The company continued to grow as Tamale Addiction was invited to more farmers markets. Today, they produce 1,500 tamales a day in their industrial kitchen — from their famous beans and goat cheese to pork with tomatillo sauce — which they sell through coffee shops, catering and events such as Formula 1 racing and the Austin City Limits music festival. 

“As a child, you’re not having to worry about the actual business side of things until you grow up a little,” Andrea said. “It was really cool to see the creativity that our parents were having and consistently starting new businesses. Seeing that constant failure and then getting back up was very pivotal for us.”

From the start, Tamale Addiction has been a family business. Mariana handles production and scheduling, Adrian oversees business operations, and Andrea and Valentina fill in the gaps every step of the way.

“Working with our family all our lives has been very special,” Valentina said. “We have a shared path, a shared community where we understand each other. Basically, all of our family is involved in some way, so we prioritize spending time together, and we’re able to bounce ideas off of each other and talk about individual ways we’re all trying to grow the business.”

When they were kids, Andrea and Valentina started a business creating clay miniatures called “Cladies” — aka clay ladies — that they sold alongside the tamales at farmers markets with their parents. When they got older, they helped design the website layout, rename the business and create a new logo, along with their mascot: Tami the Tamale.

“I think that was the first project that we had a really big impact in, and we saw how fun it was and how having a character really brings the company to life,” Andrea said.

The twins learned about what goes into brand storytelling and were even able to pitch Tamale Addiction as a part of H-E-B’s Quest for Texas Best, a competition to find local products made by Texans. They went on to win second place. 

“It’s cool because we got to do very fearless things as young children, like pitching in front of investors when you’re 15,” Andrea said. “I would be more scared to do that now, but being young and being supported by the whole family was just so amazing.”

Growing up, Andrea and Valentina constantly flexed their creative muscles: They started a special effects makeup company, took dance classes and played in their school’s band. Their creativity, combined with their parents’ entrepreneurial spirit, made attending Moody College, the No. 1 advertising school in the nation, an obvious choice.

“I think we fell in love with the intersection of art and business,” Andrea said. “That is exactly why it was so easy to pick advertising as our major. Specifically in Moody College, it’s such a great mix of creative style and development in the business world and how you actually communicate.”

They decided to attend college together after realizing that they are — and always will be — stronger together. Since coming to Moody, they’ve both acted as art directors for Texas Creative, the creative advertising portfolio program in the Stan Richards School of Advertising & Public Relations. Since the spring of their sophomore year, they’ve worked on fully integrated campaigns from start to finish. Andrea also traveled to New York City for the UTNY program over the summer to learn more about the industry.

“When they decided to start looking for a college, we were kind of scared because we have two daughters that were leaving at the same time,” Adrian said. “Now, I’ve been really proud. I think that even in their short time at UT, they’ve had a lot of accomplishments.”  

Andrea and Valentina’s classes at Moody have taught them to be strategic and understand their target audience and how best to reach them. They’re able to take what they learn in class and implement it daily through their family’s social media and marketing campaigns.

“We understand the industry so much better,” Andrea said. “We did all these things as a family business growing up, and we did it without knowing what we were doing. Now, getting the education behind it and analyzing what we did, where we went wrong and what we can do moving forward is so impactful.”

The twins have big dreams and look to the future fearlessly, something they learned from their parents. They want to keep working with Tamale Addiction, taking everything they’ve learned at Moody before starting their own advertising agency to help small businesses thrive through communication and creativity.

“I think one really crucial thing for me about our future as a whole is our background,” Andrea said. “Seeing our parents turn nothing into all of this has been truly life-changing.”