When you hear the words “El Paso,” a few things might come to mind. For some, El Paso represents a beautiful growing border city, full of culture, history and Chico’s Tacos. For others, it represents something else: a boring city with nothing to do and a place where creatives are laughed at.

Recently, the city has been able to shake off this second image.

Brands of Americas is a start-up company that many local entrepreneurs have partnered with to sell their products via e-commerce. Much like Etsy, which is an app that allows business owners to sell their products right from their homes, the website fosters an environment for artists or business owners who produce handmade items. What makes Brands of Americas stand out is that they cater specifically to Latin American communities.

“For some, when they leave their country, they feel nostalgia for the products they were raised with: sofrito, adobo, local candies. You can’t get those products everywhere in the continental US. We saw the opportunity to create a bridge between the local entrepreneurs,” said Alan Taveras, co-founder and marketing director, in an interview with Forbes magazine.

Many local business owners have partnered with Brands of Americas to develop Brands of El Paso .

Brands of El Paso allows artists to sell their products to anyone in the world. Many of the artists have chosen to partner with Brands of Americas mainly because they feel the need to share El Paso’s culture all over the world. “Everything is online now and I do sell a lot of my art to people out of town, so I thinks it’s a good idea to be able to have a marketplace where everyone can shop,” said Candy Mayer, a local full-time artist, who specializes in landscapes and still lifes of the Southwest and the borderland in pastels, acrylics and mixed media collage.   

Brands Of Americas is unique in that they give emotional and cultural fulfillment to their customers. They do this by hiring a local team in each location–for them, it’s vital to have partners that share their vision and values. So far, Brands of Americas has partnered with 13 local business owners. They are intentional in the way they speak to their customers and understand that replicating the same marketing in each location isn’t effective.

The Brands of Americas story has also been successful at capturing the attention of people around the world. They’ve been featured on platforms such as CNN and Al Jazeera because of their ability to connect so authentically with their audience.

“We feel we have a responsibility, with both our consumers and local businesses, to be an efficient technological tool that helps them on their daily lives and growth,” Taveras said.