Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jesse Moya . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jesse , we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?
I think my generosity is pretty inherent. I’ve always liked to think of myself as a pretty nice person in general. Ever since I can remember I have been a people pleaser and I love making people happy. Whether it be from my music, food, etc. I love putting smiles on peoples faces. I honestly don’t know where this came from, but I know that putting smiles on faces makes me happy!
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My name is Jesse Moya and I’m a 31 year old small business owner from Denver, Colorado. My business’s name is Moya’s Tacos and we are a small taco trailer that serves food in the Denver area. I got into food and service industry ever since I was 15 years old working at a small movie theater. That job lead to more service industry jobs and I have kept with that area of work since then. throughout college and after college I was working at a very popular pizza joint called Ian’s Pizza in Denver and moved my way up to a management/marketing director position. I was at that job for +/- 7 years and during the pandemic in 2020 i was let go due to COVID reasons. During my time of unemployement I had no idea what I was going to do next with my life or what I was going to do for work. Simple enough one day I had friends over for tacos that I made and my friends told me I should make a taco business and eventually months later that’s what I did. I did research made business plans and had started reaching out to local breweries to sell my tacos at. Out of about 10 breweries, 1 hit me up with false contact info and another actually got back to me to give me the chance to feed them free lunch to try out my new taco concept. This brewery was called River North Brewery in the Rino area of Denver. They ended up loving my tacos and basically told me i could sell tacos at their location whenever I wanted to and I jumped on the chance. I knew that just starting to sell tacos there wouldn’t really bring in much business so we made an “opening day” event out of it. We invited family and friends and had a huge success with the opening event in mid 2021. When we first started at the brewery we only had a pop-up “tent and griddle” set up with coolers and fold out tables which went on for about a year. After some time the owner of River North brewery asked us to get our food license so we wouldn’t get fined and I took some time off from serving tacos to try and find out how I was going to get my license. After doing the research I came to the realization that there was no way the city was going to give me my license without having a food truck/trailer that met Denver codes. So during the time I wasn’t selling tacos (because I didn’t have my license) I saved up money for a food trailer. Not a lot of places were hiring for work this time so I did the only thing I knew how to do to make money; I bought and sold cars for a profit off of craigslist and facebook marketplace. I had probably sold around 30 cars in that “off” time. I wasn’t quite where I wanted to be with my finances and I also knew I wanted to get back to work asap so we launched a GoFundMe campaign and had a few events to promote the campaign. After about a month or so promoting our campaign we had raised just enough money to buy a brand new food trailer. Long story short: we bought the trailer, filled out paperwork for the city and did everything else we had to do to get our license. It was one hell of a journey, but I can’t thank River North Brewery enough for giving me the opportunity to sell tacos there and also pushing me to get my food license. They have been so good to us in letting us keep our trailer there and letting us still serve there to this day. I think our back story is pretty special in that we had come from nothing and having no job during COVID to having a business selling tacos a year later and we are still going to this day! It’s very exciting gaining new customers and especially seeing regulars who come to buy tacos every week. It’s also very cool being your own boss!
We hope to keep this business growing and the main plan is to just make sure the business succeeds and does better and better for the next couple of years to really grow a fan base and make a name for ourselves in the neighborhood. I really don’t want to push things with this business and try to think about big moves like looking for a storefront. As long as we aren’t going under the plan is to just keep growing as a brand, get more recognition and keep putting a smile on our customers faces!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Three qualities, skills and areas of knowledge that were impactful in my journey were: 1. Having so much experience in the service industry (which included my management and marketing experience).
2. Having grew up in Denver where the business resides and knowing so many people: friends, family, acquaintances, etc.
3. Being a great people person!
If I was to give any advice I would say to not take your resources for granted and utilize your skills!
Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?
I think there is a number of challenges that I am currently facing. One challenge would be figuring out how to bring in more business during the winter months. Another challenge is keeping up with taxes. Another challenge would be growing the business in general. Challenges come up all the time, but I realize that none of them really have any detrimental effect on the business and usually I can get through them.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: instagram.com/moyastacos
- Facebook: facebook.com/moyastacos
