José Mendoza

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to José Mendoza by AFODENIC in Nicaragua. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 15 months, AFODENIC will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Simply so you know who is the voice of this article, my name is Jon and I am a Kiva Fellow working with AFODENIC; the micro finance institution that loans to Jose.

Jose Mendoza is the one-stop-shop in barrio 3-80 for food, clothing, shoes, and backpacks. Jose Mendoza is the reflection of a growing community that is developing from the inside out. It is a family affair as Jose employs all four of his children when they are not in school. He has a full service “pulperia,” which is like a convenient store with milk, eggs, etcetera next to a clothing shop that measures about 250 square feet. The clothing store is Jose Mendoza’s latest addition and he does not want to stop there. He has no nearby competition and he wants to take full advantage of that opportunity. We talked shop about revenue margins as he boasted that he makes between 20-30% on the backpacks he sells. For other items, it is less, but the entire Mendoza family is supported by the operations of the Mendoza family store. There are six family members and some of the kids are in already in college so the fact that Jose is also paying college tuition is impressive.

Jose is a savvy borrower and sees it as a catalyst for his future vision. It seems he is already the most trafficked store in his neighborhood and that gives him confidence to want to expand even further.