At the end of 2025, I was sitting with my expenses, looking at my numbers, and quietly wondering if it was time to close the chapter on this business and go find a job.

My content wasn’t performing. Brand deals had dried up. Speaking engagements were gone. And if I’m being honest — I had stopped showing up.

This episode is the behind-the-scenes story of what happened when I decided to go all in on content one more time. No guarantees. No overnight success. Just a decision to show up consistently for six months and see what happened.

And what happened changed everything.

In this episode I share:

• Why my business nearly fell apart at the end of 2025 — and what I did about it
• The mindset shift that made the biggest difference in my content
• The types of content that actually started working for me
• Why follower count isn’t the flex we think it is
• The real results after 7-8 months of showing up consistently — including followers gained, opportunities that came inbound, and the actual numbers
• How cutting expenses gave me more breathing room than any launch ever did
• Why you are the niche — and what that actually means in practice

If you’ve ever felt like nobody cares what you have to say anymore, this episode is for you.
If you’ve been quietly thinking about quitting, this episode is for you.

If you’re ready to go all in but don’t know where to start — keep listening.

Want to steal my content strategy?
I created a free training on the three mistakes that are keeping your content invisible — and everything I changed that led to these results.
👉 Grab the free training here

Connect with Erika:
Instagram: @theerikacruz
Website: theerikacruz.com

Transcript:

Erika Cruz (00:01.496)
Hello friends, welcome back to this week’s episode of Chingona Revolution Podcast. It has been a while since I have had a solo episode with you all because I was on vacation and it was great, but I am also so happy to be back. This podcast episode does not even have an agenda. It’s really just me taking you behind the scenes because at the end of 2025, I really was starting to think that I might have to go look for a job, that my time on the internet was done, that

People didn’t really care what I had to say anymore. And all of this really came from my content not really performing the way it was before, me not really getting many brand deals, many speaking engagements. Things had really dried up. And, you know, looking at it in retrospect, the reason things had dried up was because I also stopped showing up. I think what happens is that when you build a business.

Because you are a content creator, because I started off as a content creator. When you build a business, you can get so consumed in running a business. And I had never run a business before. I was not a business major. There was a lot to learn. And I’m so fortunate that I have clients and that I have people to serve. And that’s really where a lot of my focus went. I really started to focus on serving clients, on running the business, on our operations, on

Things behind the scenes and then costs really add up whenever you are a business owner. I thought because I had a digital business, it was going to be a lot easier. Honestly, I can’t even imagine like coffee shop owners who not only have to pay their employees, but they also have to pay rent for a physical space. They also need material. From that aspect, a digital business or a business where you don’t have a physical product is a lot more profitable. But even then, at the end of 2025, I was looking at my

And I was like, this is not it. Like my expenses really started to add up, and the sales were not there to meet those expenses. And for many reasons, right? One, I wasn’t really showing up. Two, the economy hasn’t been the best. A lot of people have been laid off. People are still buying, but they’re buying more intentionally. So there were all these different changes. And because I was so consumed in the business that I was not in the mental space to be creative, to show up.

Erika Cruz (02:28.34)
To share behind the scenes and do all the things that a content creator does. Because honestly, being a content creator is like a full time job. It really is. Kudos to all the people who are working nine to fives and creating content. I know that I did that for a while, but I also did that in the middle of the pandemic. And things have changed. We have lives now, we have things to do. I’m traveling a fair bit. I have friends. I have family. There’s things that are going on.

And at the end of 2025, I was really like, is this the time to close my business down and go back for a job? Or just serve the clients I have and look for a job. And I decided, you know what? Well maybe. And if so, I’m so glad I started this business. But what if, what if I actually gave content a shot? So what I decided to do is I decided to go all in on content. I invested in programs so I can learn what was working with content now.

I tried a bunch of different things. I committed to showing up at least three times a week. Sometimes I would show up three times a day. And I decided that no matter the results, I was going to stick with it at least for the first six months and then I could reevaluate. And that decision really changed everything. Because I know you might be thinking, but you were already creating content. I think even if you are already creating content, there’s still this fear of being seen.

When you’ve kind of been hiding for a while, or whenever just stuff is going on in your life, right? You don’t always want to be visible. You don’t always want to be showing up. And I don’t want to say that we always need to show up. I do think social media breaks are healthy. I literally just came back from a month break from the podcast. So I do think giving yourself time and breaks are really important. But I wanted to share with you all what happened. What happened after going all in on creating content again? And what happened was

I fell in love with creating content again because we are all creative beings in one way or another. And content creation is one of the biggest forms of creative expression because there’s so many ways that a content, a piece of content, can come to be. And when I started sharing content, it wasn’t just about selling. I started sharing content about my story. I started connecting with people that I wouldn’t have even met. I gained all these new followers, and what I have today.

