La Incubadora Podcast: Building a Financial Cushion: Insights from Eduardo Miramontes

By: Rutu Ruparel

In today’s unpredictable business landscape, having a financial contingency plan is not just prudent; it’s essential. Eduardo Miramontes, Member Success Manager at A+ Federal Credit Union, shares his insights on the importance of financial preparedness for businesses. With his rich background and dedication to helping others, Eduardo offers valuable advice that every business owner should consider.

Eduardo Miramontes’ story begins in Mexico, where he spent the first half of his life working for major banks. His career took a significant turn when he moved to the United States in 2009, choosing to work exclusively with credit unions. Starting as a member service counselor, he has held various roles, including branch manager positions. Today, as a Member Success Administrator, Eduardo focuses on developing strategies to better serve the Hispanic community, bringing his passion for helping others to the forefront.

Eduardo’s professional journey is deeply intertwined with his personal values. He believes that the true purpose of life is to assist and support those around us. Every day, he finds joy in making a positive impact on people’s lives through his role at A+ Federal Credit Union. Unlike traditional banks, credit unions operate as not-for-profit organizations owned by their members. This member-centric approach ensures that the primary focus remains on serving the members rather than generating profits. Each member has a vote in electing the board of directors, who serve voluntarily. This structure allows employees like Eduardo to prioritize helping members without the pressure of meeting sales targets, aligning perfectly with his personal values and professional mission.

Eduardo frequently encounters business owners who lack a contingency plan or savings for unforeseen events. He emphasizes the importance of defining what constitutes a “rainy day” and differentiating it from regular, predictable expenses. For instance, regular vehicle maintenance should be planned for, whereas something as unpredictable as the COVID-19 pandemic exemplifies a true rainy day scenario.

While many potential challenges in business can be anticipated and planned for, truly unforeseeable events require a dedicated rainy day fund. This fund should be distinct from regular savings and specifically earmarked for emergencies. During the pandemic, businesses with such savings were better able to retain employees and maintain operations while awaiting government assistance.

For entrepreneurs and small business owners, Eduardo’s primary advice is to start saving immediately, regardless of the amount. Developing the habit of setting aside a portion of income regularly is crucial. He suggests treating savings as an expense within your budget to ensure it becomes a consistent practice. Whether it’s a percentage of income or a fixed amount, the key is to begin without delay and maintain the discipline to continue saving over time.

Eduardo Miramontes’ insights highlight the critical role of financial preparedness in business success. By understanding the unique advantages of credit unions, recognizing the importance of a rainy day fund, and starting to save immediately, business owners can build a more resilient and sustainable future.

Find the Spanish version here.

La Incubadora Podcast: What is La Incubadora Podcast?

My name is Larissa Davila and I am happy to welcome you to our space for small business owners in Central Texas. I am part of the La incubadora podcast and this project is part of an economic broad business incubator. EGBI is a local non-profit organization in Central Texas with the mission of providing training, coaching, and support to entrepreneurs and existing business owners who face a barrier to growing a successful business. We believe that every business should be profitable, sustainable, and an asset to our community. We dedicate all our efforts to pave the way for a community where this is attainable. The organization works with micro and small business owners who have been in businesses for less that five years and many businesses we work with are not active yet. Some companies associated with EGBI could be considered informal businesses but the owners are ready to transition into a more structured format. Typically companies that partner with EGBI are family businesses or what is defined as a family business or a lifestyle business. This is a type of business that guys into the lifestyle of the business owner. The reason we decided to launch a language podcast is because we see success stories everyday and we wanted to create a space to share these stories. We also receive lots of questions that are very repetitive and we wanted to provide audio and video for small business owners to be able to listen to this information at their own business, own time, and at their own pace. To be able to take notes. Once they are ready they can come forward and continue with their coaching services. We also know that we talk a lot of entrepreneurs that have a lot of experience. We speak with leaders of opinion and with people that work in risk in organizations and companies that are resources for small business owners and we wanted to provide all information in one space. Additionally all the episodes that we record are recorded in both English and Spanish. If you listen to this episode in a language that is not your primary language just skip to the next episode and you’ll find that in another language. Remember at EGBI we offer coaching and support for small business owners and you can find all the information out at egbi.org. If you know someone who could benefit from this information please share with them this link. We want you to join us as a client, ally, volunteer, or sponsor. We are here to help. 

