There are moments in life you never see coming.

They happen without warning, without any apparent weight,

and only later do you realize that's where everything started.

I was sixteen.

I was living in Alicante, still at the French Lycée,

and that night was like so many others.

We were having dinner at home, my mother and I,

in a kitchen with an island in the middle,

a part of the house that faced inward,

with a warm, quiet light.

When we started Andesites,

we had no idea what we were doing.

But we did it with love.

My mother, Ana, has always had incredible energy.

She worked in brand sales,

she knew a lot of people,

she had that natural instinct for what works.

And me, with my head full of ideas,

I brought the creative side.

The truth is that at first I saw it as a hobby.

I never thought it would turn into anything big.

Andesites was a women's label,

and even though the idea had been mine,

I didn't feel any real attachment to it yet.

I liked contributing ideas, coming up with names, imagining concepts…

but I didn't have the mindset of someone thinking long term.

I didn't think like a businessman,

I thought like a kid with his head in the clouds.

Around that time my cousin Manuela was there too,

and she threw herself into it completely.

She spent hours and hours working, organizing,

posting things on Instagram.

She and my mother were unstoppable.

They didn't miss a single day of putting content out.

And that, over time,

was what kept the flame alive.

I, on the other hand, came and went.

I hadn't fully committed yet.

But there was something there.

An energy.

A good intention.

And though none of us knew it yet,

we were laying the foundations

of something that would last.

My mother, without realizing it,

was the one who taught by example

what perseverance really means.

She never gave up,

not even when there were no results.

And that, years later,

was the lesson that shaped me most.

I remember exactly what we were eating:

cream of vegetable soup.

An ordinary dinner, on an ordinary day.

But what came next changed my life.

The next morning we were in the car,

on our way somewhere,

I don't remember exactly where.

We were going around that long roundabout

that everyone in Alicante knows,

when my mother looked at me and said something

I'll never forget:

"What if we made a denim brand?"

It was a spontaneous line, no plan, no context.

But my head exploded.

That moment, so simple,

opened up an entire universe for me.

I started dreaming and dreaming.

Imagining colors, textures, names, concepts.

Everything connected inside me.

At the time I was studying Biology.

I was fascinated by how life organized itself:

minerals, rocks, natural processes.

And suddenly it all made sense.

Denim was like water,

the washes like minerals,

the fabric like earth.

They were a reflection of nature.

And that's when the word appeared: Andesites.

Andesite is a volcanic rock

that forms after an eruption,

when the lava cools slowly.

There's no more beautiful image

for describing transformation.

Fire, pressure, time…

and out of all of it comes something solid,

resilient, elegant.

I saw myself in that.

And without knowing it,

I was laying the first stones

of what would become, years later,

my life.

It was 2020.

I hadn't turned 17 yet.

And though I had no idea,

in that car, between traffic lights and thoughts,

Andesites was born.

A brand, yes,

but above all a story.

A story that didn't start with a business plan,

but with a conversation between a mother and her son.

Over time I came to understand that Andesites

isn't about clothes.

It's about family.

Everything we are comes from there.

From my grandmother Manoli and her back room.

From my grandfather Juan and his character.

From my grandfather Pepo and his ingenuity.

From my mother and the way she fights

without ever losing her smile.

My grandmother Manoli had a shop.

That's where I learned what a job well done means,

the care you give a customer, the dedication.

My mother lived it as a girl,

absorbed it,

and passed it on to me without words.

You don't need to say anything

when values are simply in the air you breathe.

Every detail of Andesites carries something of that:

the family lunches on Wednesdays,

the laughter with my cousins,

the long afternoons around the table,

the honest conversations,

the small things that make

life feel like life.

That's what Andesites is:

seeing the beauty where no one else sees it.

And my family taught me that.

Sometimes I think everything I am

I learned at home.

Not in books, or at school,

or traveling.

At home.

From the people who taught me

to be respectful, to be humble, to trust.

And I like to think

that Andesites carries all of that.

Because in the end,

without family you're nothing.

And if Andesites exists today,

it's because of mine.

Over time, things started to grow.

I moved to Madrid to study,

looking for fresh air, independence,

a new life.

I wanted to get away from Alicante for a while,

from the memories, from the same places,

from the same friends.

I had that need to start from scratch.

In Madrid our offices were

in the same space my mother had used before.

It was a dream: a beautiful place, right in the center,

full of energy.

Andesites was moving by then,

we had events, interns, a team.

Everything seemed to be working.

But inside me there was something

that still wasn't in the right place.

I was living in a student residence,

going out, drinking, doing what everyone my age does.

And I don't regret it,

but I do admit I wasn't well.

I was trying to fill a void

that noise doesn't fill.

And meanwhile, Andesites kept growing.

My mother worked nonstop.

I helped out,

but without any real sense

of what it means to run a company.

That stage was a mirror.

It showed me you can be surrounded by everything

and still feel empty.

And that fulfillment isn't in what you have,

but in what you do with meaning.

Sometimes you have to lose yourself a little

to find your way back.

At that point in the story

someone very important arrives:

Erik Bernabéu Lau.

A friend, but more than that:

one of those people who show up

right when you need them most.

Over time he became

someone I deeply admire.

And not just him,

his mother too, Ingrid Lau.

They both believed in us,

in my mother and me,

and decided to invest in Andesites.

But more than money, they put in heart.

They gave us faith, support, warmth.

Out of nowhere,

a new family was born.

And that's when everything changed.

I decided to commit one hundred percent.

For the first time I felt I had

to prove to myself that this was mine.

That Andesites wasn't just a teenage dream,

but something real.

I gave myself to it completely.

But it wasn't easy.

Being an entrepreneur is far harder

than it looks.

You have to fall in order to learn.

I fell every way there is.

I lost money, time, friends.

I went through moments where it felt

like everything was falling apart.

Andesites came close to going under,

and right there, exactly there,

I learned what building something really means.

I learned not to give up,

to keep faith even when nothing works,

to stay calm.

To understand that all the "no"s along the way

are part of the process,

that the "yes"es come later,

once you've earned them.

And I learned the most important thing of all:

that everything happens for a reason.

Nothing arrives by chance.

At one of the last Andesites events

I met Sophie, my girlfriend.

And with her I learned another kind of love:

real support, the kind that simply stays.

She's been with me

through the