United States

Sofia Pinzon, the founder of TOASTY, the first-ever avocado toast bar, located in the Marina District in San Francisco, tells us about her story of opening a business away from her natal country Colombia and how she and her team have tackled the lockdown. Sofia mentioned that because of the lack of space in her venue communication with the customer was difficult and this makes the whole Toasty experience harder to deliver. Because the low number of walk-in customers Toasty had to find new ways for finding people that could buy their products by reinventing their way of doing business and consistency through their operational time they were able to survive this pandemic. Another important factor that Sofia underlined in the interview was how important was to expand their delivery ratio as she sees the importance of delivery right now.

We meet Bisila Bokoko, CEO of BBES International, a New York-based business development agency that has been on the market since 2012 helping companies to go international and grow. She shares her journey from “What is my business now?” to “How I can be of service to my clients and the wider community of entrepreneurs?” Being in a people-facing business, Bisila used to travel to her client-companies personally to learn about them in-depth, she now found herself confined to a single location. The lockdown has also put on hold her speaking bookings for the next eight months. Bisila mentions that at first, it was paralyzing, but once she accepted the fear and focused on her entrepreneurial gift, she tried to see it as an opportunity and started a youtube channel to stay active and continue sharing her advice. As far as the future goes, Bisila already anticipates that the market will remain slow till the end of the year. So she is assessing the new hybrid option on how to restart her business activities.