hour Zoom with a lifestyle coach, Wendy Amara. She has been a lifestyle couch before it was a thing, so she’s been doing this for 15 years. If you sign up for it, if you go every Monday, you’re getting free coaching every Monday. There are some women that have really taken advantage of that for almost three years now because we launched that April 2020, which was like our way of sustaining the community when we were in lockdown. It’s incredible the growth that we’ve seen from them. On Tuesdays, we offer free office hours, which is direct access to myself, Vanessa Santos, my Co-CEO and Partner, to our Community Manager, Aila Castane, and to our VP of Marketing, Melissa Bailey. You get direct advice and it’s open to the community to come in and pose their business questions or their personal questions. We have a weekly meditation. And those are the standing weekly. 

But beyond that, we have monthly workshops that are more business-based and monthly workshops that we call AMIGAS Heal that are more wellness-based. We’ll always have special guests, etc. There’s always some type of virtual event happening. It’s also what unlocks the perks to our in-person events, like when Las Founders or the Summit, you will get early access. One of the things that we don’t talk about enough about AMIGAS and what we know that is where the magic is happening, is within our Circles. Think of it as joining Facebook and then joining a Facebook group. Our Circles are moderated and led by community members who apply to moderate and lead them. They have their own meetup, they have their own Zooms and they have their own content that they’re sharing. Some of them are based on location, some by interest and some by identity. The LA ones actually meet monthly in person. And that’s not led by us, it’s by a member. There is an LGBTQ+ one, there is a Latinas in Higher Education one, and there are Latinas in Florida too. We have over 20,000 members right now, so the Circles is really where, I feel, it’s more intimate. 

WHAT IS THE AMIGAS MASTERCLASS? 

The AMIGAS Masterclass, we’ve paused for now and we’re actually reiterating them. But they were something we launched around 2020, 2021 to give space, because our community is so giving. All of the AMIGAS classes that we have, AMIGAS Mentor and AMIGAS Heal, all of those are done by women that pitch to host them. We’re not going after them, they’re coming to us. They fill out a form and they tell us this is what I want to give, this is their offering to the community. And we saw the same thing with the Masterclasses. Women at a higher level, coaches for example, really wanted to offer something of value to the community and something that we can also monetize. The company is self-funded, there is no investment in the company right now. It’s all funded by the brands from things that we do and ticket sales from our event, but it really is mostly the brand partnerships. That was our attempt also to start monetizing our offerings in different ways while still giving different tiers for the community depending on where you’re at. There’s always going to be the free offering and then there’s going to be some more elevated offerings for those that are ready to go deeper. 

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE AMIGAS ADVERTISEMENT PROGRAM AND HOW IT WORKS? WHO CAN PARTICIPATE? 

AMIGAS Ads actually grew out of the lockdown in 2020. Our summit was going to be the biggest summit we had ever had, it was our sixth year and it was happening in May. We were going from 500 attendees to a thousand, so we were doubling it. It was in May, in Palm Springs, and it obviously got canceled. It got canceled with over $200,000 in tickets that we had to refund, with sponsors who had already paid. Many of our sponsors were very gracious in allowing us to do a make-good, but we still had to pay back the community’s tickets somehow. We were in this mindset of ‘We’re going to have to close the company, this is it, we can’t survive this,’ and applying for loans. But meanwhile, we knew that we weren’t the only ones going through this. We knew that our community needed us right now too and they needed each other. We’re not the saviors and we can create the space for them to connect and find each other and support each other. 

The number one thing that they were actually asking us for, instead of money, was access to resources and amplification of their work, of their businesses. And this is what I love about our communities, we never say, ‘Give me the fish.’ We always say, ‘Teach me the fish.’ That’s what they were asking. Like, yes, the money helps, but that was actually the third thing down the line for them. It was, ‘Give us the resources. We got this, we’re going to make it happen, help us get there.’ One of the ways they needed it was more amplification. We were like, ‘OK, let’s launch an AMIGAS Ad Program.’ We just barely increased the prices, but it was super low and they could get access to be promoted on our Instagram page, promoted on our newsletter, which right now reaches over 35,000 subscribers. Instagram stories or our newsletter is what they’re applying for. The only thing we ask is that you are an AMIGAS member so that you’re already invested in the community and anybody can apply to receive it. It grew out of listening to the community and understanding what it was that they needed and were looking for at that moment.

