The Art of Gifting, Innovation in Curated Care Packages – Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Co.
Debbie Quintana
United States
Sushant@treptalks.com
Full-time
Open to opportunities: Yes
Founder Socials
Jocelyn & Co.
Physical Location - Country: United States
Location - Countries Operating: United States
1-10 (Small Business)
https://jocelynco.com/
Business Type: Product and Service
Category: Retail and Consumer Goods
Subcategory: Food and Beverage
Niche: Gift Items
Segments: B2C and B2B
Structure: Private
Number of founders: 1
Business Book
Productivity Tool or Tip
- AI-enhanced inbox management
Innovative Product or Idea
Startup or Business
Best business advice
Trust your gut.
INTERVIEW VIDEO (Length – 48:09)
PODCAST AUDIO
Intro
Debbie Quintana, founder of Jocelyn & Co., shares how she transitioned from 12+ years in corporate security at Cisco to building a gourmet foods and corporate gifting brand during COVID. Starting with limited capital, she grew the business to $1M in 11 months and $5M in 2022 by leveraging her network, scaling B2B gifting (now 80% of revenue), and using platforms like Faire. Debbie discusses managing cash flow, running a lean team, integrating AI into gifting, and preparing to scale toward $10M.
A New Beginning in Arizona
After spending more than 12 years in corporate security at Cisco, I was laid off and faced a big decision: go back to corporate life or build something of my own. I chose to take a year to reflect. I had already started and sold a few gifting companies, so entrepreneurship wasn’t new to me—but this time, I wanted to be intentional about what came next.
I moved from Silicon Valley to Arizona for a fresh start and a slower pace of life. During COVID, I decided to launch my own specialty food and gourmet gifting brand. One of the biggest inspirations behind it was my granddaughter, Jocelyn. At just six years old, she was already worried about what she wanted to be when she grew up. I told her she didn’t need to have it all figured out—and that Grandma was about to start something she had always dreamed of doing.
I kept that promise and named the company after her. Today, that brand stands as a reminder that it’s never too late to pursue your passion—and that you can reinvent yourself at any stage of life.
Modern Specialty Foods Launch
At Jocelyn & Co., I’ve built two distinct divisions designed to elevate the way people experience gifting.
The first is our specialty foods line. I wanted to bring a modern, elevated aesthetic to a market that often felt outdated. Traditional grocery and gifting packaging didn’t reflect the kind of clean, cohesive look I envisioned—especially coming from a gifting background where presentation matters just as much as the product itself. We launched with just 12 charcuterie-inspired items at a time when charcuterie was really taking off. From there, we continued expanding thoughtfully, and today we offer more than 100 curated specialty food products designed to look beautiful and taste exceptional.
The second division, Jocelyn & Co.’s corporate gifting program (@jocelynco.ai), is focused on strategy-driven gifting. Here, our value proposition goes far beyond sending a nice box. We help businesses use gifting as a powerful tool for client acquisition, employee retention, and relationship building. We believe gifting isn’t just a gesture—it’s a business strategy that, when done intentionally, drives real results.
B2B Professional Assistance
About 80% of my business is focused on B2B, working directly with companies rather than selling primarily to consumers—though expanding our direct-to-consumer side is something I see as an opportunity for growth. My main focus has always been supporting busy business professionals by making gifting simple, strategic, and impactful, helping them strengthen relationships and achieve their business goals without adding more to their already full plates.
Self-Funding Startup Journey
When I started this company, I didn’t have a lot of capital to invest—so I invested my time instead. I did everything myself. I didn’t hire a graphic designer; I learned design on my own. I didn’t know what a dieline was or how to design packaging, so I taught myself. Thank goodness for YouTube. I built my own website, created my own boxes, and handled every detail I possibly could to get the business off the ground.
It wasn’t a massive financial investment in the beginning—it was sweat equity. I funded the company through friends and family loans and, most importantly, positive operating profits. Now, as we continue to grow, I’m in the process of fundraising to support our next phase. But this business was built from the ground up, resourcefully and intentionally, every step of the way.
Outsourcing Gift Products
It’s really a 50/50 model for us.
Before launching my brand, I owned the Gift Designers Association, which I created to bring the gift basket industry together. Through that experience, I built strong relationships with trusted vendors who specialized in serving the gifting space. When it came time to develop my own specialty food line, I went directly to the best partners I knew.
If I needed crackers, I went to the company that made the best crackers. If I needed candy, I partnered with the company known for making exceptional candy. I approached them with a clear vision—this is the product I want to create, this is the quality I’m looking for. I was transparent that volumes would start small, but that I planned to grow.
That strategy allowed me to avoid heavy upfront investments in my own manufacturing facilities. While we do handle some production in-house, the majority of our manufacturing is outsourced to trusted partners who help us deliver the highest quality products at scale.
Gift Basket Transformation
From a specialty food standpoint, I knew the concept would work. The products available in the gift basket industry felt outdated—antiquated, boring, and lacking a fresh, modern aesthetic. At the very least, I knew it would work for my company because it was exactly what I had been looking for and couldn’t find.
What I didn’t expect was how quickly it would take off.
When I launched on the wholesale marketplace Faire, it completely catapulted our growth. We reached our first $1 million in revenue in just 11 months—something I hadn’t anticipated and certainly wasn’t financially prepared for. It was an incredible blessing, but it also came with real challenges.
Suddenly, we had to figure out how to fulfill large volumes of orders on tight timelines. Our packaging is produced overseas, and some of our products—like our breadsticks—come directly from Italy. Managing international supply chains while scaling rapidly required quick thinking, strong partnerships, and a lot of resilience.
I always believed the brand would succeed—but I never imagined we would hit $1 million that fast. It was a defining moment that proved the market was ready for something fresh, modern, and beautifully designed in specialty foods.
Thriving in Gift Market
I got my start through a trade fair, but I also had a major advantage — I own the Gift Designers Association, which connects me with thousands of gift basket company owners around the world. Because I already had strong relationships within the industry, I was able to introduce my product directly to people who knew and trusted me — and they loved it.
That network made it relatively easy to generate business, and it still does today. I don’t have to rely heavily on marketing to get orders. At this stage, the real challenge isn’t demand — it’s managing the financial side of scaling and fronting the growth of the business.
Diverse Market Presence
We serve a diverse and growing customer base across at least 30 different industries in nine countries. Our clients range from specialty food retailers and gifting companies to churches, schools, gyms, and so much more.
It’s incredible to see just how broad our reach has become. What started in one space has expanded far beyond it, and today we’re proud to support organizations of all kinds with our products.
Achieving 5 Million Milestone
We reached $5 million in revenue in 2022 and we did it relatively quickly.
That said, scaling to that level without major outside investment came with financial challenges. I’m incredibly grateful to my friends and family, who truly were my guardian angels during that time and helped us bridge the gaps.
Since then, we’ve continued to see steady, consistent growth and we’re just getting started.
Navigating Inventory Challenges
We sell through two primary platforms: Shopify and Faire. On Shopify, customers pay at checkout, which gives us immediate cash flow to fulfill orders. Faire works differently — we don’t get paid until after the product ships. That means we have to front the cost of inventory to fulfill those orders.
When we suddenly hit our first million dollars in sales, we weren’t prepared for that level of demand. We had launched with 12 products and only about 20 cases of each in stock — but orders were coming in for 100 to 300 cases at a time. It was a massive inventory and cash flow challenge.
Many companies struggle — or even go out of business — during growth spikes like that. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how we managed to pull through. But we did, and that experience made us stronger, smarter, and far more prepared for the growth that followed.
