She launched her first business with $500 and a denim jacket featuring a sequined La Virgen de Guadalupe. Eight years later, Patty is ready to introduce the world to the next iteration of her vision: FATHER, Western inspired leather heirlooms. Patty shares how she harnesses the power of her ADHD, why she has chosen to stay fully self-funded, and reflects on the FirstGen kid’s eternal search for home.
She launched her first business with $500 and a denim jacket featuring a sequined La Virgen de Guadalupe. Eight years later, Patty is ready to introduce the world to the next iteration of her vision: FATHER, Western inspired leather heirlooms. Patty shares how she harnesses the power of her ADHD, why she has chosen to stay fully self-funded, and reflects on the FirstGen kid’s eternal search for home.
Alicia Menendez (00:11):
For years now, I have followed Patty Delgado's journey as the founder and CEO of the Beloved brand. Iha re. Now Patty's expanding her vision of celebrating our cultures with her new leather company. Father Patty and I talk about harnessing the power of her A DHD, why? Despite various offers, she has decided to continue to be 100% self-funded and the first gen kids eternal search for home. Patty, finally. Hi. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I feel like I've put this off so that I could savor it when it finally happened, so thanks for being,
Patty Delgado (01:02):
It was meant to be.
AM (01:04):
I'm trying to figure out where your story begins because the story often gets told as though you get fired from a job and you take $500 from that last paycheck and then you begin the process of launching re I think the story is actually a little bit more complicated than that, which is I sense a young woman who's very much in process before she is fired, and I know from you that there's a lot of living in Mexico, living in the United States. Where do you in your heart, start this story?
PD (01:35):
Oh my goodness. I think so much of where I am today is a story of tripping and falling, tripping and falling, getting back up, tripping and falling, and I think it could even start as soon as being a young teen. I've always been this black sheep in my family. I'm the daughter of two Mexican immigrants. I'm also the eldest daughter, so throw that in with conservative Mexican parents. You're going to have a rebellious little teenager. I was a rora at a very young age. I was always very used to disappointing my parents doing whatever I wanted. Being very curious, really making up my own rules, my own style. Having my own point of view has always been very important to me. Wait,
AM (02:25):
Wait, timeout, timeout. Because one thing is the eldest Latina daughter is almost never the rebel one, right? That is generally in a family with multiple kids, your good girl who follows all the rules and then the RA comes behind her to just really mess with everybody. So already interesting. What is the youngest that manifests this sort of tension point of knowing that you are a person who is willing and able to disappoint your parents?
PD (02:57):
Oh my goodness. I think maybe I want to say middle school, but I think maybe even earlier than that. Growing up music felt like this escape from traditional Mexican values. I grew up liking a lot of hard rock, a lot of system of a down, a little bit of punk and pop punk, all the things, all the things that my parents did not like, all the things that weren't Juan Gabrielle. I wanted to listen to that and that obviously scared my parents, but I think at such a young age, you just get so used to doing things your way, despite what my elders might think of me, and so you just grow with a little bit of a toughness, a harder shell. As life progressed for me and as I started to become an adult and going to college and starting my own business ventures, you just don't really rely so much on the validation from your parents because you're just used to already doing whatever the heck you want.
AM (04:02):
There's clearly in your story a lot of effort to find yourself and for you, a big part of that effort is being someone who's born in the United States, but the looking is happening in Mexico, right? There's an early part of your adult life where you're living in Mexico. What was it you were looking for and what was it that you found there?
PD (04:26):
I think I was looking for a sense of home going to college as a first gen person, it's hard to find your sense of home and belonging because a lot of times institutional organizations aren't really designed to be accepting and inclusive. I had a really hard time finding my place there. It was very culturally shocking to be there as well. I come from such a tight knit place where we kind of, for the most part, all share a very similar cultural upbringing. Being surrounded by so much generational privilege was very isolating, so it was always my dream to travel, to live, to experience so many different parts of Mexico. My parents are from a very small town. They're from a town called San Juan, Los Lagos in the middle of Jalisco. It doesn't encompass everything that Mexico has to offer, and so I was always very fascinated with the idea of living in Mexico City.
(05:30):
I ended up doing that in 2015. I ended up moving to Mexico City. At the time I was a graphic designer freelance, so I had the privilege to take my laptop and figure it out even before work from home was really ever a thing. That experience was really awesome because not only was I living with my cousins at that time in Mexico City, so you have a house of a bunch of 20 year olds having so much fun and it felt like friends. But like Mexico City Edition, I was able to manage the few clients that I did have from Mexico City and document a lot of my travels under a blog. My blog at the time was called ire. I talked about the best mics in Mexico City, where to get the best chilaquiles things to do in the Riviera Maya, what to do for the Los MUTOs in Oaxaca. Everything that I was experiencing, I was documenting on this blog.
