Chase What You Love.

As one of my senior projects at SDSU, my team and I developed a business plan, which I found out today, became a reality for one of our members.

When we had to choose what to write our business plan about, there were a lot of ideas thrown around, but the one we ended up choosing, was the result of a business that one of our team members, Rafaela, had already planted the seed for. She had her own product, which she used to supplement her own service. Her product was an organic wax, which she created, and used on her growing client base, in her home. At first the group was hesitant to use this for the business plan, for it's obvious feminine nature, and wasn't as interesting to some as other ideas we had. But Rafaela was very passionate about her product, and sold us on the idea to come up with a plan to manufacture and distribute her product. So that's what we did. We called it NatWax.

One day I was walking in my neighborhood, down Grand Avenue, I saw a sign that immediately caught my eye, and as I stopped and stared, I just kept thinking, "no...way". The sign said "Natura" and pointed towards a new waxing spa. Since "Natura" was a name we had played with when naming our waxing product, I couldn't help but wonder if this was what had come of our plan. Of course I pulled out the iPhone 4 and looked it up. Sure enough Rafaela's picture was on the website.


A few days later was the Brazilian Street Festival in Pacific Beach, and I saw that "Natura" was going to have a booth. I marched right down there and found Rafaela. I was so excited to see her, and find out how well her business is doing. In fact, they just bought the suite next to them, because they were so busy, it was already time to expand only six months after opening.

While it makes me happy that I was "involved" in the creation of this business, I know that it was 100% Rafaela's confidence in her product (and herself) that contributes to the success of Natura. Anyone can have an idea, and even write a solid business plan, but it takes going that extra step, and actually making it happen. I admired her when her passion sold our team the idea just to write the plan, and now I am blown away that she was able to make her dreams a reality! Such an inspiration!