Support Network Growth
My friends and family were all in from the very beginning. They weren’t just supporting me financially — they were right there in the trenches, helping fill orders and watching the growth happen in real time.
They saw the orders coming in. They packed boxes. They experienced the momentum alongside me. They weren’t just cheering from the sidelines — they were part of the process.
Their support showed up in so many ways, and I truly couldn’t have done it without them.
Strategic Growth Planning
As we grew through 2021, 2022, and 2023, the biggest challenge wasn’t demand — it was cash flow. The larger we became, the more capital it required to front inventory and sustain that growth. It just kept getting bigger and bigger.
So in 2024, I made a bold decision: I hit pause. We stopped advertising. We stopped marketing. We stopped pushing for more exposure. I refused to grow faster than we could financially support.
Instead, I spent the entire year strengthening the foundation of the company — improving processes, tightening operations, and making sure every part of the business was scalable and investor-ready. My goal was simple: when the right investor looks at us, they’ll see a company that’s built to scale and built to last.
Now, we’ve officially begun the next chapter. We’re finalizing our pitch deck and starting conversations with investors. It’s challenging — and stretching me in new ways — but we’re ready for it.
Unique Product Offering
We do have competitors, but what truly sets us apart is the breadth and diversity of our product line. With 109 unique products, we’re not just a candy company or a chocolate brand — we offer a wide range of specialty items that serve multiple markets and occasions.
Because of that, we don’t have one single massive direct competitor. From a gifting and specialty food perspective, a company like Harry & David would likely be considered the closest comparison. But we operate differently, and our model allows us to stay nimble, creative, and diversified in ways larger companies often can’t.
At this stage, I don’t feel like we’re losing business to competitors. Our growth has been steady, and our product diversity allows us to serve customers in a way that feels distinct and resilient in the marketplace.
Managing a Seasonal Team
I run a very lean operation by design. On a day-to-day basis, my core team is just nine people. Two of those team members are overseas — one in India and one in Pakistan — and the rest of the team is based locally.
During our peak holiday season, from October through January, we expand significantly. Depending on our gifting and specialty food production needs, our seasonal team can grow to anywhere between 20 and 50 additional team members.
This structure allows us to stay agile and efficient throughout the year while scaling quickly and effectively when demand surges.
Integrating AI in Gifting
In my corporate gifting business, technology is at the heart of what we do. I work with a talented developer in Pakistan and a project coordinator in India who manages special projects — especially as we dive into AI to grow this side of the business.
Locally, my team handles production and fulfillment, keeping our operations running smoothly. And, of course, my husband chips in wherever extra hands are needed, helping keep everything on track.
Personalized Gifting Solutions
At my corporate gifting company, we’re all about making gifting smarter, faster, and more personal. One of the tools we use is our AI-driven gifting preference system. When someone receives a gift from us, they get a link to a quick chatbot survey asking about their hobbies, favorite foods and drinks, and activities they enjoy. My team then curates a gift based entirely on those responses — no generic items, just something we know they’ll truly love.
We’re also launching a “text-to-gift” feature that makes sending a gift as simple as sending a text. You just text “gift” to our number, answer a few quick questions — who, how much, and what message — and we handle the rest. Our goal is to take the guesswork out of gifting and create experiences that are thoughtful, personal, and effortless.
Gift Fulfillment Automation
Our gifting services are fully automated from start to finish. Recipients pre-register, so we already know who they are, and then the system either sends them a personalized gift link or fulfills the order for them. Once the order ships, an invoice is automatically generated and sent. This seamless workflow ensures everything — from gifting to payment — happens smoothly and efficiently.
Surprise Personalized Gifts
With our personalized gifting system, the recipient never knows exactly what they’ll receive — it’s always a surprise. But because we base each gift on their preferences — like hobbies, favorite foods, and drinks — we know 100% they’ll love it.
This level of personalization lets us give our clients a truly thoughtful gifting experience, something I believe sets us apart in an industry that rarely goes this deep.
Effortless Client Gifting
The idea for the texting feature actually came from my own experience as a busy professional. While the concept of personalized gifting wasn’t originally mine, I realized there was a big opportunity to make sending a gift easier for salespeople and busy clients.
Imagine a salesperson walking out of a meeting — they want to send a thank-you gift immediately, but they don’t have time to log into a website or go back to the office. That’s where our “text-to-gift” idea came from. Instead of manually reaching out to me to handle it, they can simply text “gift,” answer a few quick questions, and we take care of the rest. It’s about making gifting instant, seamless, and effortless for people who are always on the go.
Lucky Developer Partnership
I did a lot of the initial tech work myself since I have some IT experience from my background in physical security — though it’s not the same as full IT or Cisco-level expertise.
Luckily, I was referred to an incredible developer in Pakistan, and from the very first one I connected with, it’s been amazing. He’s been exceptional at understanding my vision and helping bring it to life, making the technology side of the business run smoothly and exactly how I imagined.
Efficient Communication Process
We developed a really strong communication process that lets us work efficiently and move fast. My developer built the system incredibly quickly and thoroughly, and I keep adding new ideas and tweaks — I’m sure he’s tired of me by now!
But he always makes it happen, which has been amazing. That partnership has allowed us to keep innovating and improving our technology without slowing down.
Scaling Warehouse Solutions
We have our own warehouse, and I have to give a shoutout to Saltbox — it’s a communal warehouse environment that’s been a game-changer for us. It offers shared resources like docks and receiving personnel, which makes operations smoother.
We moved from a traditional warehouse to Saltbox, and the best part is the flexibility. During the holidays, when we need extra space, we can easily scale up without a hitch. We handle all of our own fulfillment, shipping, and packaging ourselves — no third-party outsourcing. It gives us complete control and keeps our operations efficient and reliable.
Optimizing Space Efficiency
Absolutely. Our previous traditional warehouse cost us three times what we’re paying now, so moving to Saltbox has been a huge win for our margins.
The flexibility is incredible — during the holiday season, our business can be 15 to 20 times its normal volume, so we need the extra space. But for the rest of the year, we don’t want to pay for unused square footage. Saltbox lets us scale up and down easily, making it a perfect fit for our seasonal needs.
International Shipping Success
We’re shipping to nine different countries, primarily through Faire, which makes international shipping much easier. Each country has its own regulations, paperwork, and rules, and I didn’t want to learn all of that myself — Faire handles it seamlessly, printing everything we need for each shipment.
Our products have been well received globally. France and Italy have been our biggest markets, with London following closely. Items like candy, nuts, fruits, and crackers have been especially popular. Honestly, international demand hasn’t been all that different from the U.S. people everywhere seem to love what we send.
Success on FAIRE Marketplace
When I first started on Faire, I was fortunate to already know some people there, so they were really accommodating in getting me onboard and showcasing my products as a new vendor.
Faire works by letting buyers search for what they want crackers, dried fruit, etc. and our products show up in those searches. Of course, there are dozens of companies selling similar items, but buyers consistently choose us. What sets us apart is our packaging: bright, light, and visually appealing. That fresh, attractive look helped catapult our business and made us stand out as a new, exciting vendor on the platform.
Corporate Gifting Strategies
In corporate gifting, a lot of our new business comes from referrals, which speaks to how well our approach works. We don’t just send gifts we look at a client’s entire workflow. Whether it’s client acquisition, retention, or employee appreciation, we design gifting strategies that fit their industry and goals.
For example, a client might close a home loan and want to send a thoughtful closing gift, then follow up next year with a home anniversary card and a small gift. Others might refer new clients and want to send them something as well. We handle all of that, creating a seamless, holistic gifting experience that leaves a lasting impression.
