She’s faced hyperinflation, shelf life disasters, lost facilities, and market shake ups. Ana Rodriguez’s path from launching a backpack company in Venezuela to co-founding Inbite, a thriving gluten free brand in Florida, is proof that grit and adaptability can turn chaos into opportunity. In this episode of Hello Chaos, Ana opens up about the messy reality of building a food manufacturing business, from costly packaging mistakes to the surprise growth that came through co-manufacturing. She shares how constant learning, clear focus, and the courage to pivot have shaped her 30 year entrepreneurial journey. For founders navigating uncertainty and high stakes, Ana’s story is a reminder that every challenge can feed your growth if you are willing to keep moving forward.
Key Takeaways:
1️⃣ Comfort zones can cost you growth
The moment you feel too settled is often when your business is most at risk of stalling. Ana’s story shows the value of seeking new training, exploring different markets, and testing fresh ideas before circumstances force you to change.
2️⃣ Mistakes are powerful teachers
From packaging designs that tanked sales to market shifts that shook revenue, every setback gave Ana insight she could not have gained any other way. These lessons became the foundation for smarter decisions and stronger systems.
3️⃣ Focus is fuel
Growth is not about doing everything. It is about identifying the products, partners, and clients that truly align with your vision, then giving them your full attention to create sustainable momentum.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to Chaos and Entrepreneurship
01:05 The Journey of an Entrepreneur
03:04 Challenges in Food Manufacturing
06:16 Growth and Co-Manufacturing
10:14 Navigating Market Changes
13:09 Lessons from Setbacks
17:03 The Importance of Adaptation
20:10 Training and Expertise in Gluten-Free
23:03 Reviving the Brand
25:07 Focus on Private Label and Future Plans
27:04 Aha Moments and Myth Busting
29:14 Personal Growth and Relationships
32:22 Navigating Industry Standards and Certifications
35:14 The Competitive Spirit of Pickleball
39:00 Growth Strategies and Partnerships
42:32 Family Involvement in Business
43:55 The Evolving Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
47:02 Future Aspirations and Goals
47:55 Lessons in Humility and Open-Mindedness
50:54 Personal Growth and Company Identity
54:56 Building a Supportive Community
57:43 Giving Back and Future Visions
🔗 Learn more about Ana and InBite
Website: https://inbite.us/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anarodriguezfortun/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inbiteglutenfree/
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:01.026)
Well, welcome to Hello Chaos, the show where founders, innovators, and chaotic minds get real, get unfiltered about the mess, the magic, and the mayhem of entrepreneurship. I'm JJ, your host and fellow work in progress. And today we welcome Ana Rodriguez. She is the co-founder of Inbite, calling out of Boca Raton, Florida. Welcome to the show, Ana.
Ana Rodriguez (00:06.45)
you
Ana Rodriguez (00:15.602)
Thank
Ana Rodriguez (00:25.426)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure. Thank you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:30.966)
You are welcome. I was looking up all about Inbite and you have a very interesting background in food and manufacturing and I'm just, I'm excited to hear your story. just start out, what inspired you to start your own company? How did you get into this?
Ana Rodriguez (00:49.892)
Okay, long story because I've been an entrepreneur all my life. I graduated from college and it's like I was a black sheep among the group, let's say. I was the only one that I had a job offer, but I didn't take it. So my mom was about to push me out of the eighth floor. She saw me begin my first company, which was called Nomad.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:54.285)
Really?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:06.421)
Wow.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:10.35)
You
Ana Rodriguez (01:16.914)
It was a backpack and bag company that we started out in South America, my husband and I. And I was with sisters in my hand and making backpacks. And it was kind of crazy because I had an offer in a really good company as an industrial engineer. And that's when we started. was 1990. I really started in 1993.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:44.555)
Okay.
Ana Rodriguez (01:44.667)
And my thesis was about the feasibility of this company. And it was a wild ride from the beginning because the country that I'm talking about is Venezuela. And we went into a hyperinflation during my thesis. So imagine a feasibility project with hyperinflation and you couldn't forecast actually. So I got to the...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:04.002)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (02:11.834)
I got to the day where I had to present my thesis and it was wild because forecasting was like, well, if this happens or maybe this happens or maybe this happens, right? So 1993, I started, we moved in 2006 to the U.S. and we started thinking that we could export whatever we were doing in Venezuela. And we started selling our products here. So it was really cool.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:20.322)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (02:39.664)
But obviously the president of Venezuela had different things in his mind and he had forbidden to export more than $5,000. So that's when it started like to crawl for us. Exactly. What do we do? And at that time I had my three kids, they were ages eight, six and four. And I didn't want to get into
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:46.53)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:53.592)
We got a shift, we got a pivot. What are we doing?
Ana Rodriguez (03:10.212)
a job and leaving them because Giancarlo would have to travel back and forth still. And I started making cookies, which by chance were gluten-free. And at that time gluten-free in Miami was like, what is this? No, I would go to Hialeah and, you know, and they speak Spanish and they were like, what the freaking hell is gluten-free? You know, I mean, no way. And I remember leaving the shops, but still,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:25.538)
Non-existent, yeah, back then, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:35.576)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (03:40.013)
selling my cookies and crying out, right? Like, my God, what am I doing? Okay. So I'd say Inbite really started in 2010. And it did not start before because during the first years we were thinking we were going to be able to pull off exports from the company we had in South America. When we realized that I started by myself doing like everything I would cook.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:01.432)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (04:09.234)
At the beginning, we would basically rent out time in bakeries. And we had two bakeries. Exactly. Exactly. And so we really did a good design. One of the things that we did right at that time was make a good box and a good packaging and go to the shops and ask them to be placed.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:17.474)
Yeah, like a shared kitchen. Yeah, because you had to do it in a commercial kitchen and all that. Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (04:38.756)
in the register or where you know where the people are going to see that box. So friends of ours were telling us, my God, you guys are everywhere. And it wasn't true, but we were doing something right. And then the first, I don't, can I say it? Shitty moment? Okay. Okay. The first one arrived when shelf life exploded inside the packaging, right?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:43.886)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:58.38)
Yeah, please. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:07.022)
Ana Rodriguez (05:08.932)
And we knew nothing about that, like zero. So we started like taking them off the shelves and trying to scratching our heads like, okay, we have something, but how exactly? Well, we wouldn't kill people because it was mold, but first learning was hard, right? So we did go back and reformulate it and there's
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:12.387)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:20.43)
How do we keep this thing on so that we don't kill people?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:27.16)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (05:38.136)
something called benders that you place into the bags and basically they take out the oxygen out of the bag, right? So that's when we started studying, okay, we need to figure this out.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:53.868)
Right, now because at this point you're like, hey, we're diving into this business. this is, because now you're learning all about food, manufacturing, packaging. I mean, you're all in.
