Luisa Santos, owner
Lulu’s Ice Cream / Miami
Nitrogen ice cream retailer
Started in 2014; opened in May 2015
Consultants from the Florida SBDC at Florida International University gave Luisa Santos the expertise she needed to start her bricks-and-mortar business, including permitting and construction. “We went over the details of what an SBA loan entails and the information that banks expect,” Santos says. “We worked on financial modeling — getting an accurate picture of the variables I can control and those I can’t.