Our vision is to tell that story broadly and grow our client base. Any business with clients can benefit from our service, and there’s a huge market of potential clients out there ready for what we offer.
Future Marketing Strategies
So far, we’ve done a little marketing here and there a few podcasts, PR features, and news stories but we’ve never run paid ads. Honestly, we haven’t actively dialed up our marketing on purpose.
That will change once we secure investment. We already have a clear plan in place, with creatives ready to go, so we can execute our campaigns in-house without needing a third-party agency. Our main focus will be LinkedIn, because that’s where professionals who can use our services are most active. Once we launch, we’ll lean in hard on telling our story and showing how our corporate gifting solutions make a real impact for our clients.
Mistake made, Lesson learned
I’ve definitely made my share of mistakes along the way and some of the biggest lessons have come from finances and partnerships. Early on, I didn’t fully anticipate how quickly the company could grow, and I wish I had planned more carefully for scaling maybe by securing a bank loan or investor upfront instead of just testing the waters. Taking a pause to reflect and plan is something I now strongly recommend to any business owner.
I’ve also learned the hard way about partnerships and who to trust. For example, we once had a gifting company buy from us and never pay over $30,000 lost. More recently, a partner didn’t work out because I didn’t ask enough questions upfront. My biggest takeaway is the importance of due diligence: really understanding what you’re stepping into and the potential outcomes, both positive and negative. Trust is important, but so is verifying the details before moving forward.
Transformative Work Platforms
There are three digital tools that I absolutely can’t run my business without.
First is Slack. It’s completely transformed how my team communicates and collaborates. No more endless emails or texts everything happens in one place, and we’re way more efficient because of it.
Second is Notion. While Slack helps with messaging, Notion lets us track projects properly. Everyone has full visibility into tasks, deadlines, and progress, which keeps the whole team aligned and accountable.
Third, and this might sound surprising is our website live chat, where I’m personally available to engage with clients. They know they’re chatting directly with the CEO, which speeds up communication and builds trust. I handle questions directly, then pass things on as needed, and it’s dramatically improved client engagement.
Rapid Fire Segment
Book Recommendation for Entrepreneurs
One book that truly changed my perspective is Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk.
I read it many years ago, and it completely shifted how I thought about building a brand and leveraging passion in business. It’s not just tactical — it’s mindset-driven. That book really changed everything for me.
An Innovative Product I’m Excited About
There’s a lot of innovation happening in the gifting space right now, especially as we move away from traditional gift baskets.
I’m particularly excited about what Lindsay Forge is building at Little Lux Cards. She has created an entirely new type of gift card packaging concept that feels fresh and elevated. It’s thoughtful, modern, and representative of where gifting is headed. I love seeing that kind of creativity enter the market.
Productivity Tip
One major focus for me right now is integrating AI into email management. Email is still one of the biggest bottlenecks for most CEOs — including me.
I’m currently testing different AI tools that help organize, prioritize, and streamline inboxes so I can focus only on what truly needs my attention. We’ve innovated so much in tech, yet email has largely stayed the same. I believe there’s a huge opportunity there, and I’m actively looking for smarter systems to manage it more efficiently.
Brands I’m Watching
There are so many brands doing incredible work right now — it’s honestly hard to keep up.
Little Lux Cards is doing fantastic things. I’m also excited about my friend Deb’s rebrand from Baskets Delore to Moda Gifting, which beautifully reflects her partnership with her daughter and the evolution of their brand.
And while it’s not a startup, one of my absolute favorite brands to watch is Mike’s Hot Honey. From a collaboration and PR standpoint, they execute at an exceptional level. I know their CEO, and I’m constantly paying attention to how they build partnerships and visibility.
Why Gifting Matters in an AI-Driven World
We’re living in a world dominated by automation, AI, and digital communication. But an email or LinkedIn message simply does not create the same emotional response as a thoughtful gift. Gifting gets attention. It creates engagement. It builds real connection.
Using gifting strategically — whether to win a new client, onboard a team member, nurture a lead, or even stay connected with candidates who didn’t get the job — creates a completely different experience than traditional outreach.
When I explain to clients the difference between doing nothing and implementing intentional gifting, they immediately understand the impact. It accelerates relationships. It increases goodwill. It differentiates their brand.
Once businesses truly see that, they’re all in.
Best Business Advice
The Best Business Advice I’ve Received
Trust your gut.
Every time I’ve ignored that inner voice — whether in hiring, partnerships, or client decisions — it has created problems. When you’re younger, it’s harder to recognize what that instinct feels like. But experience teaches you to listen closely.
Now, I trust my intuition every single time. It has never steered me wrong.
Episode Summary
Debbie Quintana, founder of Jocelyn & Company, transitioned from corporate security at Cisco to entrepreneurship after a layoff, launching her gourmet foods and corporate gifting brand during COVID. Bootstrapping with limited capital, she scaled to $1M in 11 months and $5M in 2022 by leveraging B2B gifting (now 80% of revenue) and platforms like Faire. She runs a lean, largely outsourced operation, is integrating AI into gifting, and is now refining operations and fundraising to scale toward $10M.
Interview Transcript
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey there, entrepreneurs. My name is Sushant and welcome to Treptalks. This is a show where I interview successful e-commerce entrepreneurs, business executives, and thought leaders, and ask them questions about their business stories, and also dive deep into some of the strategies and tactics that they have used to start and grow their businesses.
And today I’m really excited to welcome Debbie Quintana to the show. Debbie is the founder of Jocelyn and Company, which is a specialty foods and gourmet gifting brand. And Debbie is also leading Hero Care packages, a company specializing in curated care packages for military service members. And today I’m going to ask Debbie a few questions about her entrepreneur journey and some of the strategies and tactic that she has used to grow her businesses.
Now before we dive into this interview, if you enjoy this content, please make sure to hit the like and subscribe button. And for more interviews like this, please visit us at treptaks.com. And with that, Debbie, welcome and thank you so much for joining me today at Treptalks.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Oh, thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So I was reading a little bit about you and your background, and I read that you were involved in IT security with Cisco, and at a certain point, I believe during COVID. You decided to start your entrepreneurial journey and start Jocelyn and Company. So maybe, um, we can start there. Maybe you can share a little bit about you, about your story.
Sure. Um, seems like you were in the corporate world and you kind of transitioned into entrepreneurship. What motivated you and, and why? Jocelyn and company?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So I was in, um, corporate security for Cisco for a little over 12 years. Um, got laid off, took a, took a package and decided that I didn’t really wanna go back into corporate.
Um, and so I took a year to, um, decide if I really wanted. I already was in gifting. I already had a gifting company, and I just took a year to decide if I wanted to continue down that path. Um, and ultimately, obviously the answer was yes. Um, and so I had. Started a couple of gifting companies, sold them, moved to Arizona.
I wanted to get outta Silicon Valley and kind of have a fresh start, a little slower pace. Um, so I moved to Arizona, and you’re right, COVID um, happened and I decided that I wanted to start my own specialty food brand for a whole bunch of reasons. Um, and one of those reasons was my granddaughter. So at age six, she was contemplating her.
Um, life and what she was gonna do when she grew up and what career she wanted and had all this pressure on her. Um, and so
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: at At age six?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. At age six. Okay. I mean, she’s really intelligent, like she’s smart, and she was legitimately concerned about what she was gonna do with her life.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Um, and so I told her, I said, don’t worry about it right now.
