Product Design
Latino Brand
Latino Brand is a project I created from the ground up, long before my career in product design began. It started as a simple idea: celebrate Latin culture through original merchandise and design. With no funding, no team, and no formal business training, I began selling t-shirts out of the trunk of a van on the streets of Boston. That early hustle became the foundation for everything I later learned about product thinking, customer empathy, and building with resilience.
A Zero to One Journey
Latino Brand was my introduction to true zero to one creation. I handled every aspect of the business myself, from designing the merchandise to marketing it, talking to customers directly, iterating on products based on feedback, setting up small pop ups, and learning what it really means to build something people actually want.
These early experiences shaped my understanding of user needs in a very real way. Every design was informed by direct conversations, reactions, and the emotional connection people had with the brand. It taught me to think like a product builder long before I ever worked in tech.
Building an eCommerce Business
As demand grew, I expanded Latino Brand into a full ecommerce operation. This required learning a wide range of skills:
• Website creation and optimization
• Conversion and funnel strategy
• Merchandise design and sourcing
• Customer support and retention
• Social media marketing and organic growth
• AB testing pricing, messaging, and creative
• Shipping logistics and fulfillment workflows
I built, tested, and iterated constantly. Each step taught me something about how users behave, what drives engagement, and how design decisions directly impact revenue and retention. These insights later translated naturally into my product design career.
Latino Brand is a project I created from the ground up, long before my career in product design began. It started as a simple idea: celebrate Latin culture through original merchandise and design. With no funding, no team, and no formal business training, I began selling t-shirts out of the trunk of a van on the streets of Boston. That early hustle became the foundation for everything I later learned about product thinking, customer empathy, and building with resilience.
Leveraging AI to Scale
In recent years, I rebuilt Latino Brand around automation. By integrating AI driven design, content workflows, and fulfillment tools, I transformed the business into a zero touch ecommerce operation. Designs generate automatically, marketing content adapts in real time, and inventory updates without manual work.
This shift allowed the business to remain profitable while operating efficiently in the background, giving me space to focus on my full time product work while still running a creative, revenue generating venture.
Why This Matters to My Work Today
Latino Brand is more than a side business. It represents my ability to take an idea from nothing and turn it into something real. It shows my comfort with ambiguity, my willingness to wear multiple hats, and my ability to learn quickly and adapt.
It also reflects the entrepreneurial mindset I bring to product teams. I understand customers because I have sold to them directly. I understand design because I have created it under real constraints. And I understand strategy because I have had to make decisions that impact both experience and revenue.
