Today we’d like to introduce you to Joseph Valenzuela.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born in to a typical lower middle income family. My mother was 16 when she had me and was a single mom for my early childhood, which presented the typical challenges anyone who’s been through that has had. But we were happy. My mother taught me the value of hard work and being honest. I started my first business in middle school by taking my money from doing ~extra~ chores around the house and bought candy in bulk and sold it to my classmates at retail. I was almost suspended after not listening to the teachers who told me to stop. This quickly made the money I was making on chores a bit less glamorous. In high school, I ended up getting a job part time working for my Dad’s best friend who owned a screen-printing company. I asked him if I could print my own shirt after work if I paid for all the materials and he said yes, so I started a tee-shirt business named “Alive Clothing Co.” I sold shirts to a bunch of my friends and ended up getting to put our shirts in one of our local skate shops, which was my crowning achievement at the time.
My boss Dave (pseudonym) at the time refused to pay me minimum wage, because he reasoned that “if I paid you minimum wage instead of under the table, you’ll just have the taxes taken out and make less money. You should be happy with the money you’re making.” I wasn’t, so I left. My junior of high school I’d saved up enough money to buy my first truck, a used Ford Ranger with over 40K miles on it. I cleaned every square inch of that baby every week, and thought to myself, “I could probably charge other people to do this for them…” My next business was born, “V’s Mobile Auto Detail”. A friend of my uncle’s knew a guy name Sonny who held a certification course at his body shop put on by Maguire’s Products, and got me in to learn how to detail professionally. I was the only person in the class who spoke fluent English. He kept asking for volunteers to demonstrate the new techniques he’d just finished teaching us, and no one else would raise their hand. I got an old used trailer from a friend of a friend who was going to go to jail for tax evasion. The police were going to come confiscate all of his belongings anyways, so he just let me have an old trailer of his. I felt like I’d won the lottery.
I knocked on doors with a menu of services and asked residents “when the last time they had their car detailed professionally was” and was astonished every time they said “never”. I went into business parks and let the employees know I was “servicing other offices in the building out in the parking lot”, and asked the receptionist to ask the employees “if anyone wanted their car detailed while they worked.” The time college hit, I had three employees working for me and was getting paid off of all their efforts. I actually had to fire one of my best friends for showing up an hour late and hung over on his first day. Undergrad in College was boring. I hated the idea that there were subjects I was forced to learn that I knew I wanted nothing to do with for my life. My sophomore year of college I met an insurance salesman making over 40K a month who’d built his own brokerage. I couldn’t fathom that kind of money, and I begged him to teach me how he was doing it.
You could’ve recruited me into just about anything that was moral, legal, and ethical at the time. If I’d had me wealthy stock brokers at 20 years old… I probably would’ve ended up a stock broker. If it would’ve been Real Estate guys… I’d have done Real Estate. It just so happened to be insurance… so that’s where I ended up. My first two years were actually a pretty big struggle. I had this nagging belief that I was too young to be taken seriously, and that no one would trust me enough to buy insurance from me. Turns out, as long as I held that belief, I was right. It wasn’t until I seriously thought about quitting and going back to the manual labor of auto-detailing that I sobered up. I realized with absolute clarity the life that waited for me if I went back to manual labor. I knew how much money I’d make for the next five years, ten years, 20 years, even if I became the biggest game in town. I got a sinking pit in my stomach when I realized, I had nothing better to “quit to”. So I decided to go “all in”. I worked from 8 am to 9 pm for 64 straight days in a row, something I had never done at the time. My goal was to make it to 90 days, so I technically failed, but it didn’t matter.
From my 64th day forward I started making a 6-figure income at 24 years old, and have never made less since. What that really gave me wasn’t the money, but more importantly the realization that “I had what it took when it counted”, and that whenever I really decided to put my whole heart into something and go for it… I could win. It’s this belief that has made all the difference for me in everything I’ve done since. At 25, I met a group of wealthy Jewish men who owned an Israeli skin care company at a “Shabbat dinner” I was invited to. I loved how family oriented they were and how seriously they took their “day of rest” with their family. Some friends of mine went to work for them, and asked if I would help out with converting their existing retail footprint, into an online B to C model. I jumped at the chance. I worked really, really hard for about three years straight. Because of this, I was able to accomplish a childhood dream of making my first million dollars before I turned 30.