You can do anything you want at any given time. It, it, it doesn’t have, you don’t have to make decisions at age six. Um, and I said, and you watch, ’cause Grandma’s gonna do something that she’s always wanted to do. Um, and I’m gonna name it after you, and that’s what I did. Her name’s Jocelyn.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. I mean, that, that’s, uh, so what does the, what, what does she think about this?
Like, is she part of this company or?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, well, fa fast forward, she spends every summer with me and this, this summer, she’s 16 now. Um, and she decided that, uh, she wanted to start filling orders. So she’s filling orders.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, it’s uh, probably such a great training, like, you know, in business. Absolutely.
Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about your products? Like what, um, is this, uh, of course it’s a specialty foods, but there’s also a gifting aspect of it. Like what’s the value proposition?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, so I’ve got two different divisions of Jocelyn and Co. One division is specialty foods. And really what I wanted to do is bring a modern aesthetic, um, to the market.
So if you look at traditional packaging that you find in gifting and in grocery stores, um, they aren’t exactly, uh, the most pleasing, uh, to the eye. Being in gifting, I wanted something that was going to match and work well together and look modern. So I started a, the specialty food line that started with just, you know, 12 products that were charcuterie related.
Um, charcuterie was very hot then. It was just hitting, hitting really heavily. Um, and then we ended up adding a more product. And more products. And now I think we have over, over a hundred, about 109 different products. So that’s one. The second one, which is@jocelynco.ai is our corporate gifting program.
And this is where we really work. Um, and our value proposition really is about, uh, client acquisition, employee retention, um, and really using gifting as a vehicle to, um, to be successful with whatever. Um, with that, whatever capacity of business that you hold.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah. To me it seems like there’s probably a much bigger market on the B2B side for something like this than, uh, direct to consumer.
Like, uh, I mean, during COVID, I, I can see there probably was a lot of demand on the consumer side, but do you still see a similar, uh, demand or are you more focused on that?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, I mean, I, I would say 80% of my business is business to business. We, we don’t do a ton of direct to consumer. Probably should be doing more.
Um, but really my focus is helping busy business professionals.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. That makes a lot of sense. So when you got started, you said that you already had some sort of a gifting, uh, or specialty food business.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Mm-hmm.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, what kind of, um. Did it require, I mean you obviously, you said you started with a small number of products.
Uh, did it require a lot of investment? Like what was the process like of getting your products, packaging it, and uh, did it require a lot of upfront investment?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: You know, I didn’t have a lot of money, so no. I mean, I couldn’t, I couldn’t invest a lot of money in the company, so I did everything myself. I didn’t hire a graphic designer.
I learned to do that myself. Um, I didn’t know how to design a box or what a dieline was. I had to learn all of those things. Thank God for YouTube. Um, and so I did everything. I did everything I possibly could myself. I learned how to. Make my own website and, um, do all, do all of the things to really get me started.
Um, so it wasn’t a massive investment for me. I’m fundraising right now because we are getting to the point where I do need to get an investment. Um, but I have, I have funded the company Friends and Family Loans and positive Operating Profits.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, so right now you said you need investment. Is it really to scale the business or,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: yeah, we really would like to scale to 10 million.
So our, that’s our, that’s our goal. Um, I would say somewhere between six to eight years we’d like to get there.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Mm-hmm. Um, what does your product, um. I guess supply chain or manufacturing or creation process looks like? Is it in-house, is it outsourced? How, how does it all work?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. It’s a little 50 50.
So when I, um, prior to getting into the gifting industry, I owned, um, the gift designers association and I have had started that to really bring the gift basket industry together. And as a part of that association, there were a lot of vendors. Um, that were working with the gifting industry. And so I just picked the vendors that I had good relationships with and I went to them and said, I need you to make this product for me.
Um, and, you know, if it was a cracker, I went to the best company that makes crackers. Um, and if it was, uh, candy, I went to the best company that made candy. Um, and I said, I just asked them if they could make this special pro special product for me and this is what I’m looking for and I have small volumes at first, but I’m gonna grow.
Um, and I. I move forward with that. So it was nice that I didn’t have to go make major investments in my own manufacturing. We do some of our own manufacturing, but the majority of it is outsourced.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And those vendors were willing to accommodate easily, or like Did they give you that time? Yeah,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: no, they were great.
They were absolutely great. Every single. Yeah.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And. Any business? Any new business? I guess, you know, the big, big challenge is once you have your business name registered, once you have your product ready, how do you get to your first customers? So can you share a little bit about, you know, your initial traction mm-hmm.
And even like, I know you had some, some, some, uh, experience in this before. Like did you have a sense that this is something that. That, that there was a demand in the market or, you know, uh, it’s going to actually work in the market? Or was it kind of, uh, short in the dark?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: I mean, I, I think from a specialty food standpoint, I knew it was gonna work for sure, because the gift basket supplies that were out there were really old, um, and antiquated and boring, and just did not have a fresh and modern look.
So I knew for, at a minimum for me and my company, it was gonna work. But, um, I went on to a wholesale marketplace called Fair. Um, and it really, it really cal catapulted our business. We did our first million in 11 months, which was not expected in any way, shape or form, nor was I prepared for that financially.
Um, so it was a really great blessing, but at the same time, a little bit of a curse because we really had to navigate, um, how we were gonna fill those orders in a timely manner, how we were gonna get product in. Um, my packaging, for example, is made overseas. My breadsticks come from Italy. Um, and so it was a little bit of a challenge to try to, okay, how are we gonna make this happen?
Um, but the second I went to market, it catapulted. So, um, I was of course thoroughly happy because I knew that, um, I, I had a, I knew that it, that was gonna happen, but not to that extent, I guess I should say. I didn’t think that we would do a million dollars that quickly.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. I mean that’s, uh, that’s a good problem to have, I guess.
Uh, yeah. So it was really, you got your traction through fair or was it, uh, anything else?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: It was, it was through fair. But, but keep in mind I also own the Gift Designers Association, and so I was connected to, you know, thousands of gift basket company owners globally. Right. I already knew all of these people, so I was able to bring my, bring my product to, to market to them too, and they all loved it.
So it was relatively easy for me to get business. It still is. Um, I don’t have to do a lot of marketing. I, I really, it’s not difficult for me to get orders right now. It’s more about the financial piece of fronting, the, fronting the business.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So if I hear you correctly, you are kind of more on the supply side of things and all these, um.
Gifts, uh, I guess gift, I don’t know what you call them, uh, retailer or like they’re the ones who are buying from, from you.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. Yeah. We sell to, we sell to at least 30 different industries, nine countries, um, anywhere from specialty food retailers to churches, schools, uh, gyms, uh, gifting companies, obviously, like we just sell to everybody.
It’s incredible to me to see how big, how wide our customer, uh, base is in terms of industries.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And so you got your, uh, traction a million within the first 11 months. Did you see that? Um, did you feel like a consistent growth year over year, even after COVID, uh, went away?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. Yeah. We, we got to 5 million in 2022, relatively easy.
Um, again, it was a struggle financially to do that without a major investment. Um, my friends and family where my, were my guardian angels there. Um, but yeah, we, we see consistent growth. Absolutely.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So let’s talk a little bit about that financial aspect of things, because, you know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs kind of, um, I mean on the one hand it’s a good problem to have, but it also I think probably kills a lot of businesses.
Mm-hmm. Um. Was the financial challenge really, that you are getting a lot of orders, but now you have to figure out how am I going to, uh, get enough products in hand to be able to fulfill them? Correct. Is it really about, uh, having the cash on hand? Is that the challenge?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, I mean, so if you look at, I, we sell on two different environments, right?
