NVC@30 Fireside Chat Explores Building Ben & Frank Across Latin America

As part of the NVC@30 Fireside Chat series celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Edward L. Kaplan, ’71 New Venture Challenge, the Polsky Center welcomed Mariana Castillo Lopez, MBA ’16, cofounder of Ben & Frank, to campus to discuss her entrepreneurial journey, her experience in the New Venture Challenge, and the growth of her company over the past decade.

Moderated by Chicago Booth professor Michael Alter, the conversation reflected on how Ben & Frank grew from an NVC student startup into one of the most recognized eyewear brands in Latin America, with more than 200 stores across Mexico, Chile, and Colombia and over 1,200 employees.

The plan for Castillo Lopez was not always to be an entrepreneur. Before Booth, she studied economics and worked at the Bank of Mexico, where she developed a strong foundation in data-driven decision making.

“At that time, if I had bet money on whether I would become an entrepreneur, I would have bet zero,” she said during the chat.

Her path, however, shifted while at Booth, where she began exploring opportunities with classmates. The idea for Ben & Frank emerged after she purchased glasses online at a much lower price than traditional retailers and realized there might be an opportunity to build a similar business in Mexico.

Working with her cofounders, the team began testing the idea while still in business school. They launched a simple website and began selling glasses online to test demand.

“That’s how we got started,” she said. “We launched a site, put some ads up, and it took a few days to sell our first pair of glasses.”

While the original idea was inspired by online eyewear companies in the United States, the team quickly realized that the Mexican market required a different approach.

One of the biggest early challenges was that many customers in Mexico did not have prescriptions for glasses, as eye exams were typically conducted in-store and clients weren’t given that information. 

Mariana Castillo Lopez with professor Michael Alter.

To address this, Ben & Frank partnered with optometrists and eventually incorporated eye exams into their retail stores.

The company also discovered that many customers wanted to try on glasses in person before purchasing, which led the team to experiment with pop-up events and eventually open physical stores.

“Our New Venture Challenge business plan said we could open six stores,” Castillo Lopez said. “Today we have more than 220.”

After establishing a strong presence in Mexico, the company expanded into other Latin American markets, including Chile and Colombia. Expansion was not always smooth. Opening in Chile during the COVID-19 pandemic proved especially challenging, but the company continued to grow nonetheless.

Ben & Frank has been profitable since 2018, a notable achievement for a consumer retail brand, and has raised venture funding from major investors in the region. The company is now one of the most recognized eyewear brands in Mexico, second only to Ray-Ban in brand recognition.

Throughout the company’s growth, Castillo Lopez emphasized the importance of maintaining strong unit economics and profitability.

“We wanted to build a company that could survive without constant fundraising,” she said. “If we raised money, it was to expand — but we always wanted the business to be profitable on its own.”

Although Ben & Frank finished sixth in the New Venture Challenge in 2016 – an outcome of which Mark Tebbe, adjunct professor of entrepreneurship and entrepreneur-in-residence at the Polsky Center, who kicked off the event, joked proved “we don’t always get it right” – Castillo Lopez said the feedback and questions the team received during the competition shaped the company’s strategy for years afterward.

“The feedback and big questions we got at the NVC were the recurring themes for the first five years of the business,” she said. “Customer acquisition, market size, pricing — those were the same issues we were working through as we scaled.”

She also emphasized the importance of learning not only from feedback on your own company, but from feedback given to other teams.

“Listening to the feedback other teams get is a hack,” she said. “Even if the businesses are different, you can learn a lot.”

Castillo Lopez also credited Booth and the Polsky Center’s Entrepreneurial Internship Program with helping launch the company, as the funding allowed the founders to work on the business full-time during the summer.

“That money was essentially the company,” she said. “If not for that, I’m not sure Ben & Frank would be here today – at least certainly not in the form it is now.”

As Ben & Frank scaled, Castillo Lopez said the biggest challenges shifted from launching the business to managing people and building an organization.

“Building a company is really about managing people,” she said. “That becomes most of your job.”

She also spoke about the emotional difficulty of leadership decisions, including letting early employees go when the company outgrew their roles, and navigating major operational challenges such as implementing new systems while continuing to run the business.

“You will make a lot of mistakes,” she said. “That’s normal and part of the journey.”

Castillo Lopez recently transitioned from co-CEO to chair of the board, stepping back from day-to-day operations to focus on the company’s long-term strategy and expansion projects.

Looking back at her time as a Booth student, she said her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is simple.

“Do it,” she said. “And define success for yourself. Don’t just follow inertia — decide what success means to you and build toward that.”

The event was part of the NVC@30 Fireside Chat series, which celebrates three decades of the New Venture Challenge and highlights alumni founders who have built companies across industries and around the world.

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