NYC Entrepreneur Shares Her Secret To Business Success

NEW YORK CITY— In 2026, a new podcast is hardly newsworthy. The headlines have become comedy's real estate, traded for punch lines about unemployed men who need to lose the mic.

But after launching a marketing agency in her twenties, Victoria Mariscal, now 34, believed she could offer something different.

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In her podcast, Minding Her Own Business, each episode asks guests to trace their evolution from "nosy little girls" to successful businesswomen.

"A lot of masterminds out there are very strategic and high level, but they don't roll up their sleeves and actually work side by side with you," Mariscal said.

Every branch of Mariscal's career hinges on the same pursuit: creating opportunities for those too often left out of the room.

Before founding Front Desk, which helps emerging brands grow their audiences through in-person experiences, Mariscal first had to market herself.

Mariscal treated every networking event as an opportunity to learn what worked for others and how to replicate their strategies.

Her connections set off a chain reaction: mentors led to clients, and clients became friends.

Though it may sound cliché, community is the ultimate trade secret, Mariscal said.

But building a personal brand meant confronting a question she hadn't quite answered for herself: How do you show the world who you are when you're still figuring out where you belong?

A second-generation Mexican American raised in Southern California, Mariscal said she often questioned whether she was "Latina enough," or had become too assimilated to fit into the community.

But in New York, she faced the opposite problem: she found herself among relatively few Latina founders in the emerging technology spaces she frequented.

"It took me being an adult and being away from my community to realize how important my roots were," Mariscal said.

For her, culture shows up in the details: making sure guests are welcomed with a meal, offering coffee and a bagel at a meeting, or remembering a client's birthday with a card.

"All of those things make me an amazing businesswoman, but they come from the traditions that stemmed from my childhood and my culture of hospitality and community."

Now, Mariscal serves on the East Coast board of Step Up, a nonprofit that supports girls from under-resourced communities through mentorship, leadership development and career exploration.

Mariscal hosted Finding Your Pink in Los Angeles, raising $1,200 for Step Up through a live podcast and silent auction featuring products from female-founded brands.

She plans to bring the event to New York in December, pairing fundraising with opportunities for attendees to mentor young women through Step Up's mentorship app.

That ethos informs Mariscal's advice to women starting out: expect things to go wrong, and don't mistake a setback for a verdict.

Failure, she said, might mean crying in a closet or in a car before asking what, if anything, can be salvaged.

"Everyone's aha moment results in them finding their purpose," Mariscal said. "I think everyone is brought intothis world to live into something bigger than themselves."