Ana Rodriguez (06:05.362)
Exactly. Yeah, we're all in. One of the things we did at that time to solve the problem like without anybody noticing was like we knew we have 45 days. So if there was something left in the shelves after 45 days, we would come, oh, we're going to rotate this, you know, so that you have it fresh, blah, blah. And we would take it out. And while we were trying to figure out what to do, because we didn't know what to do. Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:34.029)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (06:35.158)
then the second shitty moment was like, no, they came all along, right? So we, well, yeah. Yeah. Now that you mentioned. So the next one was we realized while, trying to figure out the shelf life, we realized that the light incidents in the cookies would, make the color fade. Okay. And we didn't want that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:38.232)
I'm so
They come every day sometimes, right?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:03.128)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (07:05.37)
So we decided to close our packaging, no window. First you would see the cookie and then we basically redesigned. And we said to ourselves, my God, this is so cool. We nailed it, right? And we had solved the shelf life issue and we had solved the decoloring issue in the product. And they weren't selling. And I called Fran. Exactly.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:17.39)
You
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:25.315)
Right?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:30.466)
because they couldn't see it?
Ana Rodriguez (07:33.977)
So I call a friend in marketing and I'm like, just answer one question. Like if I change the design from a window in my cookies and now you don't see the cookie, what happens? She's like, nobody's going to buy it. I'm like, why? You know, so, okay. Another one for the notebook. I'm going to say this.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:50.99)
All right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:58.51)
That's right.
Ana Rodriguez (08:00.952)
When it happens, you feel like the end of the world. But if you take it as a moment of learning and you quickly change it into, okay, this is of the learning curve. And I knew nothing about this, even though I'm industrial engineer. And I did do plenty of work previous in a couple of food industries, but you know, shelf life, I mean, So
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:04.248)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:28.046)
But that's the, I think that's the, I don't know, like the trait of the founder, the innovator, that we have this little grit and a drive. We're constant problem solving, right? And we don't look at it as like, no, those guys, like, nope, all right, how do we tackle this? How do we tackle this?
Ana Rodriguez (08:44.433)
And that's good.
Ana Rodriguez (08:50.978)
Exactly, exactly. And I'm going to say this. It's been already 30 years as an entrepreneur. And one of my learnings also is, well, you can pivot many times. There are times where, no, you just don't have to do it. You probably have to drop it, right? And that's also a learning. I'm not here to say that, you know, take everything positive, blah, blah. Sometimes you
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:57.816)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:15.693)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (09:19.996)
take a step back and really look at it and see, okay, am I pushing too hard and is this push worth it? Because there's a ton of energy that especially mentally you leave into every problem that you need to solve, right? Well, we solved that out. The cookie started selling and it happened that we started getting calls from smaller entrepreneurs.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:35.214)
Right. Right.
Ana Rodriguez (09:47.641)
into, can you do my bar? Can you do my bread? Can you do this? And at that moment, we already had our own small facility. It was about, I don't know, maybe a thousand square feet, okay, with a small oven. But we knew a lot of logistics and let's say production. So if we figured out the logistics and timing, we could do it. And the model
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:03.064)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:09.698)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (10:16.892)
that was presented to us of co-manufacturing and at the same time doing our brand was just the same model we had applied before in our previous entrepreneurship. So to us, it made total sense of doing that. And that's how we started growing because I'm gonna say this, we started growing more when we started co-manufacturing because we didn't have to put any money into marketing, distribution or anything.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:31.224)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:46.766)
Right?
Ana Rodriguez (10:47.122)
It was just making it and shipping it out to our clients and great deal. But then, know, things when I think growth makes things complicated. So we started growing, you know.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:02.86)
Right. We call it the, what is it, new level, new devil?
Ana Rodriguez (11:08.356)
Yeah, I'm going to write that down. I didn't know that phrase, but I do need it. Because I've been telling this to Giancarlo lately. So our next jump in growth meant for the another bad moment, which was that the landlord we had in this facility offered us a bigger one, you know, and it looked more industrial. We were like, my
God, a dream come true. What? And he was like, yeah, you move in there. I'm going to give it to you ready. And that's it. And we believed it, right? Because the first one, we didn't have any problem. So we give them the deposit, everything. And when you have a food facility, you have to go through a bunch of permits first.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:48.462)
Yeah. All right.
Ana Rodriguez (12:00.57)
We go that there to the facility and we wait for the city to approve. And the city to approve means about seven people that are going to come in and check some stuff. Number one comes in. Good. Number two, number three comes in and he's like, you're not going to be able to work here. What? Like, why? Well, because the building has no permits. We're like, what? Are you sure about this? I mean, and our previous lease
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:22.051)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (12:30.468)
was off. I mean, we had finished it because we were moving into this new facility. You know, that was a big wall because there and the fourth guy came in and reinstated, you're not going to be able to work here because this was done without permits. It has no building permits. You have no electrical permits. In fact, the building might just burn because you don't have
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:34.562)
Right. my God, that's a wall.
