About the Connecting KC series: This ongoing project aims to assist efforts to make businesses, institutions and civic organizations — and opportunity — more diverse and inclusive.
One penny shaped entrepreneur Amanda Villarreal’s outlook and spurred her to dream bigger.
Villarreal was 5 when her family moved from Mexico to Southern California.
“There were a lot of limitations — a lack of everything. We came here with nothing,” the co-founder and CEO of Overland Park-based PLEX Capital LLC said.
For two years, they lived in a camping trailer without a bathroom and earned money by working in plant nurseries, picking grapes from fields and recycling soda cans littering the streets. She would transfer Mexican pinwheels to individual bags and sell them door to door with hot sauce or salsa.
“I was hungry from a young age, so that taught me to be the best salesperson ever,” Villarreal said.
She recalled an experience when she was 8 or 9 of heading to the grocery store for a gallon of milk. When her family reached the checkout counter, they discovered they were a penny short. They hunted for change in the parking lot but left empty-handed.
“Those are great experiences that just mold your character and your drive. … I never realized that everything that I had been doing as a child was molding me to become really good at business development and to have big visions for the company,” she said. “I’m someone who’s always encouraging people to think big. It’s just within my DNA. … I think about that little girl, that Amanda at the age of 5. An immigrant child. People would probably look at me and say, ‘There’s not a whole lot of hope for her.’ I love being able to just laugh at that now. No, I can be whoever I want to be. I can do whatever I want to do.”
Through PLEX Capital, Villarreal wants to send that message to other entrepreneurs: Dream bigger, and don’t let societal labels hold you back.
“Just because you were born into poverty doesn’t mean you’re going to die in a world of limitations,” she said.
Villarreal, who moved to Olathe in 2000, became the first in her family to graduate from high school and also earned an MBA. She worked at an invoice factoring company from the ground up as its vice president of sales and marketing for 12 years. When the company chose to head in a different direction, she and general manager Josh Goode decided to launch invoice factoring company PLEX Capital in August 2019.
The company provides businesses with working capital by converting their accounts receivable into immediate cash. With invoices, companies typically wait 30 to 90 days before getting paid by clients. PLEX Capital can give them an advance on their invoice in as little as 24 hours with its line of credit and personal funds from the founders. PLEX Capital bills its customers’ clients and takes a percentage of the invoice to make money.
A number of small businesses, especially minority-owned, struggle with access to capital, Villareal said. They typically don’t have the assets or credit to qualify for a bank loan. PLEX Capital focuses on the creditworthiness of its clients’ customers, who verify that a project is completed before PLEX Capital sends money.
Having working capital allows companies to seize new opportunities, scale and fund aspects, such as payroll and equipment. When businesses thrive, it creates jobs and more entrepreneurs to serve as examples in their community, she said.
To date, the startup’s revenue has grown nearly 800%, and it met aggressive goals for 2021 in April.
Organically, its customer base has become 96% women- and minority-owned businesses. Villarreal credited that to seeing someone they relate to and who looks like them.
Villarreal aims to be a cheerleader for her clients and wants to hire other employees who will do the same. When entrepreneurs have approached her with doubts, Villarreal helps them see a path forward. One such example is a staffing agency whose owner thought about quitting. The agency now has grown from one Kansas City-area office to three and is close to opening its fourth. It’s nearing $10 million in revenue this year. Another PLEX Capital client went from $5,000 in monthly sales to $1.5 million, she said.
“You think about the bigger picture. You think about the impact,” she said. “You’re enabling a female entrepreneur or a minority to go and build their dream.”
Amanda Villarreal
Title: Co-founder and CEO, PLEX Capital LLC
Education: MBA, Baker University; bachelor's in management, Friends University
Family: Sons Alexander (AJ) Rodriguez, 18; and Abraham (Abe) Rodriguez, 7
Hobbies: Running, reading, traveling, hiking