AM (06:31):
Did your parents understand why you wanted to go to Mexico
PD (06:35):
That time? They did not understand why I wanted to move to Mexico. They were very confused. My dad was at the time, not very supportive. I think he just didn't understand because my parents left Mexico for a reason. For them, it was just very confusing as to why I would want to go back and live there. To them, Mexico City is like Gotham City, this dark and evil place riddled with crime, and while that may be true of any major city, that's not the whole story. And Mexico City is full of so much art and culture and history. We all know that I needed to experience that for myself and my parents didn't understand, but I think eventually they had to accept my decision.
AM (07:23):
You moved back to the United States to get your life together. What was it you were getting together?
PD (07:29):
I ran out of money, so I had to come back home and I didn't even really come back home per se. I still did some tripping and falling. I ended up living in Miami for a little bit with the very little money that I had, and then I ended up, okay, I really have to go back home now. So I ended up moving back to my parents, eventually back to la, really trying to find clients and rebuild again. As a graphic designer, you're at the mercy of your clients all the time, and so eventually I did get my clients together, bought myself a car and yeah, really got back on my feet.
AM (08:09):
Okay, what's the job you get fired from before you launch ire?
PD (08:14):
So I landed at the time a really big beauty client, a skincare brand that's still very popular, and I was so excited. I was so stoked to be able to work at this company. I got hired for one thing and then the job turned into something else that I was not good at. I'm not the best photo toucher, so get hired for graphic design and then your job becomes photo retouching. It's like I don't speak that language. So they ended up firing me and I was heartbroken. I was so embarrassed. I literally only lasted maybe two business days, but I was like, okay, I have this last check. I'm going to put it to good use and I'm going to start this idea that has been brewing in my head for some time.
AM (09:04):
I want to understand what you literally do with that $500. What does that $500 go toward?
PD (09:09):
Jackets and supplies. So I had this idea to make myself a denim jacket with a sequin embellishment of Levi Hindo Guadalupe. I had made myself one prior to getting fired, and I knew that this really meant something to me and it could mean something to other people because so much of my experience growing up first gen is always seeing this image of leviton on car dashboards on my grandma's dresser and my mom's wallet everywhere. Being first gen, I think Leviton, the Guadalupe is really a symbol of our migration story. It's kind of like this image of where we come from and so much of what we know as Mexican history incorporates that image. When I made that jacket for myself, I just knew other women like me might appreciate something like this. So that last paycheck went to buy supplies to create these jackets.
AM (10:11):
So you make the initial investment, you make the jackets, when do you know that you're onto something?
PD (10:16):
It took a very long time for me to get a consistent amount of orders, I want to say a few weeks before I got my first order, and we started getting a little bit of a snowball effect. Some influencers started to notice, some online media started to notice and things slowly started to build. It wasn't maybe until April of the following year, April, 2017 that I was like, okay, I need to commit to this idea full time. I need to really prioritize ire, see where this could go and what could it become? I need to say bye to my clients for real this time and just dedicate myself to ire.
AM (11:00):
And you still haven't taken any outside funding?
PD (11:03):
No investors. We've of course gone our loans in the past, but there are no investors still at this day and age. We've gotten offers, but I like to keep it self-funded.
AM (11:15):
Why?
PD (11:16):
There's a lot of reasons. I think as a lifestyle business, we're not going to be on the level of fashion Nova and Sheen and revolve, and I don't want to be on that level for just personal reasons. My own values would be at risk to grow to that size. And two, I think that you can have a really fruitful and abundant business without having outside funding or venture capital. I like to sleep at night peacefully. I don't like to sleep at night thinking about all these other people. I need to impress and make happy. I like to keep myself happy. I like to make sure my team is happy and my customers, and that is enough responsibility for me. I don't need added pressure.
AM (12:07):
Patty, I've heard you say many times that you're a DHD, and I think it's one of those things. So as we say colloquially to say that we have trouble concentrating, are you diagnosed A DHD?