Erika Cruz (04:47.312)
What I have to share with you all today are the results, the metrics from one second, I will be right back. I think I need to, I’m getting over a cold and I’m gonna go blow my nose really quick.

Erika Cruz (05:28.09)
All right, I’m back.

Erika Cruz (05:35.302)
Let me actually pull up my account so I can see what kind of things I started posting.

Erika Cruz (06:19.245)
Okay, before I share the results, let me just tell you kind of the mindset that I was in before. I was in the mindset of like nothing’s working. Why is this happening to me? Again, nobody cares what I have to say anymore. And now looking back, I’m like, yeah, of course, people didn’t care. I was literally hiding. And anytime I did post something, I was posting something to make a sale. And the truth is that nobody wants to be sold to.

People want to be inspired, they want to be educated, they want to feel something when they come across your content. And it’s almost like whenever we are watching Netflix or anything like that, as soon as the ad comes up, we totally disengage. Unless it’s a Super Bowl ad, which are famous for being very creative and things like that. So as I look at how I began showing up over the last year.

I really started sharing a lot more of my story. And I started sharing fun content for people to consume. I shared content around the Super Bowl. I shared content of spending the day with me. I shared content about, I think one of the biggest ones that like really started it off for me is I wrote, I did a piece of content about five projects you’ll regret not starting January 2026.

And that one was one of the first ones that did good. And then I just like let myself have no agenda for content, which I know sounds counterintuitive because you’re all thinking, well, don’t I need a niche? Don’t I need all these different things? Well, no, you just kind of need to be yourself. Like you really are the niche. I know we hear that word kind of that phrase everywhere, but it’s true. Because if you pick a specific niche, your life is going to change. What my program is now, what my business is now is not what it was even two years ago.

So allowing yourself to evolve is one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself as a creator. And that is why sharing your story and your journey and behind the scenes in your content is going to be so, so helpful.

Erika Cruz (08:44.662)
I also started using formats that really work. So like the split screen carousel where the top has an image and a word and then the bottom has another one. So for example, the first one that really popped off for me from that format was the current version of myself was saying my business should be bigger by now. And then my younger self is saying we have a business like our own. And those types of the and those types of posts make people feel

Feel something because even though it’s about me, people see themselves in it. So I really went all in on sharing this type of content. And yes, I still made offers, especially in my stories. another one that did really well for me is I used to be a 10 out of 10 daughter, and then nine out of 10 when I said no, eight out of ten when I chose my own version of spirituality, and so many people shared it, so many people resonated with it.

Another one that did well for me was

My journey about getting accepted into actually, no, this one’s all about my journey of having divorced parents and how I felt very hopeless. But I decided after a bad car accident that I was going to go all in on my life because it was the one life I had, and I felt like I had a second chance at life. So then I really locked in on school. I ended up getting accepted into UC Berkeley.

I worked for a tech company for a while and then I started my business. I started creating content, inspiring people, and it really was a journey of my life. And it was one of those that’s just music and text with a bunch of different images from the past. And that one’s been shared so many times. I’ve gotten so many DMs about that one. So that is how I started really showing up, and that was the difference that I made. So now let’s look at the results. What actually happened?

Erika Cruz (10:33.221)
As I started creating this content, I stopped focusing so much on this not working anymore because it wasn’t even about the views. It was simply getting messages from people about my content resonating. I was like, this is exactly why I started creating content in the first place. So if you were sitting there thinking to yourself, I know that I want to create content, but I don’t know what to create content on, just show up and share your journey. And this doesn’t mean go open your diary and tell everybody about your personal life.

But what this does mean is let people know the lessons that you’ve learned. Share you have to overshare in one area. You don’t have to share overshare everything. I don’t overshare about a lot of things. I don’t talk about my romantic relationships. I don’t talk about my family. I share my own journey with overcoming doubt. I share my own journey from my perspective about being a Latina in tech. I share my perspective of being an entrepreneur.

So you have to oversh overshare something. Some people overshare their finances, for example. Like Jesse Jean is a great example. Every time she overshares how much money she had made, people were definitely cheering on for her. So now that I have kind of explained what has led us here, let’s look at some of the results of showing up over the last seven slash eight months. I have gained almost 17,000 followers. So I’ve gained 16,965 followers.

