and welcome to washington conversations with lady see where we bring guests on or so to talk about issues and topics that matter they have a wonderful guess julie and roy she's a scientist and she has a wonderful product in thank you so much i figured i know you you know your business as a chopper yeah names up big and you would love the chop yes we're both from jamaica right it fits right in it's right in own wonderful and thank you for having me as i think i'm excited you know i just can't wait for people to hear your journey you know just thinking of your background as a scientist and now here you are pursuing your own business and you i bring sugar but i know smell it you know they're so wonderful that's kind of the premise of our product so how i started i my back growing actually is  marine science and agriculture and coming from jamaica we're surrounded by water my love of the ocean and i came to the u s to do my ph d and i ended up making animals for pet food and i got recruited to work here in new jersey and spent my time learning about innovation and research and development and food production and i really love it i discovered my creat  side so much and you know with all the things going on in the ninety's companies closing and moving so that company closed i ended up staying where i was and worked with an organic baby food company so  about where the ingredients are coming from no preservatives orton today exactly and i was just floored by that and i'm like well why can't we do this for ourselves where we eating things at all these preservatives and as a working never really came to fruition and he was having my son just working and trying to juggle it just became harder and harder how would you say he's no eight ok so there's a time you know when he was three  and i just you know wanted to have a change i wanted to do something else and you know coming from jamaica it's not like that there women get a lot of time off with their kids and my husband is from italy right and it's even worse there they're much there and i did you can last a year or so awesome yeah so i knew that you know it's not a good alternative to have as a woman trying to have to figure it all alone and i want to do something different that could control my time right now how long have you been here i've been here eighteen years but you know eight of it having my son it didn't really why i wanted to start a business was to give me that time right that flexibility to be able to spend time with him to take care of things at home like i would organize the son that we have to do just situation where it's the high blood pressure that are setting everything  it's a lot of things going on right so i said i needed to i needed to change i couldn't continue that way and i phone entrepreneurship and it's  exactly exactly to just organize my life i can work more i'm able to you know i started running actually when my son was two a because i couldn't keep up with him busy motto for our company is healthy food healthy body healthy my to keep it keep was able to be there for family and that's balance all of that my son helped us put on a label on the couch so that's that's kind of where we're at right now you know so tell us about these wonderful products here you have a panellist coconut we're no longer gosh i love anything coconut anything vanilla so this is my favorite that we meant vending well not really vending it was for an event yet as usual and there we were we will sit in the city the it was a cat clean you know so that's what i love about it so just tell us about you know the journey what made you decide to do granollers and right so the idea of the company is all about snacks and portion control as well as healthy but i was working and last year was there i said i have to go for it so when i met you it was when i really had yes put myself out so september is going to be one year and the next phase exotic fruit oh yeah right you know so we have in the works three new flavor at the moment but we need to perfect and just go down and get especially from iran people on the go even these can be used in your bag right for work leave some in the car lot it's hungry we don't have a snack you don't want to go to the fast food because you know that right so it's a balance right there so we use a local honey which is i go to the farm and i see how it's you know their progress in making it and so yeah it's a natural process when you do things like that yeah hope for more to implant that entrepreneurism because now you with all the people in you learning all the different key things right right right so rising to a capital was very instrumental in helping me get to where i am today because i didn't know what i wanted to do i just know i needed to change my style of life and way of living and what could help me and capital and that's pretty much where i was yeah so many of us still really have you know family or input with a lot of money and we want to start a business start up capital is very important and how do you go about starting so they offered a twelve week business class which i just said all right i'm going to say no ok i'm going to learn about business because this is what i want entrepreneurs very small two people who were in it for five years really gave me the confidence to say i can do it right but it didn't take me to almost the end to realize what could i do and it made more sense it is something i was passionate about show because i want to help you however i can so you can you know spread the word about what it is that you're doing right here it's all about health my show is about health right also about just highlighting entrepreneurs talk about the journey