I've devoted my career to impact investments and wealth management. It sounds exciting and successful; my journey was filled with investment committees, meticulous due diligence, attending conferences, and traveling around Latin America. While the hustle and bustle had its charms, deep down, I prayed for more time with my family and the joys of motherhood. My career satisfaction stemmed from the thrill of discovering groundbreaking business models and collaborating with outstanding entrepreneurs and kind and dedicated individuals.

While evaluating agribusiness private loans, I gained a profound appreciation for connecting farmers and producers directly with consumers and eliminating intermediaries. Undeniably, the work was meaningful, but wealth management as a product and its incentives needed to align with my values and life purpose.

In 2022, a twist of fate led my family to Austin, Texas. Homesick and with a string of job application rejection emails filling my inbox, I sought confidence and empowerment in a part-time job as a sales associate at Crate and Barrel. There, I became the unofficial "coffee machine expert," featuring Breville, Jura, Mocka Master, DeLonghi, Cuisinart, and various coffee and espresso machine marvels.

At first, I failed to position an expensive Colombian Coffee brand sourced from intermediaries rather than directly from coffee farmers. From one serendipitous conversation with a customer, my "Aha moment" dawned. He, a "coffee lover," lamented the scarcity of affordable, quality fresh coffee beans in Austin, a city teeming with coffee enthusiasts. Without hesitation, I immediately called my father and asked him for support to position our coffee beans in the USA.

He challenged me to build a business plan, develop a coffee brand, and understand the roasting business in the USA. Without thinking twice, I signed up our Farm San Rafael as a coffee producer at the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and attended the SCA Expo 2023 in Portland-Oregon; I fell in love with the technology, the good people, caffeine gratitude, and passion.

Inspired and joyful, I came up with Coffee Feliciano, initially roasted in Colombia. And around the corner was the Farmer's Market. I spoke to an angel called Salila, dealt with the Health Department, sourced a commercial kitchen, and showed up to my first Barton's Creek farmers market in the middle of Texas's hottest summer. The first weekend, I sold out of our Arabic Castillo Cold Brew and delighted +50 customers with Colombian Coffee stories, with what I called "God's coffee."

Today, I have sourced specialty coffee roasters in the US with our coffee offer and partnered with a local roaster to produce Coffee Feliciano in larger batches. We are in the process of rebranding with a team of angels at @Tekwani Design, who came up with the most inspiring shields that represent different coffee varieties and regions and, more importantly, kept our idea of a golden package that represents the gold bar in a coffee bag that changed our lives.

Today, our mission is twofold: supporting the remarkable women coffee farmers in Colombia to unlock the actual value of their beans in the United States while delighting numerous individuals in Texas with the taste of Coffee Feliciano Castillo straight from our farm, San Rafael. We have repeat customers at the farmer's markets and in our e-commerce platform and have shipped +300 coffee bags online.

What's next for Coffee Feliciano? We are reaching out to like-minded roasters in Texas, Chicago, North Carolina, Colorado, South Carolina, and many other states in the US who promote Direct Trade and value Colombian coffee varieties (Castillo, Caturra, Pink Bourbon, Gesha, Colombia, and many others) while scaling our own roasted beans to specialty stores.

In 2024, I dare to dream of opening my own Coffee Shop in Austin—where I can proudly brag about God's coffee beans and my unique Tacos… because I make the best tacos and Salsa Verde in town-.