When Martin Cabrera’s high school teacher asked Martin what the difference between a stock and a bond was, Martin proudly raised his hand and explained that a bond something between a man and a woman. He would later learn the definition his high school economics teacher was looking for and use it to launch Cabrera Capital Markets, one of the biggest Hispanic-owned financial firms in the country. The Chicago native joins Bísness School today to explain how an unexpected fax convinced him to start a business, how losing a parent shaped his career path and how he went from growing up in what one education secretary called the worst school system in the United States to trading $2 billion a day in securities and being named the business of the year in Chicago by Negocios Now.

Learn more about Cabrera Capital here.

Follow host Fernando Hurtado at @byfernandoh.

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RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE: Siete Foods: The company PepsiCo acquired for $1.2 billion

One of Mexico's most versatile sauces may not be salsa verde or roja, but rather, chamoy. It's a blend of dehydrated fruit with chili powder, salt, sugar and citrus. It's an ingredient that can go on everything from a mango to a margarita. But one of the ingredients in chamoy is exactly what made it impossible for Annie Leal's dad to eat it after he was diagnosed with diabetes. That's why Annie decided to make I Love Chamoy, a sugar-free version of the popular Mexican candy sauce that her dad could eat. What started as a passion project is now a full-fledged business that generated $4 million in sales in 2023. Annie joins Bísness School to explain why her family had to flee Mexico, what she did after she lost weeks' worth of bottle production and why she said no to being on Shark Tank Mexico.

Follow I Love Chamoy at @shopilovechamoy.

Follow host Fernando Hurtado at @byfernandoh.

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RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE: Casalú: The perfect recipe for a Latino hard seltzer

BIG NEWS: We are nominated for a Signal Award! Bísness School is a finalist in the Business People and Entrepreneurs Shaping Culture category, and now we just need your help to win. You can vote for us here: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2024/shows/general/business-people-entrepreneurs-shaping-culture

On today's episode, we're bringing you the story of PepsiCo's latest $1.2 billion acquisition: Siete Foods. They’re been called the fastest-growing Hispanic food brand in the United States, but it wasn’t always that way. Siete Foods is a Mexican American gluten-free food brand that was started by a family in Laredo, Texas. They have products like Fresas con Crema Grain-Free Cookies, Chicken Fajita Seasoning and Lime Grain-Free Tortilla Chips, but it all started with an almond flour tortilla Veronica Garza sold at her family's CrossFit gym after she was diagnosed with several autoimmune disorders. Siblings Veronica Garza and Miguel Garza, or Mike, join Bísness School to explain how they got their product into Whole Foods, what they did to get actor and entrepreneur Eva Longoria as an investor and why they call themselves a Mexican American food brand, and not Mexican.

Note: This interview was recorded before the acquisition by PepsiCo was announced in October 2024.

Follow Siete Foods at @sietefoods.
Follow host Fernando Hurtado at @byfernandoh.

You’ve seen the headlines. "All-star third baseman Jose Ramirez agrees to 5-year, $124M extension with Cleveland." Behind those deals is a lesser known negotiator trying to craft the best possible deal for a baseball player: the agent. Rafa Nieves is one of them, founding sports agency Republik Sports in 2020. His agency is responsible for that headline you read seconds ago and represents players like Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez and the Yankees’ Luis Gil. Rafa joins Bísness School to tell us how he went from pro baseball player to professional agent, what he learned from being a nightclub promoter in Miami, what he wrote in the cold email that got him first job and the unexpected role the MTV Video Music Awards played in his career.

Follow @republiksports

Follow @byfernandoh

When Julissa Prado was a child, she spent several summers with her grandmother in Mexico — where she learned how to mix natural ingredients, such as lemon, sugar and aloe vera to prepare homemade remedies. She realized she could use other similar ingredients for something she had long struggled with: her curly hair. Frustrated with the lack of products in the United States to reduce frizz and provide long lasting hold for textured hair, Julissa, with the help of her brother Tony, wanted to show Latinas in the United States that having the perfect curls didn’t mean buying products heavy on sulfate, silicones or parabens. The siblings decided to create an all-natural one. Today, Rizos Curls is the first Latina-owned curly hair care brand available at all Ulta Beauty stores nationwide and the brand singer Chapell Roan uses to make her curls shine on stage. Julissa Prado joins Bísness School to tell us why it took her four years to find the perfect formula for Rizos Curls, how a natural disaster gave her the impulse to start the company, and what happened after Rizos Curls launched a collaboration with Mexican actress and singer Thalía.

Bísness School is coming back for another season! Hear from the Latino entrepreneurs behind companies like Rizos Curls, Siete Foods and I Love Chamoy. New episodes start Sept. 10.

What do music mogul Emilio Estefan, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and Oscar Muñoz, the first Latino CEO of United Airlines, have in common? They’ve all done business with Gary Acosta, a man who Hispanic Business Magazine has named as one of 100 most influential Hispanics in the United States. Gary Acosta has been on a 20-plus year mission to increase Hispanic homeownership. In 2001, he co-founded the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals or NAHREP. Today, NAHREP is one of the largest Hispanic business organizations in the country with more than 40,000 members and 100 local chapters. Since co-founding NAHREP, the businessman has launched the Hispanic Wealth Project, which aims to boost the economic status of Latinos, and L’ATTITUDE, his most ambitious project to date, which aims to be SXSW for Latinos. In our last season one episode of Bísness School, Gary tells us what he learned from playing D3 college basketball under Gregg Poppovich, the many ways the financial crisis of 2008 crushed his organization overnight and then supercharged it, and why he and his co-founder call Latinos the “new mainstream economy.”

We'll be back with new episodes this fall. Go back to our feed and listen to previous episodes in the meantime, and above all, enjoy your summer break from Bísness School!

Follow NAHREP at https://www.instagram.com/nahrep/.

Follow L'ATTITUDE at https://www.instagram.com/lattitudeevent

Follow Fernando Hurtado at https://www.instagram.com/byfernandoh

When companies like Honda want to launch a new pickup truck, and they want that vehicle to do well with Hispanic consumers, they don’t just go with their gut feeling to figure out what that consumer wants. Instead, they hire a market research firm to tell them what that consumer wants. Yet 20 years ago, market research firms couldn’t really tell you. They could tell you what general American consumers wanted, but not Hispanic Americans wanted. Mario Carrasco built the largest online Hispanic research panel companies could use to tune into this segment’s needs. But he didn’t stop there. Convinced that the future of the United States wasn’t Hispanic, but rather, multicultural, Mario and his co-founder Roy created ThinkNow, a multicultural market research firm with clients like Honda and Google and more than 50 employees across four countries. Mario joins Bísness School to explain how he went from a high school English teacher to a pedigreed marketing professional, how he started his company with a 500-dollar prepaid debit card and what ThinkNow has taught him about American consumers and the future of the country.

This episode was produced by Fernando Hurtado and edited by James Jeffrey.

Follow ThinkNow at http://www.instagram.com/thinknowglobal.

Follow Fernando Hurtado at http://instagram.com/byfernandoh.