Haitian-Dominican, 27 years old, mother of two girls: 9 years old and 6 years old. She lives with her father and her sister. The girls ‘parents are not involved in the girls’ lives, financially or personally.
Work: She does HIV test in the afternoon for a non-profit organization. In the morning, she runs her business, where she makes and sells soaps and detergents with two other Esperanza associates.
She started but did not finish high school.
Favorite Course: Business Guide – especially the lesson on planning.
She likes to retake the lessons to earn all the stars.
Before connecting to the app, she was not tracking the money coming in and going out of the business. After taking the courses, she realized the importance of doing it. She started writing everything to know exactly how much she is investing in the business and what is the profit.
She lives in a rural community, where most people buy her products “on credit,” which is when individuals say they will pay later, and she writes down the person’s name and how much they owe you. Through the Business Guide, she learned how this practice is bad for profitability, which is why she is trying to encourage her clients to take less credit, and instead to pay her immediately. This is difficult for her, as most of the people in her community always pay this way and then have a lot of debts with different business owners. In the app, she learned that she should be looking for new customers, so she is trying to find more people to buy and pay from her right away to help increase business profitability.
She really wants to be able to register her business, because she then she could sell in stores and other businesses that resell. She believes this is the next big step to take, to be able to put stickers on her products, sell to larger organizations, and register her company. However, she has heard that this is a difficult process, so she is not sure if she will be able to do it.
She has had a savings account for years, and before she used to put in $ 2 every time she had a little more. Now that account is usually empty, since her two daughters have many expenses. She came home from the clinic that morning, where both girls had to stay 4 nights. One had pneumonia and the other had a stomach bacteria. These expenses deplete her savings. While she was at the clinic, and today when she got home, she received many calls from customers who have run out of cleaning supplies and are waiting for her to do more, so they can buy them. She needs to find the money to make the products and sell them as quickly as possible, but she is very happy to have these clients! She is also very grateful for the app.