By Blake Hollingsworth | Reporter
San Antonio senior Aaron Rivera is an entrepreneur who has run four businesses in the past four years. He said he turns activities he enjoys doing into businesses.
“I think it’s very important, especially when you don’t know what you want to do, just look at what you have, what do you like,” Rivera said. “Turn your hobbies into something you can monetize.”
Rivera’s most recent venture is Zoleado, a streetwear clothing brand specializing in Baylor branded apparel. According to Rivera, the company quickly gained traction among the Baylor community, selling out within its first two weeks.
“Everybody just wants more stuff that Baylor doesn’t do on their own,” Rivera said.
The company’s name is a personal spin on the Spanish word “soleado,” meaning sunny, according to San Jose, Calif., senior Kayley Franklin, Rivera’s unofficial creative director who has known him for two years.
“He wanted something personable and unique and definitely something that hadn’t been done before. That’s just his style,” Franklin said.
Rivera said Zoleado is his primary focus right now, while his other companies are currently “comfort businesses,” meaning he works on them at his own pace for extra money.
“My number one priority is Zoleado because I’ve seen so many people have the desire to have all these Baylor-branded attires, and people just love spending money on clothes,” Rivera said.
Rivera said his first passion was filmmaking. As a junior in high school, he teamed up with a group of classmates to make his first-ever film, “Martin.”
However, according to Rivera, his team quit on him the day they were supposed to begin filming, leaving him with no equipment.
So, Rivera improvised, using his phone as a camera.
“For three months, we used the iPhone camera. No, I didn’t know anything about film. I was just like, ‘We’re doing this,’ right? We already committed,” Rivera said.
He then submitted the film to the Big Apple Film Festival in New York, where it finished as a finalist. According to Rivera, this was the “canon event” that led to his first business.
Rivera’s first venture, Moonlight Ark Productions, is a video production company that started from his hobby of filming cars at car shows.
“Once I got my camera, I took it to a car show, and that’s when everybody started asking, ‘Hey, how much would you charge?’ And that’s when I had to start Moonlight Ark, because I was like, ‘Everybody’s asking how much I charge, so I should probably come up with a price,’” he said.
Rivera discussed the identity of his filmmaking company, mentioning its emphasis on using music to elicit emotions.
“Essentially, we make your videos look extremely cinematic,” Rivera said. “We put some great music to capture the emotions, and that’s something that not a lot of people know. I know exactly how to put the music in to really have the audience remember it after they watch it.”
Franklin said she believes Rivera’s passions and skills gained from Moonlight Ark translated to his other companies.
“Moonlight Ark has kind of bled into all his other endeavors, because he loves film,” Franklin said. “He loves storytelling, and he uses those talents in application with all of his different companies.”
As a young but experienced entrepreneur, Rivera gave advice for fellow business students hesitant to start a business.
“Don’t even worry about failing,” he said. “Don’t even worry about the logistics, right? You start first. You bully yourself into starting, and then you figure everything else out as it comes.”