We sell on Shopify and we sell on Faire on Shopify. If my clients place orders there, they pay. When they place the order, no problem. I have the cash. Great on Faire You don’t get paid until you ship, so you basically have to front the money to have the amount of inventory that you need to fill those orders.
So when that million dollars happened, oh my gosh. I mean, we weren’t ready at all. I think maybe we had. You know, out of the initial 12 products we launched with, maybe we had 20 cases of each and we were selling a hundred, 300 cases. So, um, that was a major, major challenge. And you’re right, a lot of companies do go out of business because of that.
And I don’t know how, how I pulled through, now I look back and think, how did I even do that?
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Mm-hmm.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Um, but definitely my friends and family for sure.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. Okay. So you, you were, uh, instead of selling to banks or someone, uh, you were going to your friends and family and you were like, listen, I’ve got so many orders I need to fulfill.
So did you have to kind of give like some sort of a return on investment also to them, or,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: yeah. No, they were all about it. I mean, I was able, they were helping me fill orders, right. So they, they saw it, I mean, they saw the orders come in. Um, they were able to, to, you know, kind of be involved in this growing process that we were having.
So. My friends and family definitely stepped up in a variety of ways, not just financial.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So now, given that you know that your primary target market is B2B, like, do you also, of course, you’re, you’re selling through fair, but are you also, do you also have, like, but you said that you don’t have a sales problem, so I mean, I was going to ask you, are you creating like a sales team that’s, you know, actively reaching out to new industries so forth, but you’re saying you’re, you have more, more sales that you can handle.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, so, so this is probably gonna rub a lot of people the wrong way, but I’m gonna tell you the truth. I stopped marketing until we get an investment.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Because my concern is that, you know, a, as we rose into 20, 21, 20 22, 20, 23, and so forth, um, it just got to the point where it just continued to be difficult to front the amount of money.
It got bigger and bigger and bigger. Um, and so in 2024, I put the brakes on any advertising marketing that we were doing. Literally said a stop. Stop putting our US out there. Stop marketing, stop doing all of those things until we get an investment. And so I spent all of 2024 making process improvements, getting my company to be like as perfect as I possibly could be.
So when an investor does look at my company, they see that everything we’ve built is scalable, um, and is on point. And so now we just started the process and I, it is so hard. Um, but we just started the process of, uh, completing our pitch deck and now starting to reach out to some investors.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now that, so once
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: we get an investment, then I’ll, then I’ll rev up the marketing program again.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay. That makes a lot of sense. But that, that tells me that, you know, that in this space there’s uh, I mean there’s more demand than the people who want to supply. So there’s like an opportunity, like do you see a lot of competitors who are, do you have competitors that are coming up in this space?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. I mean, there are some competitors, but the thing with my company is that we.
We have 109 products that are all very different, right? So we’re not just a candy company or just a chocolate company. Um, we really cover a wide ride, a wide, um, amount of different products, right? So we don’t have any massive competitors. I think that from a gifting and maybe specialty food standpoint, obviously Harry and David would be probably our biggest competitor.
Um, and I’m never gonna be able to compete with them, at least I don’t think so. Hmm. Um. Yeah, from a competition standpoint, I, I don’t feel that I’m not, um, I’m not feeling like I’m losing business to a competitor. I don’t, I don’t see that anyways.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hmm. Okay. Um, I mean that’s, that’s so interesting. Um, what does your team look like right now?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: So I run really, really lean. Um, we have a seasonal team that comes in during the holiday. Obviously from October to January, we have a seasonal team that could be anywhere from 20 to 50 people depending on what our gifting and specialty food production is On a day-to-day basis. I run nine, nine different nine people.
Um, uh, two of them are overseas, so one in India, one in Pakistan, um, and then the rest of my team is here locally.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And so most of these people, I’m assuming that in your business, like you need customer service mm-hmm. You need people who can fulfill, um, yes. Who else? Who else? Uh,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: I, I, um, yeah, so I have a lot of technology integration within my corporate gifting company, so I have a developer.
Um, in Pakistan. Um, and I have, um, a kind of a admin type person that’s in India that works for me, um, that handles all of our special projects. And we’re really in growth mode right now with the corporate gifting side of our business because we’re really diving into ai. Um, so she handles all of those projects and then, yeah, we’ve got production.
The rest of them are production people. And then of course, my husband who’s free labor, um, he picks up all anything that’s on the outskirts that needs to get done too.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So that’s, that’s so interesting. You mentioned ai. I’m, I’m very curious to know how businesses are leveraging ai. Yeah. Can you share, share what you are doing with ai?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. So one of the, one of, we have two different technologies in the gifting company right now, and one of them is, um, gifting preference. So if I was to send you a gift, you would get a link to an AI chat bot that basically says, tell us what your favorite hobbies are. What are your favorite food and beverages?
What type of activities do you like to do? And what happens is once you complete that, um, survey, we call it a survey, um, my team will curate a gift based on your responses. So instead of getting a generic gift that somebody else picked out for you with things maybe you don’t like, you are now going to get a gift that we know 150% you’re gonna love because we’re sending things directly against what you said.
So that’s one. One technology that we have, the other technology that we’re launching hopefully tomorrow, um, is text to gift. So instead of having to log onto a website to send a gift, you literally will be able to type the word gift to our number, and it takes you through four questions to ask you who do you wanna gift?
How much do you wanna spend, what’s the card message? Um, and then we take it from there. So we’re really trying to make gifting easier. Um, and faster, more personalized, um, than it, than it has in the past. No more generic gifts. We wanna make sure that we are, um, that we’re sending something that we know you’re gonna love.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So basically this text to gift is person, go person puts your text number mm-hmm. On the phone. They say they write something like gift or something.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yep.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: And then they get prompts and you ask them, what’s your preference? You know, who do you want to send? What’s your, uh, amount? And then based on that, uh, do they get a link to pay or how does that work?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, we, they have to pre-register for that service, so we already know who they are. So it goes through a workflow where we send the gift link to the person or we fulfill the order for them, and then once the order is shipped, they get an invoice. So that whole workflow is automated all, all the way through, um, the time that they, that they pay.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. That is so interesting. Yeah. So e-commerce in a way. Will become where a person doesn’t go to the website,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: right?
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: But rather they are sharing their preferences and you are giving them options that they can select. And then basically the. Uh, you know, either they, they’re automatically built or they, they’re taken to some sort of a checkout process,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: you know, and the recipient, if they say that, if they tell us that they like to hike and they, um, enjoy red wine, and they, you know, prefer pizza and pasta, when they receive that gift, it’s a surprise to them.
They don’t know what they’re gonna receive. So we know a hundred percent that they are getting something that they love. Um, and we’re really able to give our client that level of personalization to that person, which is to me, something that the industry really isn’t doing.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So is this idea, did you come up on your own?
Because I mean, this is the first time I’m hearing an e-commerce business really come up with such an idea for, uh,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: yeah, no, this, this actual idea came from another company that I was doing some work for. Um, so I can’t take credit for that. Okay. Um, the texting part of it was my idea because I was really thinking about.
Who’s the salesperson that’s walking out of a, a sales meeting? They just met with a client. Um, and how can they send a thank you gift without having to go back to the office or get on their laptop to send a gift? Right? They can walk out of their meetings, text gift to us, and tell us what they want, and off we go.
Um, so I, you know, looking at a. The, I mean, I’m a busy business professional. I don’t wanna have to log into a website if I don’t have to, um, if I can simply text somebody and say, handle this for me. Um, which is what a lot of my clients were doing anyways. They were literally just texting me saying, Hey Debbie, um, I just talked to this client, she’s not feeling well.
