Series 8: Exploring the Puerto Rico Startup Ecosystem Episode 173 Building a Platform for the Latin American Diaspora with Alan Taveras-Sepulveda

RareBirds Emerging Markets Podcast

Alan is the co-founder and owner of Brands Of (alongside his brother). They were both studying abroad when they experienced the nostalgia many do when abroad. This was the beginning of their company, Brands Of, a startup company committed to exporting goods from Latin American countries and providing a drop shipping-plus-fulfillment service from Puerto Rico. Brands of looks to supply consumers especially the Latin-American diaspora with the brands and products they love from their home country while enabling local entrepreneurs with the necessary tools to export. We are building the largest quality based catalog of Latin-Americans products and brands “The concept of Brands of started with Brands of Puerto Rico. In the first days of March 2014 Puerto Rico’s bonds degraded to junk because of the ongoing economic crisis, parallel to this a greater number of Puerto Ricans started moving to the continental USA looking for more opportunities. We saw this as a great opportunity for the local entrepreneurs to start exporting their products and brands to satisfy the growing market outside of Puerto Rico created by the diaspora. Since our background is based on technological entrepreneurship, it was natural to us to create a platform where the diaspora could buy the products they miss while supporting the brands they love.”