Saying NO to Walmart & YES to Speciality with HASSY

Martha Forero, CEO & Founder of HASSY

Martha Forero is a Latin entrepreneur, Y Combinator Alumni and an Endeavor Entrepreneur. After spending nearly a decade building and scaling UBITS across Latin America, she decided to start again, this time with a business deeply connected to family.

Together with her husband, a third-generation avocado grower from Michoacán, Mexico, she founded HASSY to bring their family’s avocado heritage to a new generation. Inspired by their daughter, Mila, and by generations of growers before them, Martha is building HASSY at the intersection of family, entrepreneurship, heritage, and really good food. Follow HASSY on Instagram.

In this episode:

• Martha's path: from HR tech co-founder to building HASSY on her husband's family's 40-year avocado business, and how she researched the supply chain.

• Retail strategy: choosing specialty and natural stores over mass retail, visiting stores in person to learn where HASSY fits, and waiting for real reorders on a slow-moving everyday product.

• Product and brand lessons: what's behind avocado oil's bad press (blends, "refined" vs. extra virgin), changing the flavor for US tastes, and leaning into the family origin story in marketing.