After 8 years running my business in Puerto Vallarta, and struggling most of the time, I can now be satisfied with what I’ve accomplished and enjoy Vallarta’s incredible environment.
I am French, and Vallarta is not the first place I’ve lived in Mexico.
Back in 2004, when I was studying for my mechanical engineer degree in France, my final traineeship was with a small Mexican company in Querétaro. It was an incredible time, and I enjoyed the country and its people so much that this experience marked me deeply and would lead me to change the course of my life.
Fast forward to 2006, I am back in Mexico, in Reynosa, to work in a maquiladora (assembly plant) as an engineer, and that’s where I met a girlfriend that would become my wife, as she came to live with me in France in 2008. Although she was very exited to be living in France and to learn French at the university, she soon discovered how frustrating it was for her not being able to work as a doctor after having graduated in Mexico. French laws can be very strict, (and dumb), as France lacks doctors, especially now because of the pandemic.
So, in 2012, after four years of struggling to make it work in France, she got tired of it all and decided to go back to Mexico to pursue her career as a doctor, as this was her call in life. And of course, I decided to join her, but I didn’t want to live again on the border as I wanted to live on the coast to be able to surf somehow.
We bought a car in Matamoros and drove to Querétaro, Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta, visiting the cities, seeing friends and evaluating job opportunities.
So after making a crazy plan, in just one weekend we were both back in Mexico for two weeks to plan our settlement in Mexico as a new chapter in our lives. My wife would stay while I would need to go back to quit my job and sell our belongings before leaving France for this new adventure.
During those two weeks, we bought a car in Matamoros (where my wife is from) and drove to Querétaro, Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta, visiting the cities, seeing friends and evaluating the job opportunities that were available to us.
Our final analysis was: forget the jobs, Puerto Vallarta is too awesome to not choose it. We decided to settle here and find a way to make a living here. In case of failure, we could always go back to Guadalaraja and find a job there.
So my wife started to work as a medic, she worked up to three shifts a week to make ends meet, while I launched my own enterprise: an online jewelry business called Vivalatina. This was my first attempt, the boutique is in France, so my first goal was to be able to resell jewelry to France.
In fact, we had already tried to set up an online jewelry outlet in France, selling silver jewelry imported from Mexico online, but my wife was not very interested in sales and I was already working full time, so we never tried hard to accomplish that.
VivaLatina’s team of artisan jewelers master the work of gold, silver, organic materials, the cutting of fine stones and the setting of precious stones.
I decide to give myself 100% to see what I could do with this business idea: shift from selling imported jewelry from France, to selling the same kind of jewelry from Mexico.
After failing for three years in a row, I learned two things:
• My wife was very patient and loved me very much
• I was very ignorant on how to set up a business properly
But anyway, during those 3 years I learned how to increase the website’s traffic, I learned marketing and, after analyzing the market, decided to shift the business from reselling silver jewelry to actually making custom-made jewelry, both in silver and gold.
This was back in 2015 and soon my business was growing. In 2016, I was able to open my own jewelry workshop, as I was working with external jewelers up to this point. Opening my own workshop helped to give me better quality control over my jewelry and to reach delivery deadlines more easily.
Up to this point, it had been a crazy workload, but living in Puerto Vallarta was a blessing as my wife found a job quite easily and I was able to take a break on weekends to go swimming in the Pacific Ocean or discover an incredible restaurant with an amazing view with her. And, of course, I took every chance I could to go surfing. But soon, with a small kid in the family and a business to grow, time available for surfing vanished pretty quickly.
Being able to walk on the beach, see the sunset and enjoy the warm weather all year long is incredibly energizing and has helped me cope up with the challenge of setting up a business.
As the past year has been stormy for everyone, I can appreciate the resilience of my business, as the online sector has not been impacted by Covid, and I am happy with the business choices I made in the past.
Started as a solopreneur project, I do have three full time employees now, and being able to provide those jobs during the pandemic and difficult economic situation in Puerto Vallarta has been my pride. In 2018, we launched an English version of our online boutique: vivalatina-shop.com, where we offer our jewelry creations and custom-made services.
While the pandemic seems to linger longer than initially expected, I still aim to grow the business, focusing our marketing efforts on the US. If everything goes as planned, I’m hoping to employ a fourth artisan jeweler by the end of 2021, otherwise, it would be in 2022.
With 8 years of experience now, I can see that being in Mexico and Puerto Vallarta has been a tremendous help to setting up my business.
First, Mexican laws are very flexible for small businesses and tax rates are very low, and the administrative setup process so easy that every entrepreneur can really focus on their business goals. Had I have been in France, I would have given up after the first year, unable to pay the taxes due to my poor business development skills.
Second, Puerto Vallarta in an incredible place to live, which provides motivation to make one’s project work here. Having the ocean’s peace and space to take a break helped me a lot when I was failing and doubting my business project.