June 2024 Amber Grant Awarded to San & Wolves Bakeshop

We’re excited to announce the June $10,000 Amber Amber Grant recipient. Congratulations to Kym Estrada, Owner of San & Wolves Bakeshop. She is the seventh qualifier for the 2024 year-end Amber Grant ($25,000).

Recently, WomensNet Advisory Board member Marcia Layton Turner sat down with Kym for an exclusive interview. You can listen to their conversation and view the transcript below.

Video Transcript

WomensNet: Hi everyone. Welcome to a conversation with our Amber Grant winner for June, 2024.

Today we have the pleasure of chatting with Kym Estrada of San & Wolves Bakeshop, who’s our Amber Grant winner.

As you probably heard late last year, WomensNet decided to increase the number of monthly $10,000 grants we give to three. The startup grant is for entrepreneurs in the idea phase of developing their business or who haven’t yet hit $10,000 total in sales. The business specific monthly grant is for a company that operates in that month’s category, which was business specific support services in June. And our Amber Grant is open to all women business owners in the US and Canada.

I’m Marcia Layton Turner, and I’m one of several WomensNet advisory board members.

So, Kym, thank you for making time to speak with me; I’m excited to just chat with you about how your businesses got started and what you’ve learned so far. Could you tell everyone a little about your company and where the idea to start it came from?

Kym: San & Wolves Bakeshop is a Filipino vegan bakery. We started as a popup in 2017. We now we reside in Long Beach and we’re opening up our brick and mortar in October.

But the idea started because, prior to starting my business, I was working a nine to five job. It was in digital media. I really sucked at it. I didn’t necessarily hate it, but I knew I sucked at it. I’m an introvert and it forces you to talk to celebrities and stuff, and I’m just not that type of person. So I one day put in my two weeks, went to the only vegan bakery, one of two vegan bakeries in New York at the time. I just asked them, can I have a job? No credentials at all. So I learned there. I just learned on the go and then I just started getting more into baking and I really wanted to learn more about my culture. I’m Filipino and so is my partner. He went vegan when he met me. So I had been vegan for a long time, so I kind of wanted to show off that you can still have vegan food and we still our culture’s food. So I started like experimenting with Filipino food and that’s how the idea came about.

WomensNet: That’s awesome. Hungry already.

Any particular person or place you turned to for help when you were getting started? And I know you moved, so that might be different.

Kym: Yeah, in the beginning it was kind of more like something I do on the weekends, which is something I recommend: keeping your job and then leaving it once you feel financially ready.

I don’t come from money, so that was a big thing that I had to do. So that’s one piece of advice. But a big thing that really helped me is I speak to a business advisor from the SBA, so it’s totally free of charge. I really take advantage of free resources provided by the state and city of Long Beach here. It’s okay with the business resources, but they don’t make it publicly known, so you just have to like get in there and go into the meetings and all of that. And then a big thing is I have a lot of friends who own businesses here in Long Beach.

A lot of them are bakeries as well. And so during this buildout process, they’ve been helping me a lot and other businesses from hair and cosmetology or tattooing… I literally sat down one-on-one and tried to get all the details from them on like how I could make this a success once I opened my brick and mortar. And yeah, I think that, just local, your communities you’re involved in and also getting involved in lots of communities. ‘Cause there’s a lot of communities here, like I’m part of the Filipino community, there’s motorcycle clubs, there’s vegan clubs, just baking clubs. Just just network.

WomensNet: Very smart. Especially when all of your businesses are very local or dependent on local support. So yeah, that’s really smart.

So how about marketing wise? Again, I know some of business owners have more experience than others, but what are some effective marketing strategies that you’ve found or that you’re exploring now? I know networking sounds like it’s been a really big piece, but has there been anything else that you’ve done that has worked?

Kym: A lot of it’s based on who I talk to. It’s very organic. Since 2017 we’ve done popups everywhere, so that has become like our little tour and our big show is going to be the brick and mortar. So I think that doing popups is a big word of mouth thing and people just learn about it.

And so building yourself into that brand and making it one thing is a really good way to do it these days.

WomensNet: Excellent, excellent advice. Thank you all. So now how can the WomensNet community return the favor? What can we do to show support for you that might help your business? Is there anything in particular that we can help with to really boost your business?

Kym: Come to the bakery, buy our merch online. Other than what you guys have already done, I can’t think of anything else.

WomensNet: Excellent. Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. I know the WomensNet community is going to be inspired by your story and your advice. And congratulations again on being our three June winners.

Kym: Thank you!