Why should you subscribe?
If you’re a Latina trying to figure out your own style of entrepreneurship, you should subscribe. We’ll always be free to you — and you can always upgrade to a paid subscription if you feel like you’re getting good value.
If you’re a white guy trying to “be an ally” in a brave new woke world that criticizes you for trying to understand it because your questions often prove our point of view, you should get a paid subscription. :)
I bring valuable insights from a GenX Latina POV covering three decades…so go ahead — pay me!
Who am I?
I am Mel Feliciano, and I wanna help other Latinas avoid all the stupid stuff I did while navigating the tech and venture capital worlds between 1999-2019.
Currently, I’m a mentor with Latinas in Tech, a member of AnitaB.org, an award-winning humor columnist for the Devil’s Advocate (Sunshine State Awards 2006), a filmmaker/animator with a successful Kickstarter, co-founder of Georgic Media, author of Model Ricans, and an emerging web developer for Orange County Government in Central Florida. I’ve spoken on panels at Wonder Women Tech and shared my story with Gal Talks Tech and Canvas Rebel.
I’m not a billionaire. I’m not Sheryl Sandberg. And I’m not interested in being an influencer or selling you some kind of secret sauce that will help you be successful. I only aim to tell my story, and the stories of other Latinas in Tech, to both entertain and educate you as you navigate your own journey.
Why Substack?
Not gonna lie: At first I didn’t want to create yet another username and password for yet another platform like Myspace, Friendster, Blogspot, Wordpress, Drupal, Kickstarter, Wattpad, Patreon, TikTok, Facebook, IG, Twitter, and every other dot-com that has been allowing humans to spew their personalized views since 1995.
When I lost two contracts simultaneously in 2023, my mentor Lavonne Luquis suggested I start a Substack newsletter…so then I thought, hey, nothing else to lose, so why not?
During this time, I was also reading Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In,” and noticed that Bitch Magazine and Jezebel had both croaked, so I was all: “Imma fill the holes leftover in feminist journalism!” Eventually I realized that was my ego talking, so I pivoted to animated workshops and interviews with Latinas in Tech on Mondays, and on Thursdays, a serialized novel about my bisabuela’s entrepreneurship journey in 1920s Harlem and Puerto Rico…because everything old is always new again.
There are two newsletters you’ll receive here on this Substack platform:
Dr. Nutmeg’s Femmebots on Mondays at 7pm
The Nine Lives of Maria La Gata on Thursdays at 7pm
What to expect on Mondays
Animated interviews with women (especially Latinas) working in tech, trends in Central Florida, abortion rights, 2024 elections, new AI apps, trends in media, and data.
What to expect on Thursdays
A new chapter of The Nine Lives of Maria La Gata with questions to ask yourself as you build your entrepreneurial empire.
Check us out on TikTok!
This Substack is targeted to #LatinasinTech, #LatinasinFilm, #LatinasinAnimation, #LatinasinData, and #LatinasinGeneral.
We are invisible in mainstream media, so Dr. Nutmeg and her new fleet of AI-generated Femmebots are regularly posting animations on the TikTok channel to see how the market responds.
Follow us on TikTok because it’s really exciting to see our view numbers increasing the more we post!
The biggest problems we are attempting to solve for our subscribers are:
The loneliness we can often feel as "Latina solopreneurs."
Demonstrations of new technologies on the market so that younger Latinas can see themselves represented.
Improved skills to entice future jobs or contracts.
If you discover this is the kind of content that can help and inspire you to build your own Entrepreneurial Empire, share your feedback.
About the Editor Melanie Feliciano
I’ve been developing websites at startups and nonprofits since 1997 in Michigan, San Francisco, Miami, DC, and NY, and returned to my hometown Orlando in 2019 to be closer to fam. I call us the Nuyoricans who became Mickey Ricans!
I earned an MA in Film from American University in Washington, DC. The production experience was valuable, and connected me to a cool community of techies and filmmakers, some of which I learned how to play with nicely; others not so much. It’s DC, y’all.
Anyways, I taught an animation workshop to the DC Nightowls community and remembered how much I liked teaching blog and creative writing at Miami-Dade College and Biscayne Writers online workshops. It’s like, duh — you’re good at convening people and facilitating space to learn. One of the best workshops I hosted was with Stan Lee of Marvel Comics — I learned a few things directly from the master himself while very clumsily building The Femmebots world in 2008.
Interspersed with the animated workshops on this Substack, I share a fictionalized story about my bisabuela Maria La Gata, a rum runner in 1920s Puerto Rico. The purpose is to inspire other career-oriented Latinas to think about their own abuelas and bisabuelas, whose journeys through life led them to where they are now.
My personal story.
I am making this Substack for my work because I would like to write full-time...eventually. My original 2024 goal was to find 500 subscribers to pay $30 by March 31, 2024. This was silly and ambitious. It will take WAY more time, perhaps 10 years, to find 500 truly invested and engaged subscribers.
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