Ana Rodriguez (12:58.618)
You don't have electrical capacity for what you need here, right? Well, that was, I mean, that was like the moment you say, wow, do I go forward or what am I doing? Right. But at that time, Giancarlo was already like halfway into it also. Okay. Which means, you you got to put money in the table to eat. And we had two kids in college already.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:12.152)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (13:28.77)
or about, I mean, at least one of them was in college. So we were like, my God, okay. How do we figure this one out? Fortunately enough, our previous facility, we had talked with the current tenant. Can you allow us to work here while you move in? And he said, yes. So we had about, I'm going to say six months, okay, working there, cleaning,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:29.836)
Yeah, right. You're really.
Ana Rodriguez (13:58.481)
Well, this new tenant will come in and work in the nights because it was a different food company. And we would look like crazy everywhere in South Florida to see if something appeared. One day we did find one in Boca. And that day I was driving, I called the landlord of the new facility and I say,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:05.987)
Right?
Ana Rodriguez (14:25.318)
You know, I'm looking for this and he's like, well, I have one that's going to be empty because I'm up till here. Right now it's a co-working space and I don't want that. And I'm like, okay, I want it. And I hadn't even seen it, but I needed it, right? And it was bigger than mine. So within three weeks we were moved in and, okay, and we started breathing again.
On that side, on the other side, we lost about $25,000 because our old landlord was just a thief, you know. And $25,000 for the stage we were at, it was a whole bunch of money. It's always a whole bunch of money, but at that stage it was like, okay, how are we going to recover from this? Fortunately enough, we were moving to a bigger facility because we already had a
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:08.866)
Yeah, that's right.
Ana Rodriguez (15:21.564)
co-manufacturing job that was pretty big for us to allow that growth. So that was that phase. Then, my God, I mean, you're never gonna stop here, right? So our big clients were pretty much online sales. Two big companies that were working in the keto low carb space, like huge. We were shipped
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:37.847)
No.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:43.182)
Great.
Ana Rodriguez (15:51.283)
weekly pallets out of our facility. COVID came in and I remember when COVID came in I was like, okay, maybe, you we're gonna have to shut down. But that first year was great, like keto and low carb and anything they had to do with low whatever, skyrocket. But at the same time, Apple changed their iOS.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:14.466)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (16:20.408)
not allowing Facebook to do whatever they were doing for free. So because those clients would sell online and they mainly relied on Facebook after and also I have to say keto market was like exploding in products. Like everybody was doing that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:41.506)
Yeah, the gluten-free keto, did that really spark at 2020 or was that climbing before then?
Ana Rodriguez (16:44.529)
That was.
Ana Rodriguez (16:48.978)
It wasn't really, mean, nobody was paying attention. I mean, my two clients had the market, okay, basically. And then COVID came in, I'm gonna say 2021, I was like, wow, there's too many, right? 2022, it exploded. Like they weren't the only ones anymore. There were like a thousand more. And then Facebook and then, I mean, the perfect bomb exploded.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:52.491)
Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:10.37)
The noise, yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (17:17.498)
And I have to say from eight pallets that we would ship weekly, it was two, one, and then for a month, I mean, it went bad. So picking up.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:28.931)
Right.
And I think that's a lesson. We see that from other brands and founders of people see growth because the market's there and there's no competition. But as soon as competition or noise, that's when a lot of people don't like, let me get clarity around what my business is. Let me figure out, am I spending in the right place? And I think your customers are an example of where
things can go wrong if you don't really have a strategy or an action plan that's just beyond, if I put it out there, they'll come because there's nobody else in the space, right?
Ana Rodriguez (18:12.814)
Exactly. And also from, let's say our side, and I'm going to say this because you have to learn a lesson out of everything. Even if you don't continue, right? From our side was like, we were in a comfort zone. And if you're into this, I don't think you can ever be in a comfort zone. Maybe when you retire. Okay. But not if you're into the food business and if you are in a comfort zone.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:22.115)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:32.513)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (18:42.51)
start thinking about it, you know, and move your butt because it's not going to happen that way. So it was, it was a revelation of, okay, we were in a comfort zone. We didn't not want to get out of the comfort zone, but if we want to continue, what are we going to do? And I'm going to say this and not in a, not in a dispective way, but keto and paleo
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:48.429)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (19:07.676)
they were pretty simple to manufacture comparing to the real deal of bakery gluten-free products. So at that time, even though we knew a lot, we knew very little of what really gluten-free means in gluten-free manufacturing. So we got out of our comfort zone and we started looking for training because I was...
I was the kind of person that when I got married, I didn't know how to fry an egg, okay? But I started becoming a baker, right? Out of necessity and out of, yeah, out of necessity, basically. So, but I was not a real baker or a complete baker if I didn't know how to handle other type of diets or other type of those. And...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:42.99)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:47.32)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:57.282)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (20:00.655)
We started training in Europe where we found professors. We did not find them here somehow, but we found them there. And we would go three, four times a year training. And then
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:17.282)
Like almost become like a scientist and gluten free. Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (20:20.274)
Yes, yes. I think what matched here with us, and I'm going to say that we were lucky, was two things. First of all, Giancarlo, my husband and partner, in his industrial career, he studied a lot of processing mechanics, machines. So that made sense. Yeah. Yeah, we met in college.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:44.75)
Did you guys meet in Collow? Are you guys both industrial engineers?
Ana Rodriguez (20:50.352)
Yeah, he graduated two years ahead. But you know, it's a small college. Venezuela doesn't have big colleges like here. So and on the other side, my I'm not going to say expertise, but what I studied more because we have five years of career and we see a lot of things in common. But then you can choose some things. So I have chosen marketing, chemistry and physics.
