CV Hustle
A Podcast created to educate, inform & inspire entrepreneurship here in our Coachella Valley.
We will be talking to some of the best & brightest entrepreneurs in the Coachella Valley about how they started their journey in entrepreneurship.
CV Hustle
What's Up With CV Hustle??!!
Fina Meraz shares her entrepreneurial journey as she prepares to launch a new slab studio in Palm Desert, aiming to offer unique and innovative design solutions that the Coachella Valley lacks. The episode touches on risks, community connections, and the exciting future of local entrepreneurship.
• Fina introduces her new slab studio and its offerings
• Focus on customizing options for clients and designers
• Plans to host events and foster community engagement
• Robert discusses the new podcast studio and its purpose
• Future plans for season two and highlighting local entrepreneurs
Welcome to CV Hustle, the podcast created to educate, inform and inspire entrepreneurship here in our Coachella Valley. Welcome everybody, I'm Robert Mraz.
Speaker 2:And I'm Fina Mraz.
Speaker 1:And this is CV Hustle, the podcast designed to educate, inspire and inform local entrepreneurship here in our Coachella Valley. And hey, Fina, it's been a while, right, it's been a while we haven't been.
Speaker 2:Well, we've been busy. That's why it's been a while it's been a while. I know you all missed us.
Speaker 1:Well, that's kind of why we jumped on today for a little short little episode about what we've kind of been up to and what's new here at CV Hustle. So I hear a rumor that Tile Designs by Fina is maybe opening a third location.
Speaker 2:It's not a rumor. It is happening, people. So, yeah, we obtained a new building in Palm Desert, on Beacon Hill in Hovelie, and I needed to get out of my Thousand Palms location. I was tired of renting, so we got this location. It's 5,500 square feet. It was quite large and so I didn't need a warehouse that big, and I've always put out to the universe that I want a slab, I wanted a slab studio, right. Of course I'd love to have it in my location on 111, but it just didn't work out that way and I'm okay with that actually.
Speaker 2:So this space will be dedicated for a new slab studio and it's going to be beautiful. I mean, it's got the high ceilings. We're going to bring products that's very niche and that is nowhere in the valley. Like we're going to be offering glass slabs, you know, backlit glass slabs. We'll be showing Caesarstone, which is a product that nobody in the desert is showing. They're showing small samples but not like bigger full size samples, and then also, everything in our building has to talk right. So, like my reception desk is made out of quartz and we're going to be.
Speaker 2:We made a bar that's actually a working bar, so we'll have to, you know, have a couple of drinks in there one day Some events in there, yeah absolutely, and I'm even thinking about, you know, renting that space out if people want to have events in there, for you know, chambers or what have you, but anyway. So all the bar will be the product we're selling. We're going to have vignettes, so I'll have a bathroom in there, I'm going to show a mid-century barbecue outdoor section and a kitchen and all of those things. So sorry, I didn't mean to rattle on that much, but geez.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on, I think. What was the kind of the business decision behind that, though, of kind of expanding? I mean, do you want to kind of touch on why you wanted to open a slab studio here in the Valley? I mean, we've already kind of took over the flooring and the boutique tile space. Why is this kind of the next step, the logical next step for you.
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously, tile and countertops go hand in hand, but I just wanted to really do something different that the Valley doesn't have, and that's kind of always been. Why I think our business has succeeded is because we're always trying to up the game and up the ante and and to really be able to service my clients you know my, my clients, the designers, the architects to have somewhere to bring their clients and really show what we can do, because I think it, I think that's needed. You know, yeah, you have countertops. They look like this and everybody has the white veining and all of that and it's beautiful. But I want people to know there's so much more and there's so many options and to really get creative, because I think that's what my specialty is is, I love doing the custom stuff and I'm not scared of doing it. There's just some really custom things that you can do and I felt like we needed to bring that to the desert.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned kind of more exclusive. It's not going to be like your average mom and pop slab yard right, you're bringing in some pretty big unique vendors. Did you want to kind of touch on some of those?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm bringing in probably items that people have heard about, like I'll have Neolith, but is that being represented here in the Valley in a large format? No, it's not Glass slabs again, like I said that nobody is showing those. We're also going to be showing textured stone slabs, which that's going to be a really big hit. I just know it. But stone is definitely coming back into our, into our the design, and so I'm going to be showing some really beautiful custom stone slabs and then I think we're going to show some big porcelain slabs. I mean, that's where everything is going, especially in this valley. The more fabricators are getting used to doing and fabricating porcelain. It's wanted everywhere because it can go indoor, it can go outdoor, and so we're showing every color, we're showing it in different ways. You can use it as well. For instance, you can put porcelain and or these acrylic slabs that we're going to sell in front of cabinets, and so it's just to kind of really open people's minds as to what we can do with our services.