Do you mind sending her a get well gift and, you know, blah, blah, blah. Um, and so I just decided to, for, to kind of make that process a little bit more, uh, uh, more technology based as opposed to them texting me and then I have to take action.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now being an IT professional yourself and you know, having the corporate background, I mean.
I would think that if you were implementing the solution, like in the corporate world, like and hiring big agency, they would charge millions of dollars to implement this. Like, and you said you were working with someone in Pakistan or something?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we, I did a lot of the upfront work myself.
’cause I’ve got a, I’ve, I can do some IT stuff. I was in physical security. I wasn’t an IT security, so I didn’t really. Related to it Cisco anyways. Um, but I got really lucky. Uh, somebody referred me to a developer in Pakistan and he has been exceptional. I just, I, I just cannot believe that at the, the very first one I found was just so wonderful.
Um, and he’s just been really, really great at, you know, kind of going along with my vision of what I wanted. I
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: mean that, that is awesome. Uh, because
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: lucky
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: usually it doesn’t work. Yeah. Even like people you’re trying to work in those like Pakistan or India, like you, it’s, it’s a lot of work for you to try to explain things and mm-hmm.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Absolutely.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: It’s working.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. We, you really developed a really strong communication process so that we could work efficiently and quickly. Um, and he built this for me very, very fast. Like he really has done a thorough job and I keep adding to it. I’m sure he’s tired of me. By now, but I, well, maybe we could do this instead and maybe this could say this.
And so he makes it happen for me, which is so great.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Um. Can you talk a little bit about your warehousing and fulfillment process? So you get all the items, are you warehousing in-house? Are you working with like a third party logistics? How do you, uh, ship out your products?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, so we have our own warehouse, um, and what I loved, I have to plug Saltbox for a second.
Um, saltbox is a communal warehouse environment and so there’s shared resource and. Resources in terms of docs and receiving, receiving personnel and all these different things. Um, so we were in a regular warehouse and then we just moved to a commun to Saltbox, which is a communal warehouse. Um, and the great thing about this environment is we have our regularized warehouse.
But during the holiday, if we need extra space, they have the ability for us to scale into extra space, which is wonderful. Um, and so we do all of our own fulfillment, all of our own shipping, all of our own packaging, um, ourselves. I don’t use a third party at all.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Well, this is a very interesting idea, so it’s almost like.
You, you’re working with a shared w uh, warehouse where, and you, it’s basically scalable. So at times where you need more space, they can accommodate you at times where you need less space, you can scale down. And so you are, I guess, your pricing scales up and down according to how much you’re using.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Absolutely. And our, the previous, you know, traditional warehouse that we were in was triple what I’m spending right now. So this really worked us, worked out for us from, you know, helping with my margin, um, and also being able to scale up and down in terms of space when I need it. I don’t have to have more space.
I mean, during the holiday season our business is, you know, 15, 20 times what it normally is. So I had to get a warehouse that was going to accommodate that. And then the rest of the months out of the year, I’m not using all of that space. Um, so this was a really easy decision for us to move into Saltbox.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. That’s interesting because I think at uh, during the holiday season, everybody would have more, uh, space requirement. Yes. And uh, so I guess, you know, they’re able to work with that.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Um, now I, I know you mentioned that you’re, you’re, uh, shipping out to 11 or so countries.
Mm-hmm. Um, what is, I’m assuming still US is your biggest market and, um, can you share a little bit about, you know, what other regions you’re shipping out to? And maybe also how. What have you learned about your customers? Like are people in other countries, regions have different preferences for gifting the different ways of gifting versus, you know, how we do it in North America?
Like, what have you learned about your customers?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, I mean I think that, um, we’re shipping into nine different countries and we’re doing that through fair. So what I didn’t, we do some international shipping as well ourselves, but I didn’t want to have to learn how to ship into each individual country.
Each country has its own regulations, its own rules, um, its own paperwork that you have to fill out. And so we started doing international shipping through fair. They already had it figured out. When you go to ship a product, it prints out whatever you need to include with the gift. Um, and I will say that our products have been well received, um, in all nine countries.
I mean, there isn’t any type of algorithm in terms of what, um, I’m seeing on, on in certain countries. Right. Um, and quite honestly, France and Italy have been our largest and I would say say, well, London likes us too, but. We’ve done a lot, um, in those countries in terms of just, you know, shipping crackers and not necessarily cheese, but the candy products and our nuts and fruits and things like that have been really popular out there.
Um, and it’s not ever really any different than here in the States. There really hasn’t been anything that stands out.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I would say it’s surprising because, you know, you would think France and Italy, they’re like, I mean, Italy is a very, uh, why, why would they want food from the us? Yeah. Same with France.
It’s like, it’s a very, uh, um, I guess, uh, culinary culture.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. No, I think the, the majority of the people that are buying our product outside of the United States are gifting companies in specialty food stores.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Okay.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: That’s the kind of the two areas that I see. Um, and probably about 50 50 of each.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So I, so I guess maybe there’s a demand for gifts from other countries, like people want to try out things from other countries,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: web-based products.
Absolutely. And fair’s done a really good job, um, of entering those markets and hyping it up as well. So we do really well there.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now Fair is a very interesting platform. I’m not too familiar with it. Um, but I’m thinking that it’s similar to Amazon, but for wholesale.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Exactly.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Are you, so, so you list your, yeah.
So you list your business and your products, but do you. Do they also market you or do you market it yourself? Like how do people or businesses discover you in on Fair?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. I mean, I, they do have, uh, they, they just released a bit of a marketing program now that you can sign up for. But um, prior to that, when I first started on FAIR, I knew some of the people at Fair, so they were very accommodating.
To, you know, get me on board and to, you know, showcase my product as a, you know, a new, a new, a new vendor. Um, but what happens on fair is somebody is going on onto fair and searching for crackers, or they’re searching for dried fruit. Um, and we’re showing up because that’s what we sell. So it’s just a matter of, yeah, there’s probably.
50 companies on there that are selling crackers, but which product do they like the most? Right. And they really are picking, they’re picking our packaging really. They really do like the aesthetic of our packaging. So it’s bright and light. Um, and so that’s where, that’s how we really catapulted our business is, is just being that vendor on fair that was kind of fresh and new.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now, you said that you were very involved in the packaging or branding side of your business initially. Did you like come up with your own branding? Did you work with someone? Uh, uh, like some designer to come up with. I mean, your packaging or your branding is very clean, and of course, you know, it looks classy.
Uh, did you come up with this or?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: I did. I couldn’t afford to hire any type of a graphics company or anybody. I did all of that myself. Yeah.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. I mean, congratulations. That,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: thank
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: you. That looks great. Thank, um. So in terms of your future vision for your business, I know you said that you’re looking for investment to scale and uh, really, um, bring your business to that 10 million, uh, mark.
Um, how do you see, do you just see your business growing in size or do you see, um, adding more products to your business or getting into different other categories? What do you see your business, let’s say, five years down the road?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, we’re gonna, we’re gonna stay where we’re at in terms of products, we’ll probably, you know, we usually add two or three per year.
Um, but I’m not going to, I’m not gonna grow by adding more. We’re gonna grow with our existing client and in gaining more new clients, right. Especially in the corporate gifting space. Um, because there’s a huge open market for that for us. So we’re really going to start to, once we do get that type of investment, and we can handle.
Filling orders and same day shipping and all of the goals that we wanna hit in terms of, um, in terms of all those metrics. Um, and we start advertising. We’re really, really gonna push hard into the corporate gifting space and, and really grow that side of it. The, the specialty food space will continue to grow as we continue to, uh, release a few new products here and there.