And you know, as much as I’m like, yeah, let me try to get to fifty thousand followers on Instagram now. This is only Instagram, by the way, because that’s really where I’m focusing now.

Erika Cruz (12:09.669)
What I’ve learned is that not all followers are aligned followers. So I got a lot of followers around Super Bowl time with my bad buddy post. And those people are more likely not going to resonate. Actually, let me say that again.

Erika Cruz (12:27.973)
And not all the people who followed me from that post are likely to resonate with the rest of my content. For example, why Latinas are some of the boldest entrepreneurs even when we are underresourced. That post did so well. I even recreated it. First it was a carousel, and then I made it a talking to the camera video. And that one did so well. But imagine just a random person who followed me because I posted about Bad Bunny. And one, they’re not Latina, two, they don’t want to be an entrepreneur. That’s probably not really an ideal follower.

They’re gonna like that one bad bunny post, but they’re not going to like the rest. So even though I grew 16,965 followers, my goal is actually to lose followers that aren’t aligned anymore. I’d rather have less followers of people who are great fit for my content. Another thing that happened is I hadn’t been invited to a podcast literally in forever. So I was invited to a podcast that’s happening in a couple of weeks. I was also invited to my first.

Creator event in person and they even sent a car for me. It was with OpenAI, Chat GPT, freaking wild. And the last time this had happened was with LinkedIn, and it was back in like 2021 or 2022. So many, many years ago. I was starting to believe I was never going to be invited to creator events again. I also got invited to do a speaking engagement, and that was a very well-paid speaking engagement. I made $3,000 from that and it happened virtually while I was in Italy.

I was also invited to participate in a creator program that pays us. And I was on Telemundo National News. And all these things came inbound, came to me because I was more visible. And then, as far as money goes, I made $73,691.30. I didn’t look at last year’s. It’s not as much money as I was making at the beginning, but

That is okay because I have really been growing up as an entrepreneur. I’m sorry, Sarah. I keep getting this congestion, so let me go blow my nose again.

Erika Cruz (15:57.816)
Okay, I’m back and I totally forgot where I was. I think I was talking about was I talking about the speaking engagement? I think so. I don’t even know where I was. Sorry if this is not gonna make sense.

Erika Cruz (16:12.549)
I’ve really grown up as a business owner. And at the beginning, it was just like, expenses are what they are. And I really started to look at my profit and loss statement. If you don’t know what that is, that’s how much money you have brought in and how much money you are spending. And I was spending so much money in the business, and it was unnecessary to spend that amount. So a big win for me was also just cutting down my expenses. Anything that was unnecessary, anything that we didn’t need.

Anymore, I started cutting things down, and that has given me the biggest breathing room. And I feel like I’m so glad I learned this lesson at like the six-figure, multiple six-figure level, because whenever hope I’m calling this into existence, whenever I I’m calling this into existence, whenever I have seven figure years and multiple seven-figure years, that would have been a really costly lesson to learn then. So really staying up to date with how much money is coming in, how much money is going out, what are we

spending on even like what technology are we using that we don’t need anymore. For example, we were paying for this CRM system that we weren’t even using. And I was like, let’s cancel that. Let’s get rid of that. So really being the CEO of my business. And then I think I mentioned the speaking engagement already, but if I didn’t already do that, I landed a speaking engagement that came to me because of how I had been showing up on social media. And it was all about helping students

Build their personal brand so that they can find jobs. Very aligned for me. It ended up being a very well-paid speaking engagement, $3,000. And I got to do it while I was on my trip in Italy. That speaking engagement paid for my entire trip. So I really started the year feeling hopeless. And through showing up differently, talking to myself differently, I am feeling so hopeful. And this was not an overnight success, right? It’s been seven, eight months of me being.

Consistent with this. But if it’s possible for me, I know it is possible for you. So if you want to learn more about how I was able to go from literally losing hundreds of followers to gaining followers, making sales, gaining opportunities, it really happened through my content and I created a free training for you all. You can access it using the link down below. It’s all about the three mistakes that are keeping your content invisible. And these this was

Erika Cruz (18:36.146)
All the mistakes I was making and everything I changed, and that is what has led to these results today. Okay, y’all, I am so excited to be back. If you have any podcast requests, please send me a DM on Instagram. I cannot wait for next week’s episode. Be sure to share this with a friend if it resonated with you. If anything resonates with you of this podcast, I want to know because I am feeling like we need a little refresh of the podcast, and I’m trying to figure out exactly what direction it’s going. So I would love your input. Again, don’t forget to download the free training and I will see you all next week.