We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennifer Serrano and Veronica Vasquez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennifer Serrano and Veronica Vasquez below.
Hi Jennifer Serrano and Veronica Vasquez, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
In January 2024 Jennifer Serrano and Veronica Vasquez the wife duo behind JZD, the lifestyle brand opened up their second store front in Brownsville Texas. This location is near and dear to their heart as now they have a centralized location where they can create all of their amazing designs from screen printing to embroidering and also have a shop-able store front, All while also be able to connect with their community through coming together. Since the opening of their new location they have collaborate with brand like fellow Latina owned Beauty brand Reina Rebelde, to hosting embroidery events for the community to come together. They knew this would be a worthwhile endeavor because they know how much their community love to connect with their apparel creativity, and now they get to see their favorite pieces made in real time, and can even bring in their previous apparel to get personal embroidery on site.
Jennifer Serrano and Veronica Vasquez, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Jennifer Serrano and Veronica Vasquez, are the wife duo behind JZD, the lifestyle brand breaking barriers as a queer Latina-owned lifestyle brand that builds community and celebrates culture every day. Founded in 2016 in the border town of Brownsville, Texas, JZD exists to empower and remind Latinas that eres una diosa; poderosa y hermosa!
We are proud to be living their American Dream with our dollar and a dream hustle mentality, which has catapulted our business and brand to unimaginable heights as two women with immigrant roots. Jen immigrated from Mexico at the age of six and Vero is a first-generation Mexican-American.
We started JZD because we needed a reminder of our power. Our first successful product is the now iconic Pink Latina Power Tee. When that t-shirt went viral, we realized that so many in the community felt the same way. At that moment we decided to focus on creating products that made us and our community feel represented and connected to our roots.
Under our community first mindset and dedicated leadership, JZD has reached $2 million in sales in under six years, grown a social media community of more than 100,000 followers, launched a collection at Target and shipped to more than 31 countries. All while being independently-owned and self-funded.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
When we first launched our social media accounts for JZD our main goal was to build a sense of community. Of course, follower counts are important, but that all means nothing if your audience isn’t engaged. Our number one goal has always been to be authentic with our storytelling and show the raw moments as they happen. The best piece of advice is to be consistent and to be honest with your followers. We don’t always have it all figured out, and we think it’s okay to show that side on socials. It’s not always perfect and people actually want to see the real moments, not just the finished result. And now with how fast trends are ever evolving it is great to have a knowledge social helping hand to shoot us or content in general for all social channels.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
We actually have a background in psychology and legal studies, but always had the desire to run our own business. After working in our fields for a few years we decided to take a leap of faith and start JZD. We started super small selling on Etsy and have learned so much throughout our years in business. We started this brand with just $200 in our bank account back in 2016. We are proud to be living the American Dream with our dollar and a dream hustle mentality, which has catapulted our business and brand to unimaginable heights as two women with immigrant roots. Jen immigrated from Mexico at the age of six and Vero is a first-generation Mexican-American, but raised and currently based in Brownsville, Texas. We started JZD because we needed a reminder of our power. Our first successful product is the now iconic Pink Latina Power Tee. When that t-shirt went viral, we realized that so many in the community felt the same way. At that moment we decided to focus on creating products that made us and our community feel represented and connected to our roots. The biggest obstacles were just taking the leap of faith with putting all that I had left financially into JZD and needing to find a way to make it work. We were newlyweds, basically no money, but we had each other and a vision so we knew with hard work and a plan, we could build something for ourselves. Vero also took a big risk and quit her corporate job to come full time with JZD in 2017. She saw I needed the help so that was also scary for some time because that financial cushion of a salary was now gone.Our community is our “why.” It’s what makes us most proud and keeps us going! Everything that JZD does and every single item that we put out is with our community and culture in mind. We love creating pieces that make our customers say “Wow! That’s me!” or “This reminds me of my abuela!” It’s also our culture’s drive to succeed that also fuels our hustle to show everyone around us that we can all create the lives we want and aim for more.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://shopjzd.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shopjzd/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shopjzd.com
- Other: TikTok/ https://www.tiktok.com/@shopjzd
Image Credits
All photo credit are Shop JZD