Find video here and find the Spanish version here

La Incubadora Podcast:  The Essentials of Commercial Leasing with LT Commercial Group- With Christin Ong

By Alana Lewis

Christin Ong worked for a drug store company where she learned and caught on to all of the resources she needed to and took those resources and used them with her future business/ career. Christin works at Commercial Leasing with LT Commercial Group.

Here is the interview with David Fuentes and Christin Ong.

David Fuentes: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself how you started working in the Commercial LT group?

Christin Ong:  I worked at a national drugstore company. I was able to leverage my knowledge ofmanaging a high profile business and managing operations into commercial real estate with a family investing in commercial real estate. 

David Fuentes: What essentials of Commercial Leasing with LT Commercial Group with Christin Ong?

Christin Ong: If you want easy access and visibility what you should consider is the cost and you’re  not going to want to consider if the monthly budget fits into your monthly or rent budget but are there any other additional costs that you’re going to be responsible for.

David Fuentes: What are key elements of a commercial leasing contract and which parts are important to review over?

Christin Ong: With commercial leasing everything is very important but it’s also so long and it can be very intimidating especially if this is your first time into a contract like this so really you should look over everything.

David Fuentes: What are the differences between gross lease, a net lease, and a triple net lease and how do they impact tenants?

Christin Ong: Almost any operating expenses so you just have one flat fee every month. Nothing is variable. It doesn’t change with a triple net lease it’s a type of net so there’s three types of net leases theirs a single net double net and triple and what it looks like is based on your rental amount but you also have net charges on top of that.

Find the Spanish version here.

La Incubadora Podcast: Emergency Biz Planning Do’s and Don’ts with PuroClean Property Savers with Dalila Vazquez

By Alana Lewis

Dalila Vazquez and her husband  Israel started their business together wanting to help and change others life and cause ease to others property space. They started PuroClean Property Savers  together and have been nothing but successful; they’ve been having this business for almost a decade.

David Fuentes: Tell us a little bit about yourself?

Dalila: Dalila and Israel are a married couple who started a business together in 2015 they moved from Mexico city to start their adventure. They help people who have damage to their property.

David Fuentes: What are you guys’ main goals?

Dalila: Delila and Israel’s main goal is to make people feel at home after they experience damage to their property and try to communicate as best as possible.

 Since 2016 they’ve seen a variety of disasters in the central texas area and they have over a decade experience and working as a business they came from another business, which was challenging for them and they took the skills from that business and placed it with theirs.

David Fuentes: What are essential components of a business emergency preparedness plan?

Dalila: You should design a five step planning process which you can look at as a five step guide. The first step is called planning. Planning is key. You have to plan and prepare everything for an emergency. You’re going to have the time you’re going to address the emergency in the fastest way possible. and in a better way the second step is safety. You have to understand what are the hazards inside your property to understand what’s going on and you can minimize those hazards so when the event comes you can know how to approach the situation. The third one is customized. Customize your plan based off your needs and haves on your property no matter the size the fourth step is to review you need to constantly or schedule times to review and look over your property and plans the fifth step is execute the plan when the bents comes or the emergency comes if you follow the four steps before you should be good.

Find the Spanish version here.

La Incubadora Podcast-Using Artificial Intelligence for Effective Hiring in Small Businesses

Andres is a Colombian immigrant, he spent the last 18 years in the U.S.. He’s had many jobs such as construction, cleaning, tutoring, etc. His website uses artificial intelligence to make the hiring process more easier and less of a struggle for small business owners, or even the employees/people looking for jobs. With artificial intelligence you don’t have to rely on word of mouth just because you are in need, but you can actually find the right person with the right qualities that you want in an employee. Moil means hard work, they chose the name to represent the hard work in Latinos. The Moil website is used to connect small and medium size businesses with people to hire in real time.

We share the conversation.

Larissa:  Share with us a little bit about what we were talking. I can’t wait to share our conversations and what you are offering as a solution.

Andres: Absolutely, look I mean over the last 18 years like you mentioned right, I’ve had the opportunity not only to be an employee on construction, cleaning, tutoring, corporate sales, you know but I’ve also had the opportunity to be a business owner so I’ve had the opportunity to experience the pain points on both ends and then with the boom of artificial intelligence, you know we thought, hey what can we do to not only streamline the process for both ends, but what can we do to actually improve the process so that businesses can hire quicker so that businesses can actually find talent in real time and then candidates can actually highlight and showcase those skills.

Larissa: What is Moil and what does it offer?

