Meet Victoria Ortiz

 

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Victoria Ortiz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Victoria below.

Hi Victoria, really appreciate you joining us to talk about a really relevant, albeit unfortunate topic – layoffs and getting fired. Can you talk to us about your experience and how you overcame being let go?

I got laid off from my first corporate job in 2020 after graduating college in 2019. I ended up becoming a successful entrepreneur afterwards, founding my own haircare brand. All of this happened in the middle of a pandemic after I had to move back to my home country. I had to reinvent myself and create my own source of income in the middle of chaos.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Hive was created in 2020 because I had a big issue with frizz on my hair. With a big passion for natural ingredients, hair care, and bees; I created products that helped solve my hair concerns. At Hive, we want to transform the hair care industry with the use of natural ingredients. Our main ingredient at Hive is our 100% Pure Honey from our own sustainable apiary. Each product is designed to nourish, hydrate, reduce frizz, and strengthen our clients’ hair without compromising sustainability. We strongly believe that nature and the beauty industry can coexist. Our mission is to create a world where we can save the bees and embrace our natural hair. Every product is created with love and respect for nature. We start in our sustainable apiary, where we take care of our bees responsibly. We only collect honey once a year without interfering with the bees’ natural honey production process, and we also do not feed them with any artificial food supplement. We combine hive honey with other carefully selected natural ingredients in a process that preserves the integrity of each element. Without harmful chemicals, each formula was created to nourish, hydrate, reduce frizz, and protect the hair by delivering effective and responsible results. We bring the best of nature to your personal care routine. It has been a difficult journey, specially being based in a country like Guatemala, a very corrupt, difficult, and bureaucratic country; however, I have been able to accomplish big things despite of these limitations. Hive is now in more than 30 retail stores across Guatemala, we have 2 product lines, The Anti-Frizz Therapy and Hive for Men, made up of 5 different products, several kits, combos, and sizes. We have big plans for this year, such as adding another product line to our family and to enter foreign markets such as the US. I am very passionate at what I do and I believe my brand will reach international markets this year. Some of my hobbies include: dancing, yoga, hiking, art, and the basketball. I get easily inspired by basketball players and other female founders who have successful brand such as Emily Weiss and Sarah Blakely. I enjoy learning about other cultures and languages. I have always been very shy and serious, but after I’ve seen Hive grow, I have also evolved and reinvented myself to the point I have been on TV and have given conferences in universities, proving myself I am not shy anymore and proving that I can do anything I set my mind to accomplish. My mantra is: constantly reinvent yourself.

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?

Patience, discipline, and creativity.
It is important to believe in yourself, balance your life, be disciplined at everything you do to constantly evolve, grow, and reinvent yourself. Don’t forget to be passionate and creative. I believe being intense is a good thing, I consider myself super intense with things I am passionate about and that is the only way to actually make things happen and come up with innovative ways to solve problems. A successful entrepreneur MUST be a creative problem solver.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

I believe you don’t have to end up working in the industry “you’re supposed to” based on what you studied at school. I studied Finance and Marketing, had professional experience in the financial services industry and ended up working in the beauty industry, an industry in which I had no knowledge and experience at. I learned that we can learn ANYTHING on the internet, and we can also reinvent ourselves and enroll in specialized courses and programs to learn WHATEVER we want. It doesn’t matter how old are you or where you’re at, if you want to switch industries, you can do it. You don’t have to be the best at it at first, but know that with discipline, passion and patience, you can be WHATEVER you want. I ended up finding professionals in the beauty industry that helped me grown and establish my company, now I can say I am also a very well experienced professional in the industry, I’ve been working in it for 4 years in a country where this industry hasn’t been explored much.

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