Founder feature: Nadas Empanadas

Carlos started Nadas Empanadas in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, a time when restaurants were suffering. A forever foodie who’d grown up around his mom Olga’s longstanding New York City restaurant, Carlos was inspired to found Nadas Empanadas as a way to share his mother’s distinctly Colombian empanadas as a bright spot for customers even as the hospitality industry was largely shut down. Now, after years of direct delivery orders and pop ups, Carlos has his own Nadas restaurant location in Manhattan – and calls himself a proud Target Forward Founders alum. Read on to see how he’s grown his business since and get the scoop on what’s ahead.

Bringing empanadas and a little bit of Colombian culture to the masses is a cornerstone of what we do.

Target Accelerators (TA): What do you enjoy most about being an entrepreneur and what advice do you have for those just starting out?

Carlos: What I love about being an entrepreneur is exploring the innate human ability to create. In business, creating a product, seeing it out in the world and knowing that people are enjoying it is very fulfilling. When I see someone enjoying one of our products, I know it’s a direct culmination of all of the hard work that our team does. For those just starting out, I would advise that there are pros and cons to being your own boss that you have to learn how to manage and balance, mainly both the freedoms and the responsibilities that come from running your own company.

TA: How did being a part of a Target Accelerators program enhance or change your business?

Carlos: You learn so much. Besides learning more about the mass market retail industry and consumer packaged goods (CPG) from experts, I found connecting with other entrepreneurs and getting the validation to keep pushing on as an entrepreneur incredibly helpful.

Entrepreneurship can be lonely, so knowing that there are others going through the same emotions and encountering similar hardships can be comforting. By nature of the business, there aren’t a lot of colleagues for founders –everyone either works for you or they are your customer, so creating a community of founders is incredible. I also felt going through the process with the Target Accelerators as an applicant to be validating. Going through the application process and interviews validates that your business has that special “lightning in a bottle” energy that is worth exploring further.

TA: How has your Latinidad influenced your perspective on entrepreneurship and business?

Carlos: I’m an only child of a single mom who immigrated to the U.S. with only $600 to her name. I saw her build her business with such kindness and grace. We have such a rich and loving culture that invites everyone to the party. The ability that we have naturally, as people who grew up knowing the culture, to include and connect with others is such a blessing that other people don’t necessarily understand. Natural generosity is something that we’ve been taught from necessity and the kindness of people’s hearts. I like to think that whenever we can look at the way we convey our products with that grace and that idea of inclusivity, we will ultimately have success.

TA: What’s next for you and/or your brand?

Carlos: I applaud the Target Accelerators team because one thing they stressed in the program was that if you find out CPG isn’t for you, that’s also a win. Taking the pressure off our becoming a CPG brand quickly helped us see other paths towards growth and expansion. Right now, we’re focused on growing in major markets all over the U.S. with wholesale to large event spaces like arenas, stadiums and convention centers. We see this expansion as not only a way to continually grow the brand, but also set us up to comfortably expand into CPG when the time is right, so we can really compete the way we want to in that market.

TA: Which one of your products is your favorite and why?

Carlos: Right now, the guava and cheese empanada is my favorite to watch people eat as a moment of joy. [Those flavors] are such a distinctly Columbian combination, so it makes me happy to see people enjoy it.

TA: Your products and brand story are proudly Colombian. Can you share how you think about incorporating culture within every aspect of your brand?

Carlos: We like to think of our brand and our product as unapologetically Colombian. Bringing empanadas and a little bit of Colombian culture to the masses is a cornerstone of what we do. Seeing people who may have never tried Colombian food order and enjoy our empanadas is fulfilling. The moment that people try it, they fall in love with what our culture has created.

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