NOTE: This is a bonus episode in Spanish.

¿Cómo se reproduce el éxito que un artista está teniendo en México al otro lado de la frontera? Ese es el superpoder de MATS, una agencia que ayuda a artistas de Latinoamérica, como Gera MX y Kenia Os, a conquistar el mercado estadounidense.

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When sisters Mafe and Coco Cabezas moved to the United States from Venezuela, they missed many foods, but one stood out more than others: arepas. Arepas are a staple in Venezuela. They're corn dough cakes that can be filled with anything from meats to vegetables. The sisters went from eating homemade arepas every single day in Venezuela to not having the time to make them, nor the calorie balance to allow a daily dose of arepas in the United States. In the middle of the pandemic, Mafe and Coco decided to launch Toast-It, a line of healthier, ready-to-eat versions of Latin American foods, like arepas made with cassava flour. Today, the products are available in more than 1,800 stores, including Publix and Walmart. Mafe joins Bísness School to explain why the sisters left prolific corporate jobs to launch an arepa company, how they got their products into Publix stores and how they balance parenthood with entrepreneurship.

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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