A series highlighting the experiences, perspectives, and advice of Latinas working in technology and business environments.
Welcome to the third blog post highlighting special Latina leaders in technology and business! My name is Emily Barragan and I’m a current sophomore at Duke University super interested in technology, products, and innovation. I’m beyond privileged to share the stories and journeys of such empowering women– and I hope you’re able to get even a glimpse of their passion, dedication, and ambition throughout this series.
Alissa Rivero’s entrepreneurship journey began as an elementary schooler with a passion for Rainbow Loom.
Alissa began selling Rainbow Loom bracelets in elementary school. Later in high school, Alissa and her friends began a local babysitting business. Then in college she pursued her dream of becoming a realtor and in her sophomore year began to sell houses.
Fast forward to her senior year fall semester, only a couple of months ago, when she took Shep Moyle’s version of Strategies for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Duke and she had an initial itch to build a startup. “Before that I had no interest in doing a startup… I had always done the businessy things, but I always thought of startups as being more corporate and a different form of job than what I thought I wanted to pursue.”
She leaned into her interest for entrepreneurship and first researched starting a real estate tech company. However, she encountered a lot of initial friction in the process with regulatory issues and decided not to continue with it. She was still interested in the real estate space so she proposed doing a real estate photography business with a friend. They bought a drone and did a practice run. She said, “we crashed it like 7 times.” So, they decided to return the drone and do something different. They began to think about individual problems they had and how to solve them. That’s when their idea came to mind – simplifying the makeup removal process.
They’ve developed a product that’s a single use double sided makeup remover glove with an oil-based side and water-based side to fully remove the makeup with no residue. They only started three months ago and are already selling their product at our on-campus apartment store. Up next for them is body oils.
Like most, Alissa’s journey in business wasn’t linear. One of the main things she learned when doing customer discovery for her beauty care products was an underlying reasoning in her customers’ motivations for buying beauty products – how those beauty products make her customers feel. Alissa says, “if you ask people a question you’ll get the answer you want.” So, to her, being intentional in customer discovery is important. Additionally, Alissa takes the time to leverage Duke’s resources like the Co-Lab and the Innovation & Entrepreneurship department mentors. With growing up in a low income household she’s had to reframe her thinking and learn to be comfortable with spending money to make money. Additionally, she’s used her psychology background to effectively communicate with others since she feels like she’s able to pick up on what matters to people and tailor her responses to different people.
Finally, Alissa’s advice for young Latinas trying to start their own business is to “Just do it, because we’re at a time in our lives where we don’t have a lot of responsibility.” She says, “Don’t get attached to your product, get attached to your customers“ and “Surround yourself with the right people.” Alissa feels her cofounder has the same goals, ambition, and expectations as her.
Feel free to check out Alissa Rivero’s LinkedIn and connect with her: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alissa-rivero
