We were lucky to catch up with Eliseo Gutierrez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Eliseo , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

As a first-time business owner with no college degree related to Business, I found it hard to grasp how to start a business. The first thing is coming up with a good quality product that will make an impression on the end user, speak positively about what you make, and return to make future purchases.

For me, they were quality handmade leather boots. I have had this passion since college, and in 2023, I decided to travel to Leon, Guanajuato, and take everything I’ve learned about boots and work with a bootmaker where we could start our brand and make our footwear.

Fast forward, after many different iterations of models of boots and putting together our unique Huaraches, we made our Shopify website live on August 7th, 2024. Our first sale was on August 24th, 2024.

That feeling was unique; it was something special, knowing that a stranger would make a purchase and support this once thought never imaginable dream of starting your own Business a reality.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been a boot enthusiast since graduating from college in 2013, when I got my first pair of high-quality leather boots. That experience sent me down a rabbit hole of watching countless YouTube videos, reading forums, and learning about the intricate boot-making process. From 2013 to 2019, I dedicated myself to collecting different brands of handmade leather boots, exploring what I liked and didn’t like about each.

By May 2019, I realized just how much time and money I had invested in this hobby and had an idea while at work: to travel to León, Guanajuato—the heart of Mexican bootmaking—and apply everything I’d learned by collaborating with a skilled bootmaker to start our own brand. Unfortunately, that trip was delayed until March 2023 due to moving cities, starting a new job, and the impact of COVID-19 in 2020.

When I finally made the trip, I met Luis Enrique Lara Zendejas, who is now my trusted business partner. Enrique, a passionate bootmaker from León, had been making boots as a side business while working in the HVAC industry. During my visit, we connected over our shared passion for boots, and after I returned to San Diego, we stayed in touch through countless phone calls and text messages.

A few months later, we decided to start our own boot company: “Botas Hasta La Muerte”. The name, which translates to “Boots Until Death,” reflects our philosophy. In today’s world of fast fashion and disposable footwear, we aim to create boots that are the complete opposite—durable, aesthetically pleasing, and built with the highest quality materials.

Enrique, alongside skilled artisans in León, crafts each pair by hand, using techniques passed down through generations. Our products are designed to stand the test of time, embodying the name Botas Hasta La Muerte—boots that truly last a lifetime.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

There have been many struggles on the road, and a lot of research and mistakes have been made since the inception of Botas Hasta La Muerte. This all started for Enrique and me as a hobby, strangers in different cities with the same goal of starting a boot business one day. We didn’t have any previous business experience or mentorship throughout the way. From figuring out how to incorporate the company, working with a designer for our logo, filing for a Trademark online, and going live with our Shopify website. Logistics for shipping, import/export duty fees, the required documentation, permits, and multiple flights to acquire quality material in Mexico and the United States. To Enrique searching for the artisans that can meet our QA/QC standards. It has been a very long but rewarding road. Looking back and seeing where we’re at now and being able to hold products in our hands, where we both came up with the design and details, brings a smile to our faces. We are very excited about the direction we’re heading toward, and it has been very satisfying.

How’d you meet your business partner?

As mentioned, I met my business partner on a trip to León, Guanajuato. I’ll take this moment to briefly describe myself and my business partner, Luis Enrique Lara Zendejas.

Eliseo Gutierrez: My name is Eliseo Gutierrez. I was born in Compton, California, and moved with my family to Tijuana, Mexico, when I was 5. I was raised in Tijuana and attended school in San Diego until I was a Sophomore in High School, when we moved to San Diego, CA.

I went to college at San Diego State University and graduated as an Electrical Engineer. Once I graduated, I moved to Arizona for a job opportunity as a Fire Protection Consultant. I later moved jobs again in 2016 to follow more opportunities related to my degree as an Electrical Engineer in El Centro, CA, where I passed the Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists Electrical Engineer exam and became a Registered Professional Electrical Engineer in the State of California. 2019 is when I moved back to San Diego for another job opportunity, where I have my family and closest friends.

I am proud of what I have accomplished today; many people sometimes doubt your capabilities, but everything I have worked for to this date has been through failure multiple times and not giving up.

What sets me apart from others is that when I make something a goal of mine, I commit to it. Graduating from college was challenging, and passing the Professional Engineer Exam, which is an 8-hour exam, was also difficult. Still, I knew I wanted to graduate, and I knew I wanted to become a Registered Professional Engineer. I focused and was very passionate about achieving those goals. The same goal applies to this business, Botas Hasta La Muerte. I envision where I want to take this company and where I want it to be in 5 years. We produce high-quality footwear that is rare nowadays, and I want to bring that to as many people as I can.

Luis Enrique Lara Zendejas: Hello, my name is Luis Enrique Lara Zendejas, and I am 29 years old.
I am a shoemaker and learned about this trade approximately 15 or 17 years ago. I like to work on welt footwear because of its structure and fine, high-quality construction.

I know shoe/boot making from start to finish. I don’t have a favorite step in the process because overall, I like the small intricate details from the stitching to lasting and placing the sole. I do every step as best as possible, and the products you can see that we have been creating show the quality of our construction and the beauty of the product itself.

I am known for being creative, which I have developed through drawing and painting; it inspires me and puts the notion and experience I have in footwear into perspective; what I have learned in practice and the different areas of footwear are the two factors that stand out. By putting them together and having the freedom to create a shoe that has that part of me, that’s what sets it apart and would be the part I’m known for.

What are you most proud of? My dedication to my work has been a relatively long learning process but very rewarding. I invested a lot of time to learn, perhaps in poorly paid jobs or places where I did not feel comfortable, but that helped me grow my work experience and to where I am now.

Every moment I sat down to draw, and every assignment I was handed at the university gave me a broader clarity of what I wanted to develop or how to solve a particular situation when something got complicated.

So, if I could briefly summarize it, it would be that entire complex process that allowed me to develop my skills and knowledge, that process that many times we do not want to go through because of how complicated it can be, but it is that process that allows us to grow in all aspects.

What differentiates you from others? The fact that you develop a skill and that it is honed makes a difference in anything you do.

In my case, the part of the job, knowing how to work, having been working with people who were excellent at what they did, and having acquired their knowledge and added to this the creative part that has always accompanied me and that I developed during my experiences, my daily activities, my tastes and processes in drawing is what makes the difference. I have the facility to see the construction of something new and how to work on it. My mind goes through the options I have to do it and how each one would work best for me.

Each person who manages to develop and enhance their ability differentiates them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://botashastalamuerte.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/botashastalamuerte/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61564893617795&mibextid=FwtfSm
• Twitter: https://x.com/botashastlamurt?s=21
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEOMDUH7CD9uLMYGQyE2Q2Q

Image Credits

All images owned by myself, Eliseo Gutierrez.