LATINO OWNED ESSAYS

LESSONS FROM LATINO AND LATINA FOUNDERS

Launching an ecommerce brand has never been more accessible. From the outside, it looks straightforward: choose a product, set up a website, run ads, and scale.

But the reality is that entrepreneurship is hard. Starting a business is easy. The hard part is keeping it running and scaling. Ecommerce is a constant series of experiments, mistakes, recalibrations, and small wins stacked over time.

Latino-owned businesses have grown at 7.7% annually, far outpacing the national rate of 0.46%, and have generated $945 billion in revenue.

Here are 10 founder lessons from Latino, Latina, and first-gen entrepreneurs, from launching on TikTok to finding your core audience.

Authenticity Scales Faster Than Safety

Entering a new category, especially CPG, will humble you fast. Sibling co-founders Christina and Carlos Schenstrom learned this the hard way, building Bolivian CPG brand Cassavida.

They entered an industry they didn’t fully understand, launched from a non-obvious market, and then made a common ecommerce mistake: neutralizing their brand to feel “safer.”

Advisors told them to hide their Bolivian roots because it felt unfamiliar and risky. But by stripping away what made them distinct, they also stripped away clarity. Customers didn’t understand the product, the packaging, or the story, because the story wasn’t real.

“People don’t care,” they were told. “Bolivia isn’t Brazil. It isn’t Italy. And your product is already new. If it’s new and from a place no one knows, it’s too random.” So they tried to play it safe and toned down the Bolivian story.

“The product was the same, and the product was great, but our story was based on other things that didn't feel real,” Christina says.

The turning point came when they rebranded in 2024 and fully embraced their origins. The product hadn’t changed. The clarity did. Once the brand owned what made it different, customers finally got it, and growth followed.

Cassavida is rapidly growing on store shelves at Sprouts nationwide, and most recently, it is one of the first-class snacks for American Airlines.

Launching on TikTok

By the time Chulo officially launched, Armando Vital already knew the brand’s foundation would come from culture, family memories, and redefining what it means for Latino men to take care of themselves.

Chulo is a modern men’s haircare brand that has captivated audiences online and IRL through its activations across Los Angeles.

TikTok has played a role in Chulo’s growth, though getting approved for TikTok Shop wasn’t easy. “There were FDA requirements, UPC codes, things I never even thought about,” Armando says.

Through the challenges, Chulo’s products are now live on the platform, and Armando serves as the brand’s primary on-camera presence.

“People want to connect with a human,” he says. “They want to feel spoken to. It's so nice to see the growth and people reacting to the products and relating to Chulo’s mission.

Armando offers advice for founders looking to launch on TikTok and TikTok Shop, with the number one piece of advice - staying consistent. ⬇️

Build with Intention, Not Appropriation

In 2026, there is no reason for brands to appropriate a culture or exclude certain communities. It’s important brands build with intention, and not appropriation when entering a new space or industry.

Founder, Kat Tinsley, of Josefina, a tequila brand rooted in legacy and sustainability, is building the first Black Hispanic woman-owned tequila brand. Currently in its fundraising stage, Kat knew entering the tequila market with intention was key.

From the beginning, Kat prioritized working with manufacturers and creatives in Mexico. Building Josefina isn’t about building a brand, it’s about building bridges. “I will continue to prioritize building bridges with people down in Mexico. That is a priority for me as an individual because I want it to be appreciation, not appropriation.”

Embed Transparency into Your Business Model

Graziano & Gutiérrez is a Mexican-American workwear and apparel brand collaborating with artisan textile makers in Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico.

When co-founder Alejandro Gutiérrez launched his brand in 2018, he began with a simple question: What would it look like to bring traditional handwoven Mexican textiles into contemporary fashion and workwear without stripping them of meaning?

Years later, Alejandro has built a brand that emphasizes the work and art of textiles. The families Graziano & Gutiérrez work with spin their own harvest, grow and harvest their own cotton, spin their own thread, weave their own fabric naturally, and work hard to create beautiful textiles. Naturally dyed cottons and handwoven fabrics take weeks, sometimes months, to produce. Materials that already carry stories before a single stitch is sewn.

“These fabrics come from people who work the land. The clothes should reflect that. We discovered a niche in working with these textiles in this way,” Alejandro shares. “It felt like a cognitive dissonance, almost to grab these textiles and start doing art pieces. We wanted everything to be rooted within something that made sense.”

From the beginning, Graziano & Gutiérrez has embedded transparency into its products, pricing, and the way a piece of clothing is made. It has built trust at every level of the business.

