These sisters used social media to supercharge their parents’ small business

Sisters Gipsy and Gelssy Rodriguez of Anaheim, California, are the social media powerhouses behind their mother and father’ widespread quinceañera gown store, Moda2000.

The shop boasts greater than 3.3 million followers on TikTok, 200,000 followers on Instagram and even has its personal YouTube TV present, “Quince Empire.”

Gina Rodriguez and her husband Jorge based Moda2000 as a ladies’s informal clothes boutique in 1990 after immigrating to the U.S. from Guerrero, Mexico.

“That was like my mother and father’ first child,” Gelssy Rodriguez, 23, advised “Good Morning America.”

When the women have been born, it took no time earlier than they have been launched to the household enterprise.

“My mother really by no means took maternity depart,” Gelssy Rodriguez mentioned. “Like after she had us, the subsequent day she was on the retailer working and he or she was carrying us and serving to purchasers with us.”

Gelssy Rodriguez recalled serving to out across the retailer from as early as 8 years outdated, ringing up prospects and even submitting a “gross sales report” to her mother and father on the finish of the day.

The store shifted in the direction of quinceañera style 15 years in the past, when Gina Rodriguez needed to make the method of buying a quince gown extra private.

“It was very chilly … like do not take images, do not contact, do not even have a look at it in a way,” Gelssy Rodriguez mentioned.

In Latino tradition, a quinceañera is the celebration of a woman’s fifteenth birthday, which historically marks the transition from girlhood to womanhood. The festivities, steeped in wealthy custom, could be as extravagant as a marriage and women historically put on costly ballgowns and tiaras.

“It’s a time in your life the place you get to get pleasure from all of the individuals round you, you get to get pleasure from that you simply’re younger, and it’s a transition — however I really feel like now it is extra of a celebration with your loved ones,” Gipsy Rodriguez, 25, mentioned.

Moda2000’s gown designs would finally put the shop on the map, however that success wouldn’t come with out hardship. Rebranding meant utterly beginning over, from stock to clientele, which took a significant toll on the Rodriguez household financially.

In 2015, they mentioned they offered their residence and moved into the shop, the place they lived for 3 years.

Round this time, social media was gaining reputation and the Rodriguez’s noticed this as a chance to assist get the phrase out about Moda2000. Gipsy and Gelssy Rodriguez taught themselves about social media technique on the fly, and determined to put up movies of their robes first to YouTube and Instagram, and finally to TikTok.

“We form of simply posted a video not understanding what was going to occur,” Gipsy Rodriguez mentioned. “TikTok was new on the time … and we posted and we went to dinner that evening and our telephones have been simply blowing up, like buzzing and buzzing.”

Their first TikTok — which now has 1.4 million likes — drove 10,000 followers to their newly-created account in a single day, they mentioned.

Going viral modified their enterprise in methods the Rodriguez household may by no means have imagined.

Immediately, quinceañeras — the time period for a woman celebrating a quince — journey from throughout to be fitted in one in every of Moda2000’s designs, they mentioned.

“It is simply so loopy,” Gipsy Rodriguez mentioned. “Now we’re getting these purchasers which have been following us and watching our movies since they have been little women … I believe it is so stunning that they get to develop up with us.”

Whereas their mother and father are nonetheless very concerned within the retailer, Gipsy and Gelssy Rodriguez, who now function the model’s artistic director and retailer’s operations director respectively, are slowly taking the reins.

“They’ve the expertise and every single day we’re studying from them, however now they’re additionally studying from us,” Gipsy Rodriguez mentioned. “I believe it is superb seeing the 2 totally different generations come collectively.”

For the entire household, Moda2000’s development has felt consultant of the “American Dream.”

“My mother and father actually began with $0 from anyone else, and to today, we have not taken any outdoors capital or something like that,” Gelssy Rodriguez mentioned. “And never solely did they make such a profitable enterprise, however additionally they made an affect throughout the business that we’re in and we have develop into business leaders.”

Above all else, she mentioned, their success reinforces a optimistic message about Latino-owned companies.

“That is one thing that we’re very pleased with,” she mentioned.