As a successful social media and brand manager in the corporate world, Rosi Linda Sanchez had never considered starting her own business. Her perspective changed in 2020 when George Floyd was murdered.
Sanchez’s employer made the decision that the company would not enter into the national conversation on racial justice and that she was not to speak out on Black Lives Matter. As a minority and a daughter of immigrants from an inner-city community, that policy didn’t align with her values.
“I felt like I had been backed into a corner,” recalls Sanchez. “I was told that I was too fiery and that I was ‘leaning too much into my diversity.’ That’s when I realized I needed to create my own place and space and do my own thing.”
And that’s how Mixto, Sanchez’s social media and brand building agency, came into existence.
While Sanchez has loved the journey of founding her own company, one aspect of running the business has not been so exciting: managing company finances. But thanks to finance automation from BILL, Sanchez now has the freedom to focus on building her company and serving Mixto’s customers.
“I named my agency Mixto because of my mixed identity that makes me me—my Chicano culture, Mexican culture, and my urban upbringing,” explains Sanchez. “I wanted to create a space where people know our agency is different and that we provide a unique perspective.”
Mixto’s client roster demonstrates her commitment to helping build minority-owned brands. Their clients include music.com, which was founded by Pharrell Williams, and Proudly Co., founded by Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade.
The services Mixto offers are social media-based, from brand building to community building. They focus on helping brands with social content, from managing day-to-day social operations to yearly strategic planning. Sanchez’s team helps her clients define their tone of voice and aesthetic by crafting creative assets and running campaigns.
“We specialize in niche startup entrepreneurial brands,” Sanchez says. “I really love that we are helping Black businesses grow. I just feel like my work is purposeful and I show up every day excited.”
February 2023 marked Mixto’s first full year of operations—a year of great growth … and great challenges.
When she started the business, Sanchez was doing all the accounts receivable (AR) and accounts payable (AP) herself. The main challenge around AR was trying to get paid. “I was creating invoices in [design software] Canva myself,” recalls Sanchez. “It was just a mess. It was the one area of my business where I didn’t feel confident, I didn’t feel empowered.”
Sanchez billed her clients by emailing them the invoices but, as she notes: “Emailing invoices just seemed really outdated when we're doing all of these fun, innovative things with our clients. It just seemed like there had to be an easier way to do this.”
AP was also an issue, especially when it came to paying her employees. She was often so late on processing payroll that she had to pay employees out of her own pocket.
At the end of the day, Sanchez was a creative entrepreneur—but she wasn’t a bookkeeper. Trying to manage her finances while running a startup wasn’t just difficult, it was distracting her from more important things.
Luckily, one of her clients asked her to use BILL to receive payment for services rendered.
“I created a BILL account and started to get paid that way. It was easy … and I was intrigued,” says Sanchez. “I started to explore the BILL dashboard and realized there were so many things BILL could do to help me.”
One of the first things Sanchez discovered in BILL was the seamless integration between BILL and QuickBooks.
“Out of curiosity, I clicked on the QuickBooks tab, and it merged with BILL,” says Sanchez. “I started playing around, and to my surprise, I was able to put together processes and create standardized invoice templates. I was really proud of myself!”
Sanchez started with the basic BILL package but then upgraded to advanced because she realized how much she could accomplish with even more BILL functionality.
"I was quickly able to create my own dashboard. Now with BILL, everything is automated, including invoices, reminders, and payments.” — Rosi Linda Sanchez, Founder, Mixto
Sanchez uses BILL to pay all of Mixto’s vendors and contractors. Everyone has their own profile in BILL. Says Sanchez, “When you go into the BILL dashboard, you can see all of our contractors and vendors. It’s all tight. I can easily show someone how to do billing. It’s just amazing how organized my billing is with BILL.”
“My staff have had no complaints about getting paid since we started with BILL,” says Sanchez with a sigh of relief. “They have sensed a shift in the overall business. They’re more at ease, more productive.”
Now the Mixto staff is focused on the next exciting social media campaign, rather than worrying about getting paid. “They ask me, ‘What are we going to do next in the business? What are the plans for 2023?’” says Sanchez.
The new processes have resulted in time savings for Sanchez, as well.
“I can’t believe how much time I spent on invoicing before BILL!” laughs Sanchez. “I would spend 8 hours creating itemized invoices. Payments before BILL would take me 2-3 days. Now I don’t even have to think about it.”
“I get to be the CEO of my company. And BILL helped me do that.” — Rosi Linda Sanchez, Founder, Mixto
“Before BILL, finances were the biggest thing weighing me down. Now, we’re in business!” says Sanchez. “I get to be the CEO of my company. And BILL helped me do that. I feel confident in my billing processes.”
Mixto’s next move is to expand the usage of BILL to the payment of influencers.
“The whole thing with social media is you have to be quick. If we can onboard influencers onto BILL, we can push out content faster and create a quick, efficient way of getting content for our clients,” explains Sanchez.
Beyond that, Sanchez plans to continue growing their client base and broadening the scope of their offerings. As part of that effort. She plans to invest in rebranding the company and socializing their work so more people know who they are and what they stand for.
“It’s such a great feeling to be able to just focus on the business and know that BILL is taking care of the accounts payable and receivable side of the business.” — Rosi Linda Sanchez, Founder, Mixto
Sanchez sums it up nicely: “It’s such a great feeling to be able to just focus on the business and know that BILL is taking care of the accounts payable and receivable side of the business.”