Speaker 1:Exciting, exciting stuff. Third location are you ready? Are you ready for that logistical nightmare?
Speaker 2:We may be hiring If anybody's wanting to learn.
Speaker 1:Third location. That's quite a step, but I think you're ready, the team is ready. I think you know you've only, you've only accelerated the design, the design aspects of the valley. So I think you know this is just a logical next step. Yeah, we're pretty excited and I think this is something that we've always talked about doing and it's something that's finally coming to fruition. We find the right location and you know we're going to make, we're going to rock and roll. You know it's it's always. You know we're going to make, we're going to rock and roll. You know it's it's always, you know, scary to do it when you're in the middle of which we are right now in the middle of the construction and all that.
Speaker 2:That's a nightmare.
Speaker 1:But I think you know you gotta, you always gotta, take the long term approach on these things. You know, yeah, the money hurts going out of the bank account, but I think you for you to kind of corner the market right.
Speaker 2:And I think what I have always tried to think about and I actually have posted on my desk and it's Warren Buffett saying I mean I wish I thought of this, but all it says is, in business, if it's not a hell, yes, it's a no, yes it's a no. And I, that truly has has made some really big decisions for me, because you and I know when we saw this building it was like oh my god, this was made for us this building was for lease for two days and boom we, you know we got it.
Speaker 2:So it was just meant to be and it was like okay, we're doing it yeah let's go.
Speaker 1:It was in the the, the universe made it happen.
Speaker 1:It was kind of speaking of other new things. You know we're in a new location from season one. If any of you have seen season one on YouTube, we're in a little different location. You know this is a. This is quite quite a different setting and the reason it took us so long part of the reason it took us so long to get to this point is because we kind of built this on the fly. So this is the CV Hustle Studio. We have another set next door, another two-person set, and this is you know where we're going to be filming season two and we're really excited about it and it's literally upstairs from my office. So I'm really excited. I could just walk up here and, you know, spout off on the mic and just you know have.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the way it came about too was another thing where we had a tenant in here and we weren't sure if he was going to rent again, and he decided not to and even asked if he could get out of his lease early. And so we're like heck, yeah, see ya, you know, and it wasn't a problem, and we said, hey, this space would be really really perfect to start this podcast studio. And, you know, we had the vision you really had the vision about how we should go about it and all of that, and it just kind of happened and we needed to do something like this. I think it's also for our community. You know, I know you have really big plans which you could possibly share with us, about what you want to use this podcast studio for. Um, I have plans that I, you know that I want to do that.
Speaker 1:Um, you'll let me do someday, but as of right now, um, we're excited, you know, and I have a couple of friends that want to rent this space out and, uh, we'll just see where it goes well, speaking to that, the goal ultimately is for obviously for us to, you know, kind of just bring the production team in here and let them set up and and just rock and roll and be able to do some good content out of here.
Speaker 1:But also the other goal is there's not a ton of spaces where people can go and record a podcast and people might think, oh, everybody has a podcast these days, which may be the common theme that people think. But I think, if you really look at the numbers, podcast is still a very young, very young medium and there's room for everybody in this game. I think podcast the niche, the riches are in the niches. You know you've got to niche down and be. You know, if you're passionate about, you know, baseball cards, do a podcast about baseball cards, because there's other people.
Speaker 1:That's where you really gain traction. So I think for me it's like this is a no brainer. If you own a small business and you're passionate about your small business, this is a no brainer. So another portion of this is we want to get this to where it's. You know, running like a well oiled machine, and people can come up here and you know, pay us a little fee to pay the engineer to come up here and record you and you guys can do your own podcast.
Speaker 1:This is, this is all. The equipment is here, the sets are already made. You know, you just show up, turn they turn on the mic, they get you looking pretty with the, with the camera angles and way we go. You know, and I think that's something in the Valley. There's a lot of these things in LA and in the bigger cities, but there's not a lot of people that are, that are that have a space where you can just show up and record here in the Valley, and that's kind of something that we've kind of tuned into doing this podcast thing. Like, hey, there might be a little bit of a need here. So if you are a business owner you're thinking about, are you not even a business?
Speaker 2:owner, even a charity. I mean, I've had, you know, shay's Warriors. She wants to do something. And then I'm in a Coachella Valley women's business owner community, women's business owner community, and we meet once a month and several of those ladies are like, hey, I want to do a podcast. As soon as it's up, and they'll ask me are you almost done? Are you almost done? And I'm like, yes, give me some money, it's a lot on our plate.