And it made sense, you know, and I started putting in place more of the visualizing part when I was speaking. I have a visual memory, but I don't have more memory. if you tell me something five minutes later, I probably forgot. But if I see it, I'll remember. So I had an encyclopedia in my mind of how
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:30.05)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (21:48.943)
flowers behave, gumps behave, and while training everything started to make sense. And we picked up from that fall, we learned, we started getting other type of clients, okay? And seeing that if you're gonna co-manufacture you need in your basket several type of clients from several type of markets,
Let's say I might be doing a bar, a cookie, and a bread at the same time. So we have three lines operating maybe in one day, right? We try not to schedule that way, but it might happen that we have two lines that at the same time we're making cakes and we're making bars. Okay. So that was, that was a pickup. I'm going to say we're still,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:35.106)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (22:49.532)
We're still in growth and learning, you know, what's the next chapter for M.B.I.T.E. Last year, we decided to bring our brand back. We had left it in a closet because at some point we didn't have enough capacity to do the brand and to do other brands. And we didn't feel that we were honoring
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:53.132)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:11.576)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (23:19.218)
For our brand, we said to ourselves one thing, everybody has to eat it. You don't have to be a celiac, right? So I have to manufacture gluten-free products for everyone. Today, we were having coffee with one of our cookies. Like my breakfast was a coffee with a cookie. Giancarlo said to me, you know, two years ago, this wasn't happening.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:40.782)
That's my favorite breakfast.
Ana Rodriguez (23:49.299)
We were eating our cookies but not wanting to eat maybe another one. Right now, I want two, I want three, I want more. Okay, and I'm not a celiac. So we had left the brand in the closet while we were starting to develop our formulas but perfecting our formulas from our point of view. Because perfection, there's nothing perfect, right? But from our point of view, was perfect.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:57.452)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:11.352)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:16.748)
You're refining it. You're, you're, yeah, getting it. You are kind of perfecting it in a way. And, yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (24:22.0)
Yeah, in our own way, right? So right now we are pushing our brand in South Florida, because we learned also a lot of other things from clients like issues with distribution, right? Issues with brokers, issues with supermarkets. And we decided to take a slow pace. So we're starting in South Florida with our brand. We do have a big line of products, okay?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:35.416)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (24:51.218)
And probably our next learning is going to be that we're not going be able to do them all because there are too many. And we're going to have to pick and choose which one goes first. Right now we are distributing out of maybe 20 products that we have, I'm going to say 12, which is a lot. And we're trying to push more products into food service from our brand.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:59.096)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (25:17.903)
Well, at the same time, doing a lot of private labor. Less startups because that's also for us a learning curve, like a big one, okay?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:28.238)
fall out. Yeah.
Talk about, so you were helping other startups manufacture their products and kind of being their kind of a co-manufacturer of that.
Ana Rodriguez (25:39.749)
Yeah, yeah, that was mainly our business. Okay, right now we're more focused on private label from a supermarket or from a bigger brand than in startups, because startups has a previous phase, which is helping that startup get to the first stage, which is, you your product is ready. And we were finding that
There's a whole bunch of startups that have a product or they think they have a product, but it's ready to be. It has issues in the manufacturing lines. They don't have the packaging. They don't have design. So it's not that we don't want to do them, but at the stage we are right now and we need a lot of focus and.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:14.606)
It's not ready for market.
Ana Rodriguez (26:31.696)
Choosing our focus. Let's just say we decided okay this year. We're gonna focus on a brand Making it good Okay in every single way the wow experience for any type of client that we have And also making that wow experience for our private label brands Which is what we want to focus on this year next year. I'll tell you a different story. Maybe who knows
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:40.354)
You're right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:51.341)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:56.654)
That's right. It's all about the pivot. So as part of this kind of your lessons learned of your journey, what surprised you the most? Like what was your biggest aha of, you know, this is what we got to do.
Ana Rodriguez (27:14.886)
Well, our biggest aha was when that cookie happened to be in a niche, which was gluten free. And even though we saw that it was a huge challenge, we said, it's a niche. So if it's a niche, it's really interesting because I can be here trying to sell any type of cookie, right? And I have a million brands to compete with.
But in an age, maybe I have a hundred thousand, you know, it's not that much. And if I manage to do it the way I think, the way I ambition, maybe I get a chance. So you gamble with it, right? There's a lot of gambling here from, from entrepreneurs. And that's what we did. We didn't even know what gluten-free was, but we, we landed there and we said, okay, let's just do it. We, we needed to start something or.
or go find a job elsewhere.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:16.17)
Right, What's been the biggest like, I don't know, myth buster of, you you came from already, you know, having another business, the nomad, and then doing, you know, food business. What was like the biggest like surprise to you or kind of myth buster of, I thought it was gonna be like this, but it's not. Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (28:30.183)
Mm.
Ana Rodriguez (28:43.521)
Exactly. Yeah. Well, I can tell you exactly. I thought food was going to be easier than making backpacks, like way easier. You know, I said everybody has to eat. This is a piece of cake. And it's the contrary, I have to say. It's way easier to make a backpack. You don't have to think on safety. You do have to think on quality, but not as much as food.
Okay, because you're eating something that goes into the body of a person, you know, you have a huge responsibility in your shoulders. If I make a backpack and it breaks, you know, the warranty will cover. But if I make, if I make food and it's bad, there's a whole process that you don't really you don't want to do. And it can get pretty ugly.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:12.12)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:29.314)
Right.
Yeah. What did you find out about yourself? Like what was the most surprising thing that you found out about yourself or maybe the relationship between you and your husband throughout this process?
Ana Rodriguez (29:48.946)
Everything is a revelation. About myself is that...
I have more perseverance than I thought. Maybe too much sometimes. Yeah, because I'm like, I don't know.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:08.824)
You're like headstrong, we're going, we're doing it.