LATINAS CAN ALSO PARTNER WITH #WEALLGROW. WHAT DO PARTNERSHIPS WITH YOUR COMMUNITY LOOK LIKE AND HOW DO THEY WORK? HOW DOES #WEALLGROW GO ABOUT CAMPAIGNING FOR PARTNERS? 

We’re actually creating a lot more opportunities for partnerships right now, most of them are  going to be collaborative. There is one thing that we always ask when people like to cold pitch us, we’re like, ‘Are you part of AMIGAS yet?’ Because, for us, it’s really important that, if you want to get something from us, or from anybody, not just us. For me, this is collaboration 101. When you approach somebody, you’re already like, ‘This is what I’m giving, this is what I’m already part of.’ That they already understand our ethos and who we are and have already given something to the community. So, that’s why all collaborations, all links for that, you can only find if you’re a member because they’re within AMIGAS, they’re within the AMIGAS portal.

We have forms to pitch, collaborate, lead a session, to do collaborations on Instagram or Tik Tok, where we have platforms. And it’s always something that’s a win-win, right? That’s why we allow them to come to us instead of us going out like, ‘Oh, we’re offering you something for exposure.’ It has to be, if you think that exposure with us is going to be beneficial for you, then there might be an opportunity here. They can also pitch at our event, the Summit, for the main stage, which is something that’s very curated. That’s more intuitive and people that we’re kind of looking out for during the year and we see what they’re doing. Who are the people that are bringing the different topics that we need to showcase for everyone, etc? That’s a little bit harder to access, but that means that you want to make yourself visible to us and very collaborative. Because, for us especially for the summit, we don’t have the funds to pay speakers what they would normally get, what their rates are for the big names that we always get. But because of the experience that we provide, it’s so uplifting that it ends up being a value to everyone. That’s very important to us, how intentional we are and what we offer. 

There are more opportunities now that we’ve launched our editorial platform. We’re constantly reaching out to people and featuring them in different ways. And the most exciting thing that we launched last year was our Small Business Directory. That’s the only directory of its kind and it’s beautiful because, if you want to find local businesses from a restaurant to a company to buy from or your gift-giving needs or you want to support an LGBTQIA Latina-owned shop, you can search for that. Or if you want to support an indigenous business, we did it for that too. It’s all for free to get listed. Any small business that identifies as Latina, Latine or indigenous Latina can apply. We’re going to continue growing that. When we do the gift guide that we did for the holidays, we sourced from the directory. 

[Campaigning for corporate partnerships] is the heart and soul of how we’re able to bring all of these free resources to the community, it’s thanks to the revenue that comes in from partnerships. Our partnership model has evolved from traditional influencer marketing. We don’t have any cookie-cutter rate cards and we give one-off Instagram posts or anything like that. We don’t offer that to our brand partners because we work with them very closely to understand their goals, what their campaign is about, and how they want to reach the Latina community, and, through the Latina community, reach everybody else. And we will cater, we will develop and craft a proposal for them, a very creative proposal where we know that what we are offering them, is something that’s going to be of value to our community. That we will be able to create something together, whether it is a sponsorship to an event like Las Founders, where Salesforce was our presenting sponsor and we were able to bring this event to life thanks to that partnership, or a Latina Makers Market with Capital One who sponsored this year, and then they ended up featuring so many Latina founders.

HOW DOES A COMMUNITY LIKE #WEALLGROW EMPOWER LATINAS?

I’ve said this a lot, the word empower I use very carefully. I never like to say that we empower anyone because I understand the power of words and to say that we are empowering somebody, always implies as if you don’t have the power, you lack power. We understand the power of Latinas, we know the power of Latinas. All we do is help you see it, recognize it and unleash it because the power is already within you. That’s where we come in. And the way that we do it truly is by creating those safe spaces where you know that you belong, those safe spaces where you can be authentically yourself and those safe spaces where you can commune with other women that believe in you that same way. Fiercely believe in you and will help and motivate you to reach those goals. And while we’re doing it, we’re going to have fun doing it, we’re always going to commune. Our theme for the Summit last year was Sanctuary of Joy, so we’re going to commune in joy, but we’re also going to get down and dirty and provide resources, educational resources for your personal and professional development.

