By: Sandra Lilia Velasquez

CEO & Founder

NOPALERA

I found myself unemployed for the first time in my life at the age of 43. I had no savings, over 80k in student loan debt, and was a single mother to a 13-year old. It was at that low point that I realized the only way I was going to change my future for myself and my daughter was to take different actions.

Up until that point I had dedicated my life to music as the bandleader for the Latin Alternative band Pistolera. Music was my storytelling platform to celebrate my Mexican heritage and bring people together. I thought my purpose in life was to write songs and I dedicated all of my time and energy to building my music career. I had many great opportunities, like opening for Lila Downs, Los Lobos, performing at Central Park Summerstage, The Montreal Jazz Festival, and having my music featured on hit TV shows like Breaking Bad. Compared to many musicians, I had been successful. But music is a challenging life where money is never guaranteed. I always maintained a day-job for health benefits and some semblance of security. Even with the day job, I lived paycheck to paycheck in one of the most expensive cities in the world: New York.

When the day came that I had no job I reached a low point in my life. For the first time I did not know how I would pay rent. I felt true panic. How did I allow my life to get here?

In retrospect, this moment was one of the most defining moments of my life. Diamonds are made through pressure. And I was under pressure to evolve.

In life, we can choose courage or comfort. We can’t have both.

As I stood in my parents front driveway in San Diego, I stared at a familiar plant I had known my entire life: the nopal. At that moment I realized there was a lack of high-end Latina beauty brands on store shelves. As consumers we were all familiar with products that used aloe vera. Why had no one used the nopal as their main ingredient? It was much more abundant and regenerative.

For Mexicans, it doesn’t get more ubiquitous than the nopal. It is even on the Mexican flag.

I knew that if I created an irresistible Latina beauty brand centered around the nopal it would galvanize the community. It would help a historically overlooked community – and the USA’s largest minority group – feel seen and proud. At that moment I decided I would create an aspirational Latina beauty brand and call it NOPALERA. I wanted to disrupt the historically Euro-centric beauty space that normalized higher price tags for brands with French and Italian names.

For the last fifteen years I celebrated my cultural heritage through music from stages around the world. I knew I had the courage, the passion, and the innate ability to lead.

There were only two problems: I had no money and I didn’t know anything about making beauty products.

I enrolled in an online formulation school with my American Express credit card. I called a graphic designer friend of mine and told her my vision. I asked if she could design my brand on a payment plan. Fortunately, she said yes.

I spent a year formulating and building the brand in the quiet. No applause. No one cared except me. I had to get more jobs. Three to be exact. One to pay bills, one to pay debt, and one to fund my brand.

It was a brutal time but it was a means to an end. I stayed focused on the vision.

On November 2, 2020 I launched Nopalera from my Brooklyn apartment. I made all of the products myself for the first year and my boyfriend was my shipping manager. The brand took off right away. Nopalera can be found in Nordstrom, Credo Beauty, and over 400 influential boutiques nationwide.

I appeared on Shark Tank, infamously turned down two offers, and went on to raise 2.7 Million dollars.

I lead a team of seven people now. Nopalera has an engaged community of over 125k followers.

One of the many gifts of changing career paths mid-life is that you can take all of the learnings from past experiences and apply them to your new venture. Music taught me so much about resilience, rejection, and community. Those moments of rejection in my music career were difficult at the time. But what I have learned is that the opportunity lies in adversity.

If everything is always easy and comfortable, you will not grow.

It was only because I was forced to think of a new plan that I did. I had to reimagine my identity and my future and then take actions to step into it.

I am living proof that you are never too old or too broke to learn new skills and change your life.

I am driven by three things: changing my financial life, showing my community what is possible, and making sure my daughter never knows what an overdraft fee is in her checking account.