I, I don’t have an issue on that side. I just really want to, uh, grow the corporate gifting side of things. So I, I would hope in the next five years that we have, you know, hopefully gone to, I don’t know, 20, 30 times our client base, um, on the corporate gifting side.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Now, on the corporate gifting side, um, are they buying you, buying from you through fair or are you planning to have like a sales team too?
To start targeting the corporate? Uh,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: yeah. So from a, from a corporate gifting standpoint, a lot of our new business is coming from referral. And so we have, you know, because we have this unique approach to, you are a corporate, you are a corporate business professional. Let’s take a look at your industry.
Everything you need to do in terms of client reten, client acquisition, employee retention, and how can we set up different workflows from a gifting standpoint to support you in that regard. Um, and so we’re really meeting a lot of new clients that are saying, gosh, I just closed a home loan, uh, for this client.
Can you send them a, um, a closing gift? And then next year, can you send them a home anniversary card and a $20 gift? And they just wrote, they just sent me a referral. Can you send them a $20 gift and a card? And really looking at it from a holistic standpoint of everything that they need to do, um, to make a good impression with their client.
Right? Um, and you definitely do that through a physical gift that they’re going to receive. We really want to start to tell that story, um, and really grow that client base. Anybody who has clients is gonna be able, is, should be using our service in some way, shape, or form. And there’s plenty of, there’s plenty of those people out there that we can acquire.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, I mean, I, I can think of like maybe real estate, maybe there’s a big, big thing for real estate.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Absolutely.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, in every entrepreneur’s journey, there’s always, well, before I go there, um, I wanted to quickly ask you, um. Marketing and advertising. Have you, to me, it seems like you have, you, you, you haven’t, or you haven’t had the need to do a lot of marketing or like paid advertising and so forth.
Um, but I guess as you are going to start targeting corporate customers and so forth, that is something that you will pursue. Uh, can you talk a little bit about if you have done any, like have you had any PR exposure or marketing, uh, campaigns? Advertising campaigns, and, uh.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, I mean, we’ve had a little bit here and there and we’ve done a little bit here and there.
I’ve never done paid ads. Um, but we have done, you know, I’ve done other podcasts. I’ve done other, you know, PR news stories and been highlighted in different, different places, which has brought us some, you know, brought us some attention, which is great. But quite honestly, yes. I mean we really haven’t on purpose been dialing up, um, or implementing our marketing plan.
We have one, we know what we’re gonna do when we do get an investment, we know what we’re gonna fire. We have our creatives already made ready to go. Um, so that when we do get an investment, we can really dispatch those, um, and we will do that in-house. Because we know how to, I don’t necessarily need to hire a third party company to do that.
Um, however, one of my clients does that. So we’ll see. Maybe we can, uh, maybe we can trade some business. We’ll see. Um, but I, yeah, I mean, I know what I wanna do once I do have an investment in terms of, of marketing and advertising. Um, and really we’re gonna, we are really going to lean in heavily on LinkedIn.
That’s where all of everybody on LinkedIn can use our company. And so that’s really gonna be our, our main focus is really telling our story and what we can do for. Do for our clients through LinkedIn.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Um,
in every entrepreneur journey, there’s always, uh, mistakes made, lessons learned, failures. Um, since you’ve started your business, I mean, it seems like. Or at least what I hear is things have been going pretty, pretty well. Um, have you had any failures or lessons learned, mistakes made? Uh, what, what was the lesson for you?
What can other entrepreneurs learn from your mistakes?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Sure. I mean, how much time do we have, right? I mean, sure. Yeah. I mean, I mean, we’ve made some mistakes for sure. I have made some mistakes. I shouldn’t say we, I have made some mistakes. I think one of them was, um, the financial end of this. It’s not really, you know, thinking about.
How big the company could grow so quickly, and if I would have thought about that and kind of had a, some type of foresight on that. Um, I would’ve done that a little bit differently, right? I would’ve tried to go to a bank and get a bank loan and, and do it the way that most companies do it or try to get an investor at the gate.
Um, for me, I think I was kind of testing the waters to see if this was gonna work and take off, and then I intended to, to do something like that, but it just started happening so quickly. Um, I didn’t pause and I should have, I should have paused more. I definitely recommend that to business owners is to really take the time to stop, get outta the madness for a minute and really reflect, um, on what you’re doing and if you’re making good decisions in that regard.
Um, I think the other thing is I’ve had, I’ve had some failed partnerships and relationships that just didn’t work for us. Um, we’ve, we had a, a another gifting company that was buying, uh, cheese from us and they’d never paid us, and that was a lot of money. Like north of $30,000.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hmm.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Um, so, you know, there’s some decision making there in terms of how, who do you trust?
Who do you give net 30 to? Um, so, you know, there’s been some of that that’s happened. We just recently had a, a partner that didn’t work out for us and I really wish that I would have asked for more information at the beginning, um, because the numbers that they were giving us weren’t adding up. And so, um, I think my lesson learned, my biggest.
Lesson learned is more due diligence all the way around really to better understand what you’re walking into, what you’re doing, and what the potential positive impact could be. A lot of us are like, okay, well if it doesn’t work out, no big deal. We only invested $10,000. Um, but what if it does? Right? So if it does work out, uh, what are the, what are the implications there?
So a little bit more due d due diligence on my part and not being so trusting. Mm-hmm. Um, something that I’ve personally learned.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I mean, that’s, that’s so interesting. Uh, so you never recovered that $30,000? No. Okay. No.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: No. I never will either. I don’t think they’ll, they’ll ever pay us.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So in that sense, like the due diligence is that you do, um, credit checks and, uh, I know in the corporate world there’s like ways of doing, doing due diligence, but, uh, for a small business, um, how do you make sure that, you know, if you’re.
Giving someone 30,000 worth of your product, like you’re going to get the money back? Like, what, what are
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. I, I won’t, I won’t ever do it again. I mean, I will always require at least half down, um, or your first order you pay front and maybe your future orders. You know, we have a different arrangement, but for the most part, most of my clients, um, pay upfront now.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Can you sue them? Can you sue them?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: I could sue them. If I wanna spend the money to do that, I could. Oh
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: yeah. That that’re only making the lawyers rich.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. How much is that gonna cost me? Right?
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow. That’s a, that’s a big problem. Um, what are the three, uh, can you name like three digital platforms or technologies that are absolutely indispensable in your business?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: I mean Slack, I just can’t say enough. I have to have Slack. It completely changed the way that, um, my team and I communicated the way that we worked. We’re way more efficient. Now. We are not sending emails or text messages back and forth. Um, slack really has changed, changed our work life. Um, so that’s one.
Um, the second one is notion. We really, uh, were having a, we were having a problem, not only, um. Tracking projects, which you can do in Slack with lists, but it’s not as efficient as something like Notion. Um, and so now I really can get into Notion and really track our projects properly and everybody has a visibility to it, which is I think is important.
Um. Oh gosh. Number three, and this is gonna sound strange, but I use literally the company live chat and I’m on live chat, so I can literally be the first person that my clients talk to if they do need to engage. Um, and you’ll see on the front page of our website, it says live chat with our CEO. Um, that has really, really changed the speed in which we are engaging with our clients.
If they want something or they have a question, I’m able to personally answer it. And they know that it’s the CEO of the company now. Yes, I passed things on, um, once they come, come to me, but, um, that one has really changed. Um, and I never thought that it would because we’ve, you know, had live chat over the years.