so they can help someone else somebody  yeah i want to do it in but they're fearful yeah this it's it's ok yeah it's very scary it's ok to be afraid but you know you just have to be uncovered yeah but more also is really having the face  but i just knew this is what i wanted to do and i i have i see the big picture like i see the end but i try to follow the steps to get there and just learning from entrepreneurs going to classes i'm learning every day what is how to how to get there and know starting to bring people on into the right company so i'm not the only one yeah what are some of the things that are holding you feel it's kind of holding you back in terms of your business growing so the next phase is learning about money as a scientist i am in the law so i am the r money is so important to understand about how to your business to grow the right no i'm just trying to pick the brains of anyone who has a very successful business how did you grow it takes money to grow  so i'm really trying to learn a lot about that right now but we're talking about earlier you know you need to find people and in order to get good people you have to pay them exile a lot of times people will say they want to help you but  always work out the right way and people need money you know so those are some of the struggles that entrepreneurs go through you know you might have money today to help in a place and yet the more you don't raise money comes and goes so quickly as an entrepreneur yeah it's a product you're trying to do the it's hard to get it but it's still free money yes some of those competitions are good and just networking and we've talked about bartering ordering is also another crucial piece if we can find people that we can barter our server with i think that's a good way for us as  a lot about that oppose meeting other women women entrepreneurs learning about the different skills that they have and that has helped my business a lot i joined a women's network and through that network i met other women who did social media i didn't know anything i say do i need to do another instagram another chris i know it's adult more thing right but i you know got help and made the process very easy ok so it's very important to get other people who are like the in their field to show you how to grow your business zero i don't know if you went to that one of them are so you may be in new york and the other one of your yeah there was some time ago but no those organizations really are doing you said you're going to so we would like to be able to raise money to move on to our next phase right which is to hire more people being an entrepreneur is also wonderful because you can no create jobs right for other people within this job market so we need to hire more bakers more people helping us with our poaches and just getting the quality ingredients that we need to do you know our motto right so we will be working offer and we're going to be doing some fun stuff with that we want people to follow us and follow our journey and i have recommended you know before even doing workshops you can kind of just let people have fun doing the right there is a of the necessarily be ok this is the science of it yeah that is well i think people love to create yeah just creating their own flavors that could be you know something that can help you with funding  that we're going to go for you know i think that you have to be so creative and i think that's you know why you end up with sometimes one or two other departments because not your creed you have to be the one thing is not going off as know started this journey has given me a lot of thoughts about how like you said i love this conversation with you showing other women how maybe they're interested in entrepreneurship it does help you  free up your time well not nice if your free time but you're able to control your time better so they say we work eighty hours so that we don't have a back to back what we are but it's a different kind of stress because i really love what i'm doing and i came to the time off to pick up my stuff school know he's going is all kinds of activities to take him to and homework and i'm able to manage my time and run and work all battles and then when he's gone to sleep or marking so i miss work i'm working on something that i love and i see that it's going to be for the family in there and so i'm actually thinking instead of sort of writing a book so i my book is kind of a cookbook and more recipes a journey that i took when we went to italy look two years ago and i saw how they live in the village that we stayed that the quality of life is wonderful and i want to be able this is outside of rome in the mountains of telephone and they live a very simple life but the food you know with italians it's all about them yeah it is but i wanted to know food is amazing and it's just simple ingredient and build a company that when i do hire people and especially women to be able to have that injected where families import i mean really because a lot of companies say that but some of them don't really mean it reflect you know that kind of life it's important to work but your family is also very important and so and having friendships and a social life is very important so i'm trying to relive  so it's what's your favorite type of food it's going to be simple food that we can prepare because cooking i find although i love to cook all right when you come home you're like do i need to cook and  the food that we ate on that journey basically i am very excited about you know your journey and i'm so glad i could bring on the so yes thank you so tell everybody you know your website and all your contact information ok