PD (12:16):
Yes, I am a diagnosed A DHD. I've definitely struggled with that at work. I've definitely struggled with depression. So much of the last few years has been managing depression and this business at the same time, and it's been a very interesting journey. I wasn't diagnosed with A DHD until two or three years ago, and this whole time I've just been kind of raw dogging this business, not knowing that I have a DHD coming up with these insane ideas, acting on them quickly and just thinking that that is just my personality. Then I have people on my team and people that I'm working with, what is wrong with this lady? So it's been a detriment. It's been a blessing and a curse. I think that the A DHD has been something that I've had to learn how to reign and control and use to my advantage sometimes when I'm like, okay, is this like an A DHD idea?
(13:17):
Maybe It sounds like a good one though. So let me sleep on this, and if I still have this driving force to do this thing and add one more responsibility to my plate, I will consider it. But I've learned to give things some time because so much of being a DHD is you have to act on it now, and that is something that I've been doing for so long that has led to a lot of burnout as you might imagine. But now it's like, okay, how do I hone this in and really use it to my advantage and be really mindful about these ideas and curiosities before I crash and burn.
AM (14:00):
Given that you are an ideas machine and that the real task before you has been saying no to the vast majority of your own ideas, why did you know that father your new leather company was an idea you wanted to say Yes?
PD (14:22):
For the last few years, my dream that has been brewing in meat has been, I really need to make cowboy boots. I love cowboy boots. I appreciate and love western fashion, specifically Mexican vaquero fashion. That is something that I love, that I collect, that I've always appreciated. It's a big part of my style and I think it has a lot to do with the artist's ego in me where I need to be able to make cowboy boots to prove something to myself that I can. And that's kind of also been the evolution of a lot of the things that I've created in the last few years of I need to prove to myself that I can make a bilingual conversation card game. I need to prove to myself that I can make a bathing suit. I need to prove to myself that we could do more fashion cut and sew, and this is like the final boss cowboy boots, and it just so happens to be probably one of the hardest things you could ever make in fashion and footwear.
(15:31):
It's been a very humbling experience. So creating cowboy boots is kind of what led to father the process of creating leather products in Mexico, specifically Leon Wato, which is very close to my parents' hometown. It's the leather capital of North America. It is incredible to see the world's best in leather making. Another reason why I wanted to start Father was because so much of Mexican varo culture and history isn't always respected and recognized in what we know as Western fashion. It's often left out of the conversation. So much of contemporary western fashion is made in Mexico. They don't want you to know that it's made in Mexico. So for me, I'm very proud that we're Mexican, made, Mexican design, Mexican owned, and we've made so many contributions to Western sports, fashion, culture. Just this process of making cowboy boots has opened up a world of possibilities for me.
(16:42):
The cowboy boots haven't come to life yet, but so many other fashion pieces have, and I think Father has really been this playground that I haven't really been able to explore with re because it has its own niche, so it has to live in its own universe, but it's been where I've been able to play so much. A father is tapping into this play that we lose as founders because you're just stuck in the trenches of the day to day. And as a creative and as an artist, we need a set time to play. But I'm a Virgo and I have a DHD, so my play eventually becomes a business because I don't know any other way.
AM (17:29):
You said something that I think is relevant to a lot of different ventures, which is that starting isn't the hard part. The hard part is choosing your vision again and again and again. What is the closest you have come to walking away from your vision?
PD (17:49):
There's been a lot of different tests that I've been put against. Where do I quit? Do I start over? Do I do something else? And I can't. I can never see that through. I can never see quitting as a way out. And my idea of quitting has changed a lot over the years, and a lot of these tests are financial. We had a bad quarter, a few bad quarters, sometimes bad years, and it's like, okay, well maybe this is the time. And it's never really truly been the time we've just kept going. And to me to keep going means to keep creating. And that has kind of always gotten me over the hump. And I think as long as I'm creating, I am being the most authentic to myself and to my purpose, and that is how I've been able to persevere is just to create
AM (18:53):
Patty. It took a long time. I'm so glad that you are finally here. Thank you so much for being with us.
PD (18:58):
Thank you, Alicia. I'm so grateful.
AM (19:06):
Thank you for listening. Latina to Laina is executive produced and owned by Juko, Antigua and me, Alicia Menendez. Cogent Shiro is our lead producer trend Light Burn, mixed. This episode we love hearing from you. Email us at ola@latinatolalatina.com, slide into our dms on Instagram threads and TikTok at Latina to Latina. Check out our merchandise@latinatolatina.com slash shop. And remember to subscribe or follow us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, good pods, wherever you're listening right now. Every time you share this podcast, every time you leave a review, you help us to grow as a community.