But this time around, um, it’s really changed the engagement piece, uh, with, with our clients.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I, I think this is, uh, I don’t know if, if I would call it marketing or, I mean, I think this is quite, uh, uh, quite, very smart, uh, because I think people would be like, okay, I’m, I’m talking to the, the, the person and, uh, so I think there’s a certain level of trust that that built.
You know that.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Mm-hmm.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: You know, if I’m placing an order, like there’s someone. Highly responsible who going to take care of it? So I think, I think this is, I’ve never seen the, this, the strategy before, but I think this is quite smart.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. Believe me, I’ve caught a lot of flack for it, you know? Well, do you have enough time as a CEO to be on live chat and Yes, I do.
I will make that happen. Right. I, I’m not sitting there every waking moment talking to people. Um, but for me, it’s the right thing to do. At least right now, who knows? As we grow bigger, I’m not gonna, I, maybe I won’t have time. Um, but it’s really working for us right now.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Very, no, it’s great. Uh, now I’m going to move on to our rapid fire segment.
In this segment I’m going to ask you a few quick questions and you have to answer them maybe in a word or a sentence or so. So the first one is one book recommendation for entrepreneurs and why.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah. Um, I don’t know what year he wrote this, but Gary Vaynerchuk wrote a book called Crush It many years ago, and it changed everything for me.
And just in terms of perspective, highly recommend.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Mm-hmm. Uh, an innovative product or idea in the current e-commerce retail or tech landscape that you feel excited about?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Hmm. That’s a good one. Um, this is probably gonna answer two of your questions, but. There is a lot of innovation happening in the gifting space, and Lindsay Forge from a company called Little Lux Cards, um, has created a brand new kind of gift card package together, and I’m really excited about that and really excited for her.
Um, I just think that the innovation coming from the gifting industry is really moving away from traditional gift baskets, and this is, this is a, this is really an exciting product she’ll be bringing to the market.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Um. I know you, you answered this, uh, already a, a business or productivity tool or software that you would recommend or a productivity tip.
Uh, any tips for, I know you mentioned Slack and notion and, uh, live chat. Um, any other productivity tips for CEOs?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Oh, gosh, there’s so many. Mm-hmm. So many different things. Um, I don’t think I have any other productivity other than, um, you know, integrated AI into your email. There’s different applications for that too that I’m testing right now, um, because my email is absolutely ridiculous and I’m looking for ways to, you know, fix that and, and have them kind of more organized and maybe paired down to what’s I really need to be paying attention to.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, I mean, email is such. A, an essential tool for pretty much everybody now, like I, I think most, like I would say it is 70% of the world population probably use e email on a regular basis. And it hasn’t really been fixed. Uh, or, uh, it hasn’t really been thought like rethought of, it’s still pretty much the same format that it started off at the beginning.
And I think there’s a lot of opportunity here because. It’s still the, I think it’s bottleneck for a, a lot of people. Um,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: yeah, I mean, I think that we have to find a way to, um, not only answer people in a timely manner, um, but to just be more organized when it comes to just the different types of emails that we’re getting.
And I, I, there are some great tools that I’m working on right now to see which one might work for me.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Um. I know you mentioned one of the businesses, uh, that is doing the great things. Any other startup or businesses that you, um, feel excited about?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Oh my gosh, there’s so many. There’s just so many.
I mean, this little, this little Lux Cards company is absolutely fantastic. Um, there’s another company, a friend of mine named Deb with ko, who just, uh, rebranded her company from Baskets Delore to Moda Gifting, uh, really to represent her and her daughter. Um, and that’s another, that’s another great one. Um, there’s a so many different brands out there that are doing incredible different types of work that, um, it’s impossible to keep up with all of them.
Um, another one of my most favorite brands, this is not a startup by any way, shape or form, but Mike’s Hot Honey, um, out of New York is one of my very favorite brands, especially from a collaboration, um, and a PR standpoint. I just. Follow them like crazy. Um, I know the CEO of that company and they’re just doing such amazing things, um, that I’m really paying close attention to that too.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, final question, and uh, I will ask another question after that, but, but final rapid fire. Um, what is the best business advice that you have ever received or you would give to other entrepreneurs? Um,
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: gosh. Um, to trust your gut. When you are making a decision or you’re talking to somebody or someone’s trying to sell you something or giving you information, and you have that little feeling in your gut that’s like, Hmm, something’s not right.
Um, well, let’s just trust your gut every single time. The times where I did not do that and I. I took on business or, uh, brought somebody on where I felt like it was, you know, the right thing to do and I ignored my gut. It got me in trouble every time. So, and it’s hard, especially, you know, like when I was younger, I didn’t even know what that meant.
Um, now I’m a little bit older and more seasoned and, um, just please trust your gut. Just listen to yourself.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Yeah. I think a lot of the times you, you instinctively know the answer, but, uh, of course, you know, you have to take into account, uh, risk and everything. Yeah. Um, one thing that I want to ask you, I mean, to me it seems like in the gifting space, I mean, gifting is really about building that human relationship connection.
You know, showing someone that you know, you care about their business or you know, their relationship and so forth. Um. Mm-hmm. Now. Given that everything is business is moving all towards ai, automation, uh, robotics, everything is, you know, I think there’s, it’s becoming even more important for people to show that they, they value other people like what have you.
Um. I mean, you mentioned that there’s a lot of innovation going on in in gifting. I mean, it seems like people want to gift each other things. Um, why?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, an email versus a gift is going to get a very different level of attention, right? If you’re soliciting somebody, if you wanna work with a particular client and you’re sending them emails, or you’re connecting with them on LinkedIn and sending ’em messages versus sending them maybe something small that says, I’d really.
I really like to work with you, right? Using gifting as a lead generator, um, is a very different experience than traditional, you know, marketing, if you will. Um, so that, so that’s one area. I think number two is. There is a certain level of generosity and engagement that when you explain it to your customer, the difference between what they’re doing now, which is nothing versus gifting, and you explain that to them and explain what the, uh, the attended outcome and what the outcome really is going to be, which is they’re gonna be over just thrilled to death to receive something from you.
Um, it is a very clear indicator. That gifting really can, um, accelerate, um, perhaps onboarding a new client or bringing on a new employee. I mean, I have clients that are work in the hr, the HR industry. They send gifts to people who didn’t get the job just because they want. Stay in contact with them.
Right. So, um, from a business perspective, I, I do feel that, um, once they understand the impact of gifting, um, they’re on board. I’ve never had a client say, no, I don’t wanna do that. Once I explain and give them our sales pitch and, and, you know, the most detailed way I possibly can, they’re definitely, they’re definitely onboarding with us.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, I think it’s very true. I mean, I was, as you were, uh, sharing that answer, I was thinking about all the times that, you know, I’ve received gifts even in the corporate environment. You know, a vendor give something little, right? And it’s like you wouldn’t remember the people or the vendors, but you do remember those interactions and you know, the times that you received something, even if it was not that, like a huge thing.
Absolutely. So, yeah. Um, yeah, I think there’s definitely a lot of value there. Um. Debbie, thank you so much for your time today, for sharing your story, for sharing your business successes, learnings, and so forth. Uh, if anybody wants to get in touch or uh, want to try out your products, what’s the best way to do that?
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: Um, I have two websites, jocelynco.com. It’s J-O-C-E-L-Y-N-C O.com and jocelynco.ai is our corporate gifting division. Thank you for asking me for that.
Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Well, Debbie, thank you so much again for your, for the opportunity. Thank you. And I wish you all the very best.
Debbie Quintana of Jocelyn and Company: All right, take care. Bye-bye.
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