Hello, I’m Carolina, and together with my husband Jonathan, we founded Kuyay Chocolates, our venture that has now been in the national and international market for 7 years. We are both economists by profession and graduates of UDEP, Piura campus.

Jonathan comes from a cacao-growing family tradition of more than 80 years, as this love for cacao and chocolate started with his grandparents. He was the one who proposed the idea of starting this business—transforming the raw material (cacao) into the final product (chocolate).

So we began analyzing the market, looking for someone who could do the chocolate manufacturing for us, since buying machinery was very expensive and came with the uncertainty of whether it would even work. We decided to outsource, test the market with the chocolates we planned to offer, get the health registrations, the organic certification… it felt like an endless avalanche of tasks. And even today, the work never really stops—every day brings a new lesson, a new opportunity to learn.

Throughout this journey, we have experienced both joy and hardship. Entrepreneurship is not easy—there is no one telling you whether you’re doing things right or wrong. With time, you simply learn whether the idea you believed in worked or not.

To be an entrepreneur, you must know the path won’t be easy, but it will be fulfilling. There will be days when you feel incredibly energized and others when you feel overwhelmed.

Don’t get discouraged. If the business idea you have in mind is your passion, go for it—do it with drive and determination.