Ana Rodriguez (30:10.834)
Yeah, but I bump into too many wells many times, you know, and that's something that I'm still trying to learn. Which well do I want to bump to? Not 20 of them. So I have I have a ton of perseverance and that doesn't mean it's great. It's great sometimes. Many times it might not be that great. And then with my husband is that. It's amazing how we've handled. Through 30 years.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:19.747)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (30:39.122)
over 30 years, because we started before getting married, seeing each other and talking, you know, 24 seven about common things, right? Because we've worked together all our lives. And even if in some moments we've had different tasks, or he's traveling or I'm traveling, it's 24 seven. And how our relationship in work is one thing.
and then we go out there and we're husband and wife. So for many friends, including that's pretty weird.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:17.014)
Yeah. How do you set the, how did you guys establish the boundaries? Did you guys have to actually talk about it? Like these are the boundaries we're going to set or did it just come natural?
Ana Rodriguez (31:22.48)
But this is just a quick look at the results of the last week.
We never talked about it, honestly, but I think we started realizing that if we talked about work getting out, wouldn't have a nice conversation because you're tired, you know? And I'm going to say, I recall this in our early years, like, you know, that we started fighting because of work and then we stopped. And like I said, we didn't talk about it, but I guess we both realized it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:39.502)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (31:58.619)
And to this day, we don't talk about it. We get out of the office, period. We go play pickleball, we'll go to the beach. No talking about invite, whatever happens.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:09.602)
Yeah, that's good. And I was like, so do you guys divvy up your roles of you handle these things? What does he handle?
Ana Rodriguez (32:15.697)
Yeah.
He's all into production lines, okay. He's all into quality and safety right now. He's handling our next step, is SQF, okay. We're hoping to get certified at least at the beginning of quarter three. And that's a huge step for the size of the company that we have. Now you're going to ask why you're doing this. I'm asking that today too.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:21.016)
Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:40.524)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:45.39)
I was like Chandler's over here. Chandler came from the food manufacturing industry. So he's over here going, yes, it is big.
Ana Rodriguez (32:54.29)
Now sometimes I do wonder why we do these things and we put such a huge weight in our shoulders. Two things I'm going to say. First of all, I think it hits the pride of any industrial engineer and that sucks to say because we shouldn't work that way, but it does. And the second thing, we're really doing it because
Our goal, the inner goal this year is to work with a couple of supermarkets that we have rolling projects with. Okay. And the only way to get in is having SQF. So that's where.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:30.222)
Yeah, I mean, it's a milestone. It's credibility. It brings some authority there of, it's a milestone. It's not an ego thing. Come on, that's like, it's the next step in the business to get.
Ana Rodriguez (33:37.872)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (33:44.275)
I mean, I'm saying Anego because it's part of what you saw five years of school. I mean, they train you in your mind to follow steps like this. And every time I grab the manual, I'm like, okay, this was, I don't know, semester, second semester in school, know, third, fourth, fifth. I go back in time and I'm like, okay, we've seen this. We're already gluten-free certified and there are many things alike at SQF.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:54.019)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:02.158)
Good
Ana Rodriguez (34:13.234)
SQSF is something we had in our minds for a long while, but we were kind of postponing while at the same time getting ready for it. So even though we weren't thinking on doing it, we were already preparing for that step, but we thought to ourselves, okay, we're going to do SQF when we grow more, you know, on sales, because it would make more sense.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:29.944)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:39.448)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (34:39.794)
And that didn't happen. We were approached by two supermarkets and they said, we want this product. Can you make it? We said, yes. Okay. But to move forward, you need this. So it's a gamble again. You know, we're throwing the dice and seeing what happens. We're more than ready. And actually on Monday, we're going to be pre-audited.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:59.02)
Right, right.
Ana Rodriguez (35:04.366)
And from that, we should see if we're going to call the auditor, we're ready for that, or if we need to work a little bit more here.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:13.056)
Yeah. you mentioned pickleball. So are you guys big pickleball people?
Ana Rodriguez (35:16.998)
Yeah. Like destroying ourselves with it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:22.37)
Are you, now as you're and your husband also pickleball partners? my goodness.
Ana Rodriguez (35:24.944)
Yeah, we are. Yeah. We don't play all the time together because and that's another funny thing. You know, there are some days where we look at each other and we put the paddles in different spots because we always do open plates. OK. And we're like, OK, this is a day where I don't want to play with him. He doesn't want to play with me because if we do, we're going to fight. We're going to kill each other, not the opponents, but each other.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:47.374)
We're gonna kill each other, yeah.
Right, do you guys have like even more fun jokes around the kitchen? Stay out of the kitchen! Any, you know.
Ana Rodriguez (35:57.031)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, I mean, the way we're playing now, we figure that I'm the good in the kitchen and he's the good from the rest of the court. Yeah, he'll handle the smashing part. I'll handle the kitchen.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:11.246)
from the rest of the...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:18.53)
Now, are you guys in a competition play or do you just kind of go and leisure play?
Ana Rodriguez (36:23.46)
Well, we do open play, but let me tell you this, book is really competitive. Like, I don't know.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:29.93)
Is it? you know the US Open Pickleball Championships are next week. And did you see that Andre Agassi has been picked up as a partner to play? Chandler's like, you don't know who Andre Agassi is? He was a tennis player, like US Open Championship tennis player. That has now been pulled in with.
Ana Rodriguez (36:49.244)
as a tennis player.
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:58.198)
And his partner is, I can't remember her name. It's like Ana, something, something, so bad. yeah, but she is, she's 18. She's won 140 matches or whatever as, you know, in the pickleball tournament, but she has chosen, is she? yeah. And my goodness. So she was bred, you know, to like, come on, we're gonna, we're gonna dominate.
Ana Rodriguez (37:03.404)
I know that, Ana. I didn't know he was going to play with something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (37:15.824)
And she's from Boca. She's from Boca. Yeah. Yeah. Her mom plays in my group. So I, yeah, her mom plays in... Yeah.