Each garment includes a label naming the family who made the textile and its origin. Radical transparency isn’t a marketing tactic for Graziano & Gutiérrez, it’s the foundation of trust.

Play the Long Game

Diana Gonzalez is the CEO and Founder of Cactus Foods, Tortilla chips made from nopales (cactus), that are gluten-free, non-GMO, and vegan. Cactus Foods has been making waves in Southern California, popping up in stores across LA and Orange County.

For Diana, building a business is a marathon, not a sprint. Her advice to other Latino and first-generation founders?

• Develop thick skin. You’ll hear “no” more than “yes.” Don’t take it personally.

• Be in it for the long haul. Success rarely happens overnight.

• Ask for help. Community support can make or break a small business.

• Stay adaptable. You don’t need all the answers before you start. Just learn and adjust as you go.

“Success does not happen in the blink of a night,” Diana says. “It doesn't happen overnight. It's gonna take a lot of hard work. But everything good in this life requires hard work. I don't think you have to be the smartest in the room. I don't think you have to have the most money. It's who's gonna stick with it.”

Tap into Free Local Resources

One of the easiest places to search for resources on starting an ecommerce business can be at the local level. Such as your local Chamber of Commerce, university incubators, or city grants.

CPG founder Rigoberto stresses the importance of tapping into any free resources available to entrepreneurs and founders, including organizations, educational programs, and community networks designed to help small businesses thrive.

“Using these resources as a stepping stone, you never know who you're going to meet that could help your brand go to the next level,” Rigoberto says.

Rigoberto credits these resources for helping him grow his chocolate brand, Oso Cacao.

Knowing When to A/B Test:

Alejandro Moreno is the owner of Getmore, a Shopify Plus ecommerce agency based in Mexico City.

“All of our most successful clients from day one track their most important KPIs,” Alejandro says. “Starting with the conversion rate. How was how did it perform yesterday? If it dropped, if it increased, why did it happen?”

A hot topic in ecommerce is A/B testing, but Getmore advises most brands to skip it, at least early on.

“In my opinion, if you are not a brand that drives 500,000 visits a month to your website, you shouldn't be thinking about doing A/B testing or landing pages,” Alejandro says.

“Your product page and your home page should be a landing page itself. It should answer all of the most important questions. A/B testing really depends on the stage of your website. We always say, A/B testing is like a PhD. Probably your brand is in elementary school or in secondary school or in college.”

Finding the Right Market Matters

Nico Caraballo is the founder and CEO of Nicasio & Co., a Puerto Rican luxury watch brand. Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, he’s learned that when you deliver real value, the right community and market will show up to support you.

“Make sure your market is the right market,” Nico says. “That’s the biggest lesson for any founder. The money is out there, you just have to know how to access it. What matters most is truly resonating with your audience. Without authenticity, people can sense it immediately, and you’ll either fail to connect or attract the wrong kind of support.”

Build Anyway, Even When the System Wasn’t Built for You

Gamsa is rewriting the rules with savory oatmeal inspired by Korean rice porridge. Founded by friends and first-generation founders Sarah Hwang, and Ruby Saenz.

One of the hardest lessons in entrepreneurship is realizing that talent and effort aren’t the biggest barriers, sometimes it’s access. For first-generation, immigrant, and underrepresented founders, the challenge isn’t just starting a company; it’s navigating systems that assume inherited capital, insider knowledge, and advocates you may not have.

The lesson is this: you don’t wait for permission or perfect conditions, you design around constraints.

That means choosing channels, strategies, and timelines that match your reality, not someone else’s playbook. For Gamsa’s founders, that looked like prioritizing data, capital efficiency, and learning speed over optics, and making decisions rooted in long-term control rather than short-term validation.

Take a Risk and Start the Business

Every founder eventually learns this, usually the hard way: growth only happens on the other side of risk. You can plan endlessly, analyze every downside, and wait for the “right” moment, but the businesses that actually break through are built by people willing to step into uncertainty before they feel ready.

The founders who win understand that risk isn’t recklessness. It’s making informed bets before you have perfect data. It’s launching before you feel confident, investing before results are guaranteed, and standing behind a point of view when advisors tell you to water it down. Every meaningful inflection point, product, positioning, hiring, and storytelling demands a leap.

The paradox is this: the biggest risks usually come with the clearest rewards. Owning your story. Entering an unconventional market. Saying no to what’s easy so you can build what’s right. Founders don’t fail because they took a risk—they fail because they avoided the one that mattered most.

In the end, entrepreneurship isn’t about eliminating risk. It’s about choosing which risks are worth taking, and having the courage to take them before permission is granted.

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