When Kayla Casteñeda was a child, she spent several days at her grandparent's house in Central California — where she learned how to prepare “aguas frescas” with the ripe fruit that her grandfather, a farmworker, collected from the fields. “Agua fresca,” which literally translates to “fresh water,” is a popular type of beverage in Mexico and Latin America. The drink is made from an array of fruits, flowers or seeds blended with water and sugar. In the middle of the pandemic, Castañeda decided to honor her family’s heritage and created Agua Bonita, a brand of canned aguas frescas that contain 80% less sugar than the traditional Latin American drinks. Today, Agua Bonita is a full-fledged business that is available in more than 1,000 stores across the country, including Walmart.

This episode was produced by Miguel Estrada.
It was edited by Ashley Chaparro.

Follow Kayla Castañeda at @so.fresca.so.clean.

Follow Ashley Chaparro at @ashleychaparro23.

If somebody could name a quintessential symbol of Mexican gastronomy, that ingredient would be salsa. Whether it’s hot sauce, salsa verde or habanero, salsas help enhance the flavor of many Mexican traditional recipes by adding depth, and most commonly, spice to the food. So when Hector Saldivar moved from Mexico to CA, he realized salsa options at U.S. grocery stores didn’t resemble the flavors he was used to growing up in Monterrey. Inspired by his mother’s traditional recipes, Hector decided to launch Tía Lupita, a brand of healthier Mexican-inspired food products that includes hot sauces, tortilla chips, tortillas, and salsas. Today, Tía Lupita products are available in over 4,000 retail locations across the country, including Whole Foods, Target and Walmart.

This episode was produced by Miguel Estrada. It was edited by James Jeffrey.

Follow Tía Lupita Foods at @tialupitafoods.

Follow Ashley Chaparro at @ashleychaparro23.

Bísness School is coming back for another season! New episodes start Feb. 26.

This is our last episode for season 2. As usual, we are a cool school, which means we definitely do not have episodes during winter break. We will be back with more episodes early 2025.

Olympian and former pro soccer player Melissa Ortiz joins us for our last episode of this season. She represented Colombia at the U20 World Cup in 2010 and at the 2012 London Olympics. She's worked as a sideline reporter and analyst for TNT, FOX Sports and Apple TV+. In 2021, the retired soccer player and her brother launched Kickoff Coffee Co., a coffee brand that donates 10% of profits from its coffee bags to soccer foundations that are using soccer as a tool for social justice and development.

They represent the most expensive women’s soccer player in history, are responsible for the biggest contract in NWSL soccer history and have 41 clients who’ve played in the World Cup. TMJ, formerly known as The Marketing Jersey, wants you to know that they are the heart and soul of women’s soccer. But it wasn’t always that way. When Guillermo Zamarripa started TMJ in 2014, there were zero training facilities dedicated exclusively to women’s soccer, the average National Women’s Soccer League salary was between $6,000 and $23,000, and agents willing to represent female soccer players were hard to find. Guillermo joins Bísness School to explain why he decided to carve a career in a field that had little money, how he and his co-founder Oscar González bootstrapped the first seven years of the business and what he sees as the future of women’s soccer in the United States.

Follow TMJ at @mktjersey

Follow Fernando Hurtado at @byfernandoh

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.

Sigue a @MATS

Sigue a @byfernandoh

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.