We went to one tournament and we didn't even know how the thing was handled, the score, the score you have to have so they place you, you We got kicked like bad. So we said, let's just do open play. And we think we're stars when we play and that's cool with us. Yeah, that's it about that's for us. But we do play every day. I'm going to say this.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:34.049)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:47.448)
That's right.
Ana Rodriguez (37:53.977)
It helps a ton to do exercise when you leave your job, especially food manufacturing, because food manufacturing has so many details. You have no idea. There's always a new task, especially when you're doing certifications, you know, or when you're bringing new clients. mean, always, always. So we usually leave the office around four.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:58.082)
Yes.
Ana Rodriguez (38:21.372)
We go to the house, get ready and go get out and play. If we don't do that, then that's not a good day.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:29.196)
Yeah, is it? Do you guys have a pickable name? Team name?
Ana Rodriguez (38:32.964)
No, we don't. We don't. should. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah, we should.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:35.17)
You should, you should get t-shirts named and you know, made with all that. Put invite all over it.
Ana Rodriguez (38:41.234)
We will. We do sponsor a lot like cookies, bagels. I mean, we play in a park and everybody there, every time we get there, you didn't bring any cookies? Do you have cookies?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:56.334)
You're like, that's what you're known for. Like, come on, you're supposed to be bringing all the goodies. Okay, if you could change two things moving ahead, to hit your goals, what two things would you change to be able to make your goals to be successful?
Ana Rodriguez (39:00.634)
Exactly, not the plate. Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (39:17.298)
I'd say one, very likely pick up another, I mean, bring in either a group of partners or another partner because that helps a in growth, okay? Either, and we're thinking about it right now, either if it's an angel investor that you need or a group of investors, but that they join the company.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:41.909)
Okay.
Ana Rodriguez (39:44.787)
Okay, because there's a ton of things that two heads cannot handle in growth, or at least at the stage of growth we're at. And I'm not saying by this that we're, I don't know, a car hill company, but in every growth, you have your challenges. And what I've seen on the stages that we've been through is that at this point, I would love to have a partner or some partners that would help us
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:45.006)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:49.528)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:57.219)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (40:14.41)
think out of the box some things that because we come from the same career, we don't have different eyes. What we've done to solve this is right now, I'm going to say the whole family has joined the company, my kids, my sister, my cousin.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:21.858)
Right?
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:33.838)
So your kids are now involved.
Ana Rodriguez (40:38.424)
Even my mother-in-law, well, she works here, right? But that has helped give us a new perspective, ambition, helped us with the sign, helped us with our pitches. know, one of the, I say one of the, how do you call it in golf? Well, one of the things we don't handle properly for Giancarlo and myself, we don't think in English, right?
We think in Spanish and maybe in other languages like Giancarlo might think some days in Italian, right? So we're translating constantly what we're going to say. when I write something on an email or when I think of what to say or a speech, it's very likely that I'm not going to say the way you say it because I wasn't born here. Right. So.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:18.371)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:32.472)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (41:35.151)
I have my daughter correcting that all the time. She's pretty involved in our sales pitch, investor pitch, whatever pitches we have, my son too. And we bring, we have three kids. So right now, once a month, we have a conversation with all three of them regarding the troubles we're going into, you know, and seeing their perspective already from grown up.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:38.094)
you
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:57.88)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (42:03.154)
because I say kids, but my youngest is 20, 22 already. And yeah, yeah. So, yeah. And right now they acknowledge that, right? And they're more willing to listen to the stories. We're also more willing to have their advice and we consider a blessing because it's really point on like every time they say something we're like,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:07.116)
Yeah, they're entering the, they're in the workforce. Yeah. This is good lessons for them in family. Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (42:32.772)
wow, you know, okay, cool. So they're participating, like I said, I have a cousin, she has a design agency, and she's doing all the job. My sister is all into communications. So the family's participating while we look for how we're going to do our next phase of growth. And that's, that's a blessing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:45.73)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:58.55)
Yeah, how do you, yeah, I mean that's, so in Booker, how is the business kind of ecosystem as far as like startup and the manufacturing, or do you find that you guys brought your family and you leaned on family, which is wonderful, it's so positive, are there other people in the community or do you feel like there's not,
Ana Rodriguez (43:27.314)
I think, okay, I'm going to say this, the ecosystem in South Florida has changed greatly. Like when we started, I don't think there were any entrepreneur groups or groups like that. Now you find plenty. For us participating, because they're mainly in Miami, it's hard because we have to
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:27.49)
that ecosystem is closed off or.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:45.634)
Right. Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (43:56.029)
drive to Miami after work, we try eventually to get involved in some things, right? We are more involved right now in Boca in dealing with, let's say events that are up here, like running events and meeting the people we have around. Like for instance, meeting mentors here in Boca through SCORE, which is by the way, a great organization. Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:13.858)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:23.54)
It is, yeah, and it's in every community. I don't think a lot of entrepreneurs don't know that, yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (44:27.838)
I don't think a lot of entrepreneurs know about it and you have free mentorship plus free everything because they always have events online, okay? And in any state you're at, they're really useful. I love SCORE. It's helped us, by the way, with SBA loans and SBA, whichever it is that you need. The city of Boca is not an industrial city.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:49.678)
Great.
Ana Rodriguez (44:57.614)
So we're like, let's say growing here is gonna be pretty hard. We're not looking, we're not thinking it's gonna happen. We think actually that we, right now we have 6,000 square foot and we think that this is about what we're gonna find here, okay? We have already been looking in other places in Florida and in North Carolina, South Carolina, we're
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:16.087)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:25.166)
I was like, yeah, come our way.
