We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Yazmin Castaneda a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Yazmin , appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Origin Mexico was born from a desire to help share the beautiful Mexican artistry while helping create economic opportunities for many artisan families in Mexico. Through our collaborations with many artisans in Mexico, we have created a platform and space for artisan families to share their beautiful creations with the rest of the world. This led to the creation of Origin Mexico and our mission to give back to artisan communities in Mexico

I decided to pivot in 2020 after working in the corporate field for more than 20 years and
pursue a more meaningful role that aligned with my personal values and beliefs.
During my previous role, I felt that while I was pursuing my own career goals in a very demanding industry, I was sacrificing so many hours away from my family. I was chasing what I thought was success and in turn missed out on so many amazing moments with my children.
Fast forward to today, I am not only more present with my family, but I’ve realized that through our partnership with our artisan partners, they have an opportunity to work in shops that are located in their homes and the beautiful part is that their children are present and learning from their mothers and fathers. This really resonates with me because it adds more purpose to our mission of helping artisan families in Mexico.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I like to describe Origin Mexico as a lifestyle brand because our goal is to share the beauty of Mexico and we do this through many channels and voices. We are a curated shop that specializes in discovering handmade and ethically sourced unique products from several talented artisans, designers and artists in various regions of Mexico. We bring these unique items to our marketplace and share the skills and stories of so many amazing people that perhaps would have not had an opportunity to share their one-of-a-kind products. All of our items are handmade, created in small batches. and include various different techniques that have been passed down from many generations.

Our goal is to also highlight Mexican culture, the vibrant history, inspirational people and the amazing places you can visit. We do this by creating a blog and social media presence that focuses on sharing the origin of things and products we offer and have found that our customers really enjoy that.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I am thankful that I learned the definition of resilience from my own family and seeing how they overcame many obstacles and challenges in their lives helped shape my perspective of being resilient. My family comes from a very humble background and they were able to be successful in their businesses through amazing work ethic and perseverance. Having worked in the Real Estate Industry all of my life, I started my entrepreneurial journey having absolutely no knowledge in how to start an ecommerce business.
I initially spent weeks working on my business plan and during this process realized just how foreign this new business model was to me. I felt totally lost but knew I could not give up on this dream of mine. I decided to research, educate myself and consume as much information as possible in all aspects of owning a business in the retail industry. I remember staying up until 3am on many days to iron clothes and photograph them, research business topics, or to work on my website which because of funding, I had to create myself. Every single task I completed had to be researched in advance through many platforms and this took time, patience and effort.
During this process, there was a lot of self doubt and I even questioned whether this was a good business idea. I realized I had to push through these long nights, doubts, and create the business I had dreamt about.
Having a “Why” was instrumental in why I didn’t give up in the early phases of our brand. I knew I had to search for solutions versus focus on the problems at hand and this helped me create the resilience I needed.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

One of the best decisions related to marketing is when I decided to incorporate my own personal story into the voice of our brand. Initially, I was very hesitant to do this because I didn’t know if I wanted to be the face of my brand and quite honestly didn’t think that my story would resonate with anyone. I took a risk and decided to share my story, the struggles and the beautiful moments I’ve had as a mother who is also an entrepreneur. This has allowed me to create a different, more genuine connection with our community of customers. Sharing my journey and how I am hoping to create beautiful memories with my daughter’s while I pursue my entrepreneurial goals is something that I really enjoy and has become part of our brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://originmexico.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/origin_mexico/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/originmexicogoods
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yazmincastaneda/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/originmexico/_shop/