Andres: The word Moil means hard work, we chose this name to represent our hard working latinos.  I’m a Latino immigrant, and we chose the name because it became a mission for Latinos to learn many skills so that they could actually find a job here,  a job there but, never actually having a place where they can actually utilize all of the skills in one single place. We’re a platform where we use artificial intelligence to connect small and medium businesses with people seeking employment, and we do this in real time so we allow businesses to actually match and connect with candidates and even hire them on the spot.

Larissa:  Why did you decide to launch this app?

Andres:  It comes from two things, it comes from not being able to showcase and highlight their skills for skilled labor and not being able to actually monetize all of their skills and number two it comes from my personal experience. On both ends,   I’ve seen it, I’ve seen the issues that we look to fix both from an employee side and an employer side then with the boom of artificial intelligence it allowed us to actually simplify and streamline these processes and it was the perfect time historically. Technology was meant to actually  reach everyone and anyone.

Larissa: Who can benefit from it?

Andres:  Any small medium business or even a large business that is looking to hire will benefit from our solution because we’ve simplified the process. I encourage small medium businesses who don’t use technology today to give our application an opportunity because they will see that not only is it going to save them time it’s going to save them time it’s going to save them money in the short and long term because it will allow them to find the right people at the right time which is very important for all small and medium businesses who struggle many times to hire the right candidate or who struggle to actually say, hey I can’t hire someone full-time, well through our platform you can hire full-time, part-time, contract.

Larissa: How can a small business owner start using it?

Andres:  I’m glad you asked because you know we actually created this with you in mind, we created this company so that we could use that artificial intelligence to get rid of many obstacles, time, educational levels and language barriers, you don’t need to be very good with computers you don’t need to be very good with technology. You can do this from your phone or your computer and it will take just two minutes to post that job. I will show you exactly how to post that job, once you create your Moil account. You go to our website Moilapp you just need to know the basics of your business in order to create your business account. From your dashboard you have the option to post a job, you are going to click on “post a job”, you get to choose between English and Spanish, we are in the process of making the languages broader, then you just fill in the questions with what you’re looking for. By just putting your business name and the job title we’re going to click on “Generate for me”, and our artificial intelligence is gonna do the rest of it for you, the process takes just a few seconds while it loads, and this will actually create the job description for you and it also fills up the rest of the information about the position. You can edit the response, and once you are done you can E-verify or not-verify and then you click “save and continue”.”

Larissa: What would you like people to take away from this conversation?

 Andres: A few things, for business don’t be scared of technology, technology has proven to actually help you grow, make more money and become a  more efficient business. Today we need to use technology to continue to grow, don’t be afraid because it will actually simplify many many processes for you, now for people looking for employment remember that coming to the US or starting a new job does not mean you have to start from scratch no one can take away your experience and abilities no one can take away your skills so please make sure to highlight them while looking for a new job.”

Translated by Berenice Osorio Alvarez.

Find the Spanish version here.

La Incubadora Podcast: Driving Sustainability, Austin’s Circular Economy Program with Meghan Doherty

By Alana Lewis 

 Megan Doherty has a passion for sustainability and working on the environment and helping the environment. She always tries her best to make sure she pours into our environment and community. Megan works at Driving Sustainability Austin Circular Economy Program.

Here are some interesting facts about Megan 

Megan Doherty: I was born and raised in austenite, passionate about preserving and amplifying the environment and culture. The  charm of this blooming beautiful city that we call home. She had a degree from UT Austin in geography and environment. And spent over a decade outside of Texas launching several entrepreneurial ventures from catering vegan food at big picture movie sets in Hollywood. To vending superfood shakes at large festivals.  ultimately opening a cafe and bottle drink line in central Mexico.

Alexander Williams: This company is all about promoting sustainability by transforming.

Megan Doherty: Our traditional linear economy which takes the make and dispose economic model into something more thoughtful and createful and more regenerative.

What do you guys contribute to Austin TX? 

Megan Doherty: Support these circular businesses, traditional, waste, rental businesses and  to help businesses repair and refurbish to bring back up to market and sharing platforms. 

What’s the key services provided by circular economy program businesses innovation and how they contribute to city?

Megan Doherty: Sustainability and economic goals. They have an event called circular showcase that is designed to establish circular businesses which is a threshold on any business that has a circular concept that currently makes more than 10,000 a yr and less than 250,000 a yr and whoever wins gets a 12,000 prize.

Find the Spanish version here.