We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Adan Ventura a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Adan , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
One of the main questions that we should all ask ourselves, what is the purpose of what I am doing or am going to do? In my case, what I always longed for was time with my family and that is where my purpose was born. Everything I do I will do with the purpose of having time for myself and my family and this is how I have been building all the processes of my companies focused on being productive and having time
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
In the last 5 years I have dedicated myself body and soul to growing and structuring my company TASTY PAELLA specialized in cooking paella on site. As time passed since we started with the concept, new needs arose for our clients and we were able to add the paella delivery service (pioneers in that concept) always taking great care of customer service and the quality of our products while maintaining the concept of authentic Spanish paella. In 2019 I had the opportunity to participate in the semifinals of the international Valencian paella competition in Washington where 30 chefs participated and I was able to be fourth finalist. This gave me the confidence to be able to focus more on the company to be able to continue improving. Then in 2020 we hit the pandemic where it shook everyone. I had barely signed a contract with my first commercial kitchen for the next 5 years. This was a challenge. Many companies closed but I had the opportunity to reinvent our paella and create a fully cooked and vacuum-packed personal paella format which attracted attention in supermarkets and we currently sell in 8 supermarkets of the Central Market chain throughout Texas. Then, after the pandemic in 2022, I traveled to Spain to participate in the world paella championship where 80 chefs from all over the world participated and I was able to win the award for best international paella in the world. This came to further position our Texas brand which in June 2023 we opened our second business Tasty Paella Houston and by then we were serving 2 cities Dallas -Fort worth and Houston and surrounding areas. cooking service on site, delivery and a paella product in a supermarket, a team of 6 chefs. It was here that together with my wife Yasmin Ventura we began to fall in love with business in general, we felt that we were doing very well with our tasty paella company. It was time to look at other business models while continuing to manage our current company, which was in the best moment since its opening. So we decided to invest in a Honduran premium cigar company, where Xatruch Tobacco Company was born. We invested in a premium Honduran cigar brand and decided to distribute that brand in the United States. where our partners in Honduras are experts in the field, both of whom are certified cigar sommeliers in the Dominican Republic. Shortly after everything was going well with Xatruch Tobacco Company. We realize that there is another Honduran company that is doing things very well and is growing very well in the area of fashion, clothing and accessories for women and they had a very interesting community of followers here in the United States and we decided to contact them. They wanted to know if they would be interested in selling us their franchise so we could distribute it in the United States. The owners, a very hard-working young couple with a very bright future, responded to us and were interested in the proposal. It took us around 2 months to negotiate, giving shape to the project, but it had more and more potential. until we were able to close a contract where we acquired the franchise to be able to sell online and a showroom-type store in Dallas, Texas. The store is called THE HEELS US and this is how in the last year we became from the owner of a catering company to an entrepreneur of various business models in this way we diversified our income and learned to manage different types of companies. We are just at the beginning of these challenges but we are sure that we will give all our efforts to make it work with the help of God and the great human team we have joined.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
definitely the first would be to define the purpose for which you do what you do
The second would be to invest in yourself. knowledge, education, improve skills learn new things outside your comfort zone
The third, structure everything, no matter how simple it may be, you must have processes so that when your business grows you can delegate in a better way.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
As I said before, one of the things I learned as a habit is to exercise and meditate, it is something that I never liked but I forced myself to have the habit, now that is what makes me think better when I feel overwhelmed, it makes me plan my day well work and gives me more peace of mind and energy during day to day
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.tastypaella.com
- Instagram: Chef adan ventura
- Facebook: Chef adan ventura
