Saludos! Happy Friday, and welcome to Comprende, edition 075.

Tatiana Bolaños knows what it costs to leave something behind before you know what comes next.

The former child star walked away from the music industry at fifteen, trading fame for a decade of trial, error, and relentless hustle.

Read on to discover how she built The Lilac Agency, a boutique talent management company rooted in the lesson her mechanic father taught her: if you work hard enough, you can build anything.

So, depending on where you are in the world, grab your cafecito or cervecita and dive in. If you enjoy today’s edition, please forward it to your gente or share it online. Let’s keep growing this comunidad together. ☕️🍺

There's a specific kind of pressure that comes with being called "La Chiquita Divina" before you've learned to tie your shoes. At six years old, Tatiana Bolaños stood on stage with Vicente Fernández, a moment most mariachi singers only dream of. The legendary ranchera icon specifically requested the little girl from East LA, known affectionately as "La Chiquita Divina," to perform alongside him. Not just any child singer. Her.

By the time most kids are worried about middle school dances, Tatiana was signed to a label, earned a gold record, appeared on Sábado Gigante multiple times, traveled the world, and lived a life her parents from East LA could barely recognize.

Then came fifteen. Her label wanted to release a new album, Norteño and Banda, but they also wanted something else. More skin. Sex appeal. The kind of image that makes a teenage girl's stomach turn. Tatiana, who'd already grown up faster than she should have, made a decision that would redirect everything: she walked away.

"I was like, I don't even want to do this," she remembers. Simple as that.

What followed was less glamorous. Starbucks. Buffalo Exchange. Verizon Wireless. Joanne's Fabrics. A string of nine-to-fives that each reinforced the same truth: this wasn't it. But her father, a mechanic who'd owned his own shop, had taught her something more valuable than any paycheck. He'd shown her what it meant to build something yourself, to be the boss, to create your own path. "My parents came out here to give us a better life," Tatiana says. "I wasn't gonna settle for less."

After her family moved to Phoenix, Tatiana spent her early twenties bouncing between Arizona and LA, interning for free with fashion designers, slowly piecing together what she actually wanted. At twenty-three, she landed at Bellami Hair as a social media marketing manager. That's when the light switched on. Bretman Rock would come in. Nikita Dragun. Rising creators getting their hair done, talking about brand deals and followers, and this whole new world Tatiana was just beginning to understand.

So she decided to jump right in. By 2015, she was running The Lilac Agency from home with interns, building it while still working at Bellamy. "I think they caught on," she laughs. Then came a DM from a beauty creator asking about management. Tatiana was honest: "I don't know anything. I don't know what I'm doing, but we'll figure it out together."

That became her philosophy. Dive in, figure it out. After all, she’s a Sagittarius who doesn't wait for permission. "Fake it till you make it," she says, though after a decade, there's nothing fake about what she's built.

She learned through Google, through trial and error, through showing up at conferences and making connections. Through the nights of wondering if she was charging the right rates, if she was doing enough, if any of this would work. It did. Lilac grew from a PR side hustle into a full-service boutique talent management agency.

But what makes it different isn't just the roster, it's her approach. Tatiana treats creators like humans, not cash cows. She fights for equal pay, pushes brands to hire Latino talent beyond Hispanic Heritage Month, and gives back from her profits, sharing that she’s given over $13,000 to organizations that provide legal representation for immigrants who can't afford it.

The agency also runs workshops on mental health and burnout, maintains a close friends story with industry trends and strategies, and helps creators build passive income beyond brand deals.

"Don't do this for the money," Tatiana tells aspiring managers. "Do this because you're passionate about taking care of other people and helping your community."

Her parents still don't fully understand what she does, even after meeting her clients. But they're proud. They see their daughter building something that matters, creating opportunities for creators who might otherwise be overlooked or undervalued. They see the legacy she's creating, not just for herself, but for the community she's committed to uplifting.

This year, Lilac celebrated ten years. At the anniversary dinner in LA, Tatiana stood up to give a speech and had one of those full-circle moments: she'd worked in places like this once, for a wardrobe stylist who didn't even know her name. Now she was here celebrating her own thing, surrounded by the team and talent she'd built relationships with, one "let's figure it out together" at a time.

"For me, being a Latina is to have a voice, express myself, y trabajando duro [working hard], like my parents say," Tatiana reflects. "I want to be the best of the best. And you got to work hard to get there. I want to make my family proud."

From the girl who sang with Vicente Fernández to the woman building a legacy of genuine representation, Tatiana embodies what it means to reinvent yourself on your own terms. To walk away from what doesn't serve you. To build something that matters, even when you're figuring it out as you go.

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