We were lucky to catch up with Jonathan Oberti recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jonathan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?

There is an essence embodied by corporate America that spreads across all practices, one that is ever present and quite easy to recognize – the eyewear industry is at the mercy of these corporate giants. Essentially, these larger corporations mass produce frames that are then associated with high end brand names. This dilutes the respective quality of each collection, as they are conceived to call to consumers purely based on the brand name that they represent. This runs in hand with the retail price that is applied to each piece, which is excessively high, even when the quality is not there to match. These kind of businesses have burst into every element of art, but it is not enough to subdue the purposeful power of artists themselves. Tejesta is a testament to the artist’s revolt, curating limited edition collections that exist to entertain the details, the story, the passion. These are not products built to be sold, rather they are pieces procured for people to acquire an affection for; enamored by the intricate elements that are constructed together to tell a deeper narrative.

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 background and context?

Eyewear has always been a realm that is relative to my life. The generations of my family before me were geared in the craft and that knowledge has been passed on to me and solidified in my soul. I’ve always been immersed in eyewear, but I never really knew how to get involved. In my earlier days, my plan was to pursue professional American Football – a drive that proved to not be my primary passion, but still I learned invaluable lessons such as understanding discipline and hardwork. In this time of my life I was always associated as an athlete, and my persona was treated as such, as people would suppress my creative thoughts and ideas by having such a specific ideation of who I was. Post college, my mind was onto different pastures, and I realized that I wanted to do something creative. Through the trials of life I was eventually able to channel my passion for fashion and design through eyewear.

Tejesta at its core is a design-centered eyewear & accessories brand based out of Miami, FL – specializing in the micro-production of premier quality spectacles. I am forever grateful for the community that Tejesta has cultivated through creating high end eyewear at an affordable price. I had a specific vision when I took the turn to start Tejesta, and my thoughts are truly coming to life. The intention was always to put out high quality products with purpose, and the community behind it came to be conceived naturally.

How’d you meet your business partner?

In the simplest sense, the story of how we met comes from him actually caring. My partner was the only person that didn’t tell me I was crazy, he was the only person that was intrigued and interested in the things that I had to say. Our past together runs long, we were just local Miami kids that were friends, then we fell apart, our ideas brought us back together.

Stemming from our friendship, a creative relationship begun. We starting making things and taking risks, not for the purpose of selling it, but just out of pure joy – taking an idea from the mind and making it into a raw object was our mantra. Utilizing my exposure to the industry, I told him I had an idea for an eyewear brand, and he just said how can I be involved?

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

From the get go, we knew that we needed to come up with one hundred thousand dollars to start this project. This accounted for R&D, buying product, traveling across the globe to meet with factories, etc… The goal was to make as much money as we could with our other businesses to generate the needed funds for Tejesta. I was repping other eyewear brands and handling distribution for them, Chris, my business partner, was printing T-shirts. We put our heads down and grinded for eight months, quite literally moving to put our money where our mouths were. Through some tumultuous times, we scoured to get things done, and we did it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tejesta.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tejesta/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tejesta
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-oberti-a3788981/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tejesta_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqTpDTSuwbk
• Other: https://thingtesting.com/brands/tejesta/reviews