Cugo Research Paper - 1652 Words

26 | fall 2017 Just 90 miles off Florida , s eastern shores lies an island with over 11 million people who remain a mystery to most Americans. For nearly six decades, the U.S. government has restricted travel and trade to Cuba, permitting only educational exchanges—which is exactly what brought photography major Sarah Schecker, NYU, to the country in summer 2016. Studying under noted Cuban photographer Adrian Fernandez, Sarah’s project chronicles the life of 4-year-old Kevin Alejandro. â€Å"There are not many pictures of kids in Cuba,† she says. â€Å"I wanted to see life in Communist Cuba from a child’s perspective.† Kevin lives with his aunt and his mother in Havana’s iconic edificio Arcos apartment building. Since his friends are older and in†¦show more content†¦But Iva is the kind of entrepreneur who doesn’t let such facts stop her. In 2010, she launched a men’s sock brand—Richer Poorer Socks—with a business partner in California. â€Å"We just went for it. We talked about the idea in spring of 2010 and we were in stores by December of that year,† Iva says. â€Å"We dove into the deep end of the pool and learned to swim and then we hustled from there.† The company grew organically for about two years with products placed in about 200 stores across the country. Then, they brought in private investors, got acquired in 2015, but ended up pulling the company back to private investment in 2016. â€Å"It has been quite the crazy journey. I hadn’t started a business from scratch before and I very much had that need.† With a bit of luck, Richer Poorer hit its stride as the patterned sock trend was taking off across the country, Iva says. Attributing their success to topquality designs and high-quality products at an attainable price point, Iva says she was learning on the go, having spent her career in the women’s accessories arena previously. â€Å"I knew nothing about the men’s apparel side at all, but I liked that it was a smaller space †¦ and we got lucky that the market was starting to understand why socks were a category