ACCORDING TO THE WEBSITE, THE #WEALLGROW COLLECTION IS LAUNCHING SOON. CAN YOU TELL US WHEN WE’LL BE ABLE TO SHOP THE COLLECTION, AND WHAT WE MIGHT SEE WHEN WE CAN? 

We did a limited edition launch at the Latina Makers Market, which was t-shirts, but our collection is much more than that, it’s not t-shirts, it’s much more, but I can’t talk about it just yet! It definitely is going to fall within our pillars of Heal, Commune and Grow, it’s going to bring Latinas together, and it’s going to help us open up conversations and commune in Circles.

And we should be launching our Digital Marketplace in April. 

WHAT IS THE SUMMIT ABOUT AND HOW ELSE DID THE PANDEMIC AFFECT #WEALLGROW? 

It’s always taken place in Southern California, so in the LA area. The first year, it was in Koreatown because there was this beautiful hotel called the LINE Hotel. For me, it was always very important that we would be in a space that wasn’t your traditional conference room space. I am very impacted by my environment, so I need open spaces, I need light, I need nature and that’s kind of what I was looking for for the venue. Then we moved on because the first one was 250  people, it sold out, and we knew we needed to grow it. We found, in Long Beach, this beautiful hotel called Hotel Maya. It was all Latino artists from Long Beach and the art on the walls, it was just perfect. And it was waterfront. It was small enough and big enough for us to host 500 people and be able to have spaces for breakout sessions and sponsor lounges and all that and do a full takeover of the hotel. We had a full takeover, which created a very unique environment and people just started immediately feeling that it was their retreat, it felt like a retreat.

#WeAllGrow Summit is three days, a two-and-a-half day conference in 2015, 16 and 17, and then in 2018 and 19, we added a fourth day, which was called Wellness Day. That was a stand-alone, ticketed event. You could purchase for all of it, or you could just purchase for either one. And what people found, again, what it is now, not what it was, it started out as a blogger conference, but really what it has become now is so many things. The reason that the theme was Sanctuary of Joy last year was because we were asking, what is the underlying thread of what we want to do? To invite people, to summon in when they’re here, but also what is that unifying thread between those that are entrepreneurs, career professionals, stay-at-home moms, whatever it may be, that if you felt that you wanted to come and gather in sisterhood, then this would be the place for you. We realized that, at the end of the day, everybody is looking for joy. We describe it as three days intentionally to co-create communal and individual joy via experiential learning, transformational talks, celebratory experiences and wellness sessions. 

Our main stage is really where a lot of the magic happens. These incredible speakers like Alicia Menendez, Gloria Calderón Kellett, our host, Kim Guerra, Arianna Davis from the Today Show, and Carla Morrison. These really incredible women in their own right come here to share their wisdom with us and then breakout sessions that are also led by the community and then really incredible experiential moments that are led by our brand partners like Capital One, HBO Max and Amazon which, last year were our presenting sponsors, but they really create and their lounges are to die for. Asking, how do we let loose and from that place of letting loose and really feeling like, ‘Damn, I feel like my whole self right now, I can open up to receive and also give in that space.’

And this was the first year we did it in Q3. This year, we did it in September. It used to be in March and then we moved it to May. Due to the pandemic and so many other things, we ended up moving it to October, September/October. 

In a positive way, the pandemic allowed us to focus. We had all of our eggs in one basket, which was the Summit, so that’s why it hit us so hard. It really helped us to be able to get creative and grow our digital offerings. It allowed us to really dive into AMIGAS and work on AMIGAS as a priority. When the pandemic started in March 2020, we had 3,000 AMIGAS members and within six months we had almost 10,000 and we’re at 20 right now. It just became like this safe space haven. We saw the explosion of digital with so many communities launching at that time. It allowed us to bring in new digital offerings for our brand partners so that we could create things like virtual events and masterclasses and just a lot of different things that we weren’t even thinking of before, and now we’re able to reach a much larger audience and get a lot more creative.

WITH #WEALLGROW COMING ON ITS 13TH YEAR, HOW HAVE YOU SEEN IT GROW AND PROGRESS?   