Ana Rodriguez (45:26.938)
Yeah, we're trying to see which one last year we were a lot in North Carolina. What didn't help is that we were looking exactly for a food facility, because it would help us move ahead in time. Exactly. Yeah, and yeah, we were trying to save some money in rebuilding, right?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:37.762)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:41.944)
versus having to rebuild something that's already kind of established. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:51.032)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (45:53.831)
What I like about being up north, either South Carolina or North Carolina, is the, it's really good positioned geographically in the United States, because you feel like you're in the middle and you could basically ship anywhere. That's not
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:10.574)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (46:13.58)
let's say the best part of being in Florida because we're the last state any truck is going to come in and come out. Fortunately enough, trucks leave Florida pretty empty, so shipping is not that expensive. What attaches us maybe to staying in Florida is that we have all the permits here, you know, doing permits is going to be pretty quick. But let's see how things play. We think that we are going to have to move from Boca.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:33.87)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:39.554)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (46:43.622)
but maybe it's West Palm or maybe it's, I don't know, Orlando. We already found a facility that's near Orlando and we're evaluating if that's going to be the place. It's about triple the space that we have right now and we're trying to figure out how to do it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:01.134)
New level, new devil. There you go, Ana. So if we met a year from now, what would we be celebrating?
Ana Rodriguez (47:06.194)
We expect we again.
Ana Rodriguez (47:13.586)
A year from now, a year past or ahead.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:14.764)
Yeah, freak.
No, a year from now and then in 2026, summer of 2026, what are we celebrating?
Ana Rodriguez (47:25.766)
Well, we should be celebrating a new invite in more capacity that has accomplished what we phrase like you will never meet gluten again. So that has accomplished the fact that even if you're not a celiac, you're going to want to eat my bagel, my donut, my brownie, my cookie. Okay.
and also that has been already certified as QF and is working smoothly with the system.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:00.28)
and you got a new manufacturing facility, we're gonna be celebrating a lot of stuff. Yeah. What's the best piece of advice that you've ever received from maybe another mentor or advisor that you really took to heart that you wanna share with others?
Ana Rodriguez (48:02.756)
Exactly. We should. We should.
Ana Rodriguez (48:18.118)
Yeah, yeah, I remember that one. Don't be so stubborn. It's not helping you. That one. I took it to heart. was like, you know, I didn't like it. And then and then I started thinking about it like the minute they told me that and it was a client of mine, okay, that it was a bigger bakery than we are.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (48:27.224)
Did someone tell that to you?
Ana Rodriguez (48:46.322)
And he didn't mean it in a bad way. He meant it in a good way, but I didn't take it nice. So I went like, you know, but then I did start thinking about it and I was like, yeah, I am stubborn and sometimes it doesn't work.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:02.018)
Yeah, yeah, it was like, I always have to tell people, know, and tell myself too, I gotta keep an open heart, keep an open mind. And you gotta think like, what's the goal? Bring clarity, why am I doing this? What do I hope to accomplish with this? But you're right, it's hard to, to, to, yourself.
Ana Rodriguez (49:14.161)
Yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (49:19.154)
Do you think that happens within, I don't want to say this in the bad way, within aging of being an entrepreneur that you meditate more about these things? Because I have been. I have been a lot.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:31.598)
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've done I think I've done more self, I know, self reflection in my journey. Like I hit, I think, a wall in 2019, 2020, another huge wall in 2022 and really had to kind of do a self assessment of who am I?
Ana Rodriguez (49:44.924)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:00.04)
And how do I want to lead? How do I want to show up? What is my company? Am I doing things right? And you, cause there's so many, you're up at nights, know, brain sweats and tears and thinking and you know, and it's like, how do you, how do you clear that junk? You know, and how do you stay focused? And it takes, it takes work to get to a place where you can think with more.
Ana Rodriguez (50:14.854)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:29.678)
clarity.
Ana Rodriguez (50:31.206)
And I think it's nice to talk about it because many people think you have to be tough, you know, and be stubborn and perseverance and whichever it is that we like, you know, because everybody wants to be, I don't know, a hot star saying, you know, the right phrase. But like you, I've been meditating a lot about not mistakes, but actually things that
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:33.112)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:38.435)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (50:59.826)
move me towards the future because we can be here envisioning invite, but invite is made out of people, you know, and it's made out of its founders, it's made out of its workers. And right now I'm going to say where is invite right now, the founders of invite. And we're in that phase where we are thinking a lot of what we want to become as people more than as a company. Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:06.094)
Great.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:26.37)
Right.
Ana Rodriguez (51:27.698)
and how we want to put this into the future as people, not as a company, you know.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:37.902)
Right. It's like, how do we show up in relation to the company? know, and I think a lot of founders, you know, we work with a lot of founders of your, the company is one thing, right? The brand and what it means. But you know, we work with lot of founders and CEOs of like, you have a personality too. You have also dreams that sometimes aren't the same. And how do you show up in, you know, uniquely?
Ana Rodriguez (51:42.5)
Yes, yes, yes.
Ana Rodriguez (52:06.811)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:07.598)
So you have a path and sometimes it's in compliment or in conjunction with the company brand and sometimes one kind of goes off but it's purposeful and a lot of, think, to, we help sort through that, that mental junk and the mental energy and so it's.
Ana Rodriguez (52:24.594)
you
Ana Rodriguez (52:30.994)
And I think, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:34.99)
because it's weighs on people. mean, can see it in their, at least we do, and we're like helping them with their brand, and all of a sudden we're listening and watching their body language respond to things, whether it's heavy thoughts or they light up. And sometimes it's not always around the company stuff, it's around things that are very personal. And we try to celebrate that and go, okay.
Ana Rodriguez (52:53.23)
Exactly.
Ana Rodriguez (53:00.356)
set.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (53:03.096)
That's not a bad thing. It's okay. We all need to know that and put those paths, put those plans in action and give that clarity. And you're right, it's uncovering. We call our branding workshops both for the company brands, we call them brand therapy.
