The Chicano Luxury Brand, Filoso, has now become the first Latino-owned razor blade for barbers in the entire United States. Created by former CSN student and Vegas native, Francisco Carbajal along with serial entrepreneur from Monterrey, Mexico, Jorshua Nieto, Filoso is carving a new path for entrepreneurs by showing them that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.
With community at the center, Filoso is more than a barber brand that provides the highest quality tools and products at a low cost, it’s a transfer of confidence to be the sharpest barber, entrepreneur and family member of the community.
“We owe a huge part of our success to Kevin Raiford from NV Grow and Blackstone Launchpad who has helped us. The grant that they provided was great and even more the tools they provided, like having a marketing consultant, has helped us structure the foundation of Filoso which has been essential for our growth,” says Jorshua Nieto, co-owner of Filoso.
NV Grow, a partner of The BlackStone Launchpad, is a State of Nevada small business initiative customized for Southern Nevada existing businesses that have over $50,000 and less than $70,000 in sales. Spearheaded by Kevin Raiford, NV Grow has provided Filoso funding through NVenture Fund along with additional resources.
“We’ve provided funding to get them their initial inventory and it’s a worthwhile investment as we know they are going to become a dynamic international business source,” says Kevin Raiford, Director of NV Grow.
With Latinos being the second highest population working in the barber shop industry in the U.S. and Spanish being the highest spoken language outside of English in the industry, Filoso is making history.
It all started when Francisco Carbajal, a barber with 10 years of experience, was found without being able to cut hair during the beginning of the pandemic because of social distancing. So he looked for alternative ways to serve barbers like him and through posting tutorials on YouTube, he realized there was a large audience of barbers that were experiencing a shortage of barber tools and products.
With love for the Chicano culture and after noticing that there was a need for goods made by Latino barbers, serviced to Latino barbers, Francisco teamed up with Jorshua Nieto, and created Filoso Barber Brand.
Now, history has been made and there is only going up from here.