Speaker 1:We're still working out the kinks, obviously the first couple of episodes, but we're going to run the testers and be the guinea pigs, so people that then come in and rent. You know it's a easy, it's an easy transition. We just turn on the cameras and the mics and you guys come in here and talk for however long you want to do it. So that's kind of the goal. You know how, how? That's not our main business. Obviously we're not. We're not in the lookout. We're going to be pushing out more content about this and we're going to probably be building a third set.
Speaker 2:We're going to make a girly one.
Speaker 1:We want to have a place where the community can come and just record and just not knowing how to record I don't know anything about cameras and lighting we leave that to the experts over there on our production team but this is an opportunity, I think, for the. You know, if we can do it right, the community can come in here and, you know, get, get their content out there, cause everything's going to content, everything's going to social media YouTube, you know, instagram, everything.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that I want to do and I don't know that I've even told you this but like, for instance, our back background. Right, this is kind of our eclectic taste a little bit of music, a little bit of weird shit, you know everything. But what I want to do is almost like a photo booth. There's all these like props, and then you pick and choose what you want in your backdrop. So like, if you don't like any of this, that's okay, it doesn't hurt my feelings, Bring your own. I don't care, Just make it your own. So that's really what we want to do. So we want everybody to feel comfortable in this space and, yeah, just really make it their own and let it be a reflection of who they are and maybe what they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll leave the nails in the wall for you. You can hang up your own pictures. No painting, yeah, no painting.
Speaker 2:We like this room, dark and mysterious.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's, that's kind of the goal of the space. You know we've been working on this. I mean, obviously it took us a long time we had. You know, we have other things in our lives going on, you know well, speaking of other things in your life.
Speaker 2:Football just ended, yeah, and so do you want to speak a little bit about that here?
Speaker 1:I mean, that's like no, I'm passionate. Well, that's something I'm passionate about and that's's something that I've always thought to kind of build a podcast around as well, because I've been doing it since I was a kid, so that may be coming down the line. That's another kind of reason we wanted to have a space where we can just kind of come up here and be creative. I know we're not going to set the world on fire or anything.
Speaker 2:It's just a creative outlet for us to get our ideas out there and talk about community, like local football teams and things like that, and you know, I think and kind of just get a little bit more in tuned and a little bit more personal with players and or coaches, or what have you right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know the media doesn't does a decent the desert sun does a decent job of covering high school sports and high school athletes. I think there's a. There is an opportunity, though, to kind of be creative and and delve into your interest in this medium. So that's kind of you know, another reason we wanted to start this and kind of share with the community, and there's a lot of smart people out there that really have some good ideas on things.
Speaker 1:So, you know, podcasting to me is a, is a is a great form because it's long format. You can be detailed, you can be, you can be as long-winded as you want to be. Nobody's going to shut you up and you can say pretty much whatever you want. It still is one of the few independent media outlets out there that you're not beholden to your boss, you're not beholden to some giant corporation that pays you to sponsor the podcast. So that's the good thing about this medium. So we're happy to share it and, you know, look for more information on that. I think it's very exciting and more to come on that.
Speaker 2:But I mean, I think so the reason we really are diving into this podcast is because we do want to bring on more really cool guests. I mean, we have some upcoming guests that are going to be phenomenal and they're just they're excited. We're excited, you know, and we're just going to kind of tap into some other businesses and people and what they're doing and I can't wait to hear their stories and see where it all goes. But it's going to be good, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of good good segue there, season two is in the midst of recording now, so we'll be slowly getting back out there with season two. We're trying to hit the best entrepreneurs here in the Valley. Everybody's got great stories and there's a lot of talent, you know, in this Valley that doesn't get enough shine just because we're such a small market. So that's what we want to bring to light. We want to show the world that hey, the CV's got some hustlers in there and they've got some great stories.
Speaker 2:And that's really what we're going to bring in season two. Well, and I think what? What is really cool is you kind of get behind the scenes right and you get to really know the people that are running those businesses and that are going to or service you and or your clients and you just you get a better take of where they're coming from and how they started their business and why they're passionate about their business. So I like that idea and you know I love entrepreneur. I I mean, I watch Shark Tank 24-7. I just love it. I can't get enough. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what's in your blood? Yeah, you've got the entrepreneurial itch. Absolutely it's like all of us in this room, so look out for season two on the way we're going to be casting here pretty soon. We've already got people that are going to be coming in. If you found some value in this, like subscribe. You know the routine and we'll see you next time. On CV Hustle, thank you.