Ana Rodriguez (53:29.264)
Well, that's a nice one. Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (53:30.478)
Because it is the very thing, know, I just I did one for a company in Kansas this week and it was like, you know, 50 of their all their managers, directors and there's they were so afraid they were like, am I going to get in trouble? I'm like, no, but, know, we're just going to uncover. We're trying to bring alignment and clarity to where this organization is going. But we also do the same thing around founders and CEOs of like helping them understand their leadership style.
their personal brand, and we call it the Joy Lab, for them, and really understanding kind of their voice and their style. And it doesn't always have to be, and it shouldn't be 100 % the company brand. So yeah, it is therapy.
Ana Rodriguez (54:03.735)
my,
Ana Rodriguez (54:20.836)
Exactly. We all need it, by the way. I think social media exacerbates the contrary of how real life is. You mentioned bumping into walls, you know, and reflecting when you hit those walls. And social media is like nobody hits the walls.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (54:35.554)
Yep.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (54:47.97)
I know you're only seeing the good things or we see in a lot of ecosystems like the innovation ecosystems, the cities or the economic development, partners or whatever, they're only lifting up the 1 % the unicorns in the market. And so that's why we created Orange Whip and why we do that Hello Chaos podcast is because we felt the broader spectrum of entrepreneurship and creators and founders weren't really being
Ana Rodriguez (55:01.966)
Exactly.
Ana Rodriguez (55:11.847)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (55:17.856)
seen or heard and talked about. Because then people weren't engaging in the ecosystem. And I would sit with these organizations, they're like, I don't understand why everyone doesn't come to these events. Why is it always the same like 50 people or 100 people that come to all the events? Because you're only talking about, even out of that, you're only lifting up the 10 of these companies or the 10 of these founders. And there's 10,000.
Ana Rodriguez (55:26.66)
Exactly.
Ana Rodriguez (55:39.395)
percent.
Ana Rodriguez (55:44.045)
Thank
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (55:47.362)
that don't see themselves in the picture that you're putting up there. And so, you know, how do we talk about this and talk about the realness of it's not easy and it's not for everybody either.
Ana Rodriguez (55:52.29)
Exactly.
Ana Rodriguez (56:01.746)
Yeah, 100%. I'm 100 % there with you. Yeah. And that's okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (56:04.968)
And that's okay. We all have choices to engage and stuff. So that's our goal is to help build a more connected kind of founder community, entrepreneurial community. Yeah, to lean on each other, to learn from each other and not feel so alone, but also just be seen and heard by people that look like us.
Ana Rodriguez (56:18.994)
That's beautiful.
Ana Rodriguez (56:29.463)
Absolutely. I love it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (56:31.598)
So, okay, before we go, what if you had to choose a word that defined your journey as a founder? What word do you choose?
Ana Rodriguez (56:45.938)
Wild. It's been wild, adventurous. I mean, I always remember our first entrepreneurship called Nomad because I feel it's been that way. know, Nomad is constantly moving, pivoting. That's how I feel.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (56:47.276)
Wild.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (56:57.006)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (57:05.006)
should have been nomad, should have been the word. See, you knew from the beginning what your journey was gonna be like. predicted. Okay, so next chapter. What do you wish your word would be?
Ana Rodriguez (57:07.418)
It should have, yeah.
Ana Rodriguez (57:13.432)
Lightly, yes.
Ana Rodriguez (57:19.986)
We should.
Ana Rodriguez (57:23.92)
God, that's a good one because I think I'm peaceful. know, I need peace in my mind. I've been thinking about the future more like giving, okay? And I made a promise to myself that I hope I can accomplish, which is I would like to someday go back to my country and leave there my knowledge.
for people to continue developing gluten-free formulas and products. At the same time, teaching with the help of Giancarlo for these people to understand how to manufacture gluten-free because it's a whole different product. It's not the gluten containing one and you need to treat it different. And I'm not saying that I'm not willing to do it here in US. I am. know, US for us is our home.
It's our country now and we feel blessed to be here. But there's a part of me that I would love to do it there. It would mean peace for me. It would mean leaving to this country part of what it gave me. And I need to somehow do it. That's how I see myself in the future. Yes. Let's see. I'll tell you if I reach that point.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (58:41.26)
Yeah. The giving back. Yeah. I love that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (58:50.37)
Yeah, I'm sorry. Well, hopefully that's in your, the, in a five year plan, three year plan. We're gonna manifest it out there.
Ana Rodriguez (58:59.218)
I hope. I said to myself, you don't have to live there, but if you are able to give these people, after so many years of bad news and sourness in that country, a new beginning, I'd love to do that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (59:19.074)
I hope, yeah. I love that. Ana, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Before we go, where can people get a hold of you or connect with you and learn more about Inbite and how to support you?
Ana Rodriguez (59:24.464)
Thank
Ana Rodriguez (59:32.307)
Sure. Sure. So if you're looking for invite, the web page is www.invite.us. If you're looking for Ana, you can mainly find me on LinkedIn, Ana Rodriguez-Fortun. You can also search for invite. You're going to find me there. I do engage in a lot of conversations there, and I do engage in posting things about gluten-free products, ingredients, companies.
or any other sort of thing that has to do with food and nutrition. And then my email is Ana, a, a, at inbite.us.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:00:13.922)
Very good, and that's I-N-B-I-T-E, In bite, yeah. fantastic, and we'll tag everything when we publish this episode, which is available on all your favorite podcast platforms. But that's a wrap on today's chaos, but the journey doesn't stop here. If you found yourself nodding along, laughing, or maybe even yelling, the same!
At Ana make sure to subscribe share and leave us that five-star review on Spotify or Apple You can dig deeper into founder resources tools and more episodes over at orangewip.com and that's Wip calm Until next time stay curious stay scrappy and reminder. We're all a work in progress We're out of time always amazed at how fast these things go and we will see you again next week