You know, my daughter is 15, so it’s been the two things that I have grown. She’s seen it all from day one, and it’s beautiful. I’m very much about the slow intentional growth and I don’t mean for it to be intentionally slow, but I have been OK with it being that way because we are so adamant and passionate about our mission and the way that the community has evolved and the way that the company, because it is self-funded and because it is independent, it allows me and us as a team to really pivot and evolve all the time. Where we’re really intuitive and where we are listening to the community and understanding where we can better serve, without us being a nonprofit, because that also has its own constraints. But, we allow that level of freedom around the way that we do business to allow us to shift where we need to be. 

When I look back, I’m proud that we’ve been able to sustain ourselves and this environment. I’m proud that we have been able to do it with our values intact. I’m proud of what we represent for the community. I wish that, financially, we were better off, because obviously, as a business owner, I take in all the risks and I would be making a lot more money on my own. And not in victimizing myself, but it’s the reality because we have so many business owners that see us as a role model. I never wanted to seem like a shiny, beautiful object. The sustaining of it is still very real and the sacrifices that we make to get it to this point, that I and the team make. I wish that there was more revenue and a bigger budget to be able to have our team meet the salaries that they deserve for the work that we do, but we’re still in this reality of a budget that we exist within and the funding for these type of businesses just isn’t at par yet. But beyond that, I feel really proud.

AS A LATINA ENTREPRENEUR, WHAT ADVICE MIGHT YOU HAVE FOR FELLOW LATINAS WANTING TO START THEIR OWN BUSINESS? 

To believe in your vision because it all starts with that gut feeling, that vision, that idea, right? That idea that comes out of somewhere, that inspiration. And then we start sharing that idea with the world. And, oftentimes, we might be met with the fear, the ‘I don’t know.’ And then that vision starts getting a little bit watered down and then you allow those fears to come into you. But, if you allow yourself to sustain that vision for yourself, to believe in yourself and not expect or need validation from others, that will strengthen you and strengthen your vision and your idea to be able to take that baby step. Believe in your vision and find that community support around you that will help you sustain that vision. There are people, there are women around that will be like, ‘Yes, I know exactly what you’re doing. I’ll help you, I see it, you can do this.’ Break it down into baby steps, what is that first little baby step? Picture the URL, Picture the Tik Toks, profile name. What is that one little thing that you can do that helps you start seeing your vision come to life?

WHY IS #WEALLGROW SUCH AN IMPORTANT RESOURCE AND COMMUNITY FOR LATINA AND FEMME-LATINES TO HAVE AVAILABLE? WHAT OTHER RESOURCES DO YOU RECOMMEND?

Because we really center joy. We really center joy. We are the glass half full. We will always want to inspire, we will always want to bring that smile and an attitude of limitless possibilities to your life. And that’s what you’re going to find when you surround yourself with our content, our social media, our editorials or in AMIGAS, you will feel that hug. I think that’s important for us to have, no matter what we do or who we are or what level we are at. If you see our logo, people think it’s a rainbow or a sunset, but it’s a ripple effect. At the center, the circle, is the community. And the one thing that we know that we can’t quantify, that we know our real impact is, is not in having 250,000 followers on Instagram, impressions or whatever, for us, our impact really is that ripple effect that it has every time a woman is impacted by something that they receive from us. Whether it’s that they came to the Summit and they won a grant and the ripple effect of that, or they met their next business partner, they launched a business, they got a book deal, which has happened a lot at the Summit, or they launched a podcast after going there. That ripple effect, we can’t quantify, but we know that it’s where our impact is. That is what we do.

For Latinas building their businesses, we love to partner with HACE, Patricia Mota is the president there, the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement. They have a cohort called Mujeres de HACE which is an entrepreneurial program that, I think, is eight months and ends with a trip to their Summit in Chicago. The work that they do and the facilitators that they have are really incredible to help small business owners grow in scale. I definitely recommend checking that out. It’s a nonprofit, and they do beautiful work. Latinas in tech continue to grow and if you are looking to go into STEM or STEAM or looking to go into tech, they continue providing different things. There are just so many resources and whichever of these community spaces and resource spaces, digitally, that you find yourself gravitating towards, I can’t tell you enough that the value in the like and the value in the engagement, the value in supporting with your wallet. The only way that we’re really going to continue evolving and having the impact that we have socially and economically is by supporting each other and by supporting each other. Any resources that you feel you gravitate toward, go all in.