And most importantly, I had enough money to start financing MY dreams. Enter: Aneu Apothecary Inc. There are businesses that we start because they are money makers, and we see an opening to position ourselves to dominate a market. Others, are passion projects and the money made isn’t. We do them because the work itself is fulfilling, and gives us the freedom to express some part of ourselves that we want to give more life to. Aneu is a combination of the two for me. I do believe that the market for “Natural Medicine” is going to grow immensely in the future, and that our approach to combining the best of Eastern & Western philosophy allows us to win over the competition. But it’s also a chance for me to express the way I think consumer products should be delivered and hopefully, show the business world that the consumer should sit at the pinnacle of our decision making, just above the shareholder. Everything we do at Aneu has the consumer in mind. From the sourcing of each organic ingredient, grown and harvested in a sustainable way. To the recycled and compostable packaging.
We don’t use any plastic, ever. I could go on and on, but in short we’re developing products we can all feel proud to take and share with those we love, and never have to make an apologist for. Every box that ships out feel like we’re making the world a brighter place, which, at this stage of my life since having my first born son “Lincoln” six months ago… is the most important thing for me now. I hope to empower more consumers to really looking into what they put into their bodies, and really look into how the companies they buy from are operating. We, the powerful consumers that we are, control vast amounts of power when we learn to say “no” to the things that aren’t beneficial to us as a collective… and vote “yes” with our dollars for the things we’d like to see grow.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I guarantee I’ve failed more than just about any reader you have. I’ve had more people tell me “no”… in any business I’ve ever done, than I’ve ever had people that tell me “yes”. But it’s a numbers game, and not everyone is meant for everything. I learned a long time ago that I’m looking for the people that are looking for me. There is one particular time that stands out for me as a defining moment however… When I was 22 years old I owed my Mom $800 dollars. She needed the money, and I had none to give her. Up until this moment, she had always been my biggest supporter. Whenever I wanted to branch out and try “something new”, my Mom was always in my corner… building my confidence in myself that I could do it, if I was willing to put in the work and stay focused on it. On this particular day, she really laid into me. This is when I was trying to build an insurance business… and she told me basically that it was a stupid idea and that I should give it up in not so nice of words 🙂 I remember chewing myself out in the shower and for the first time, really entertaining the idea of quitting. It was that realization that I had nothing better to quit to, that made me really dig in and run harder than I ever had at the time… and changing everything 64 days later.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Aneu Apothecary is a locally owned Austin company that specializes delivering Naturopathic Doctor formulated function medicine products that work amazing and are amazing for our environment. We’re known for sourcing our ingredients from the highest quality American suppliers, combining these select ingredients with modern manufacturing practices that enhance their bioavailability, and packaging them in ways that support the next generation on our planet. Our Aneu Day is one of the most amazing brain support supplements on the market and will give you more energy, focus, and memory everyday… or your money back. Our pure mushroom supplement called “Immunity” is great for gut health and truly “best in class” for mushroom supplements. It’s grown on hardwood like it’s found in Nature, unlike 90+% of the mushroom industry that grows on rice grain. We sun dry the mushrooms for added vitamin D, we micronize them for enhanced bioavailability, and there is zero added filler… just pure organic mushrooms. check us out on Aneu.com.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Everyone is looking to “take” from a mentor. Be the person who figures out what they can “give”. You may not have much to contribute when you’re just starting out other than your time, but you have something you can add to make a mentor’s life easier or better. It doesn’t matter where you start if you’re around the right mentor who is willing to teach you the ropes in an area you’re capable of excelling in. Start anywhere. The pay isn’t important in the beginning either. In the beginning, you’re more of a “project” for a mentor… so your pay is going to reflect that. Don’t pay that any mind. It isn’t about where you start, it’s about where you’re going. Once you become well versed in the industry you’re studying… your skills and acumen will pave a road for you.
Pricing:
- Aneu Day $68
- Immunity $43
Contact Info:
- Email: joseph@aneu.com
- Website: www.Aneu.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/aneuapothecary
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/aneuapothecary
Image Credits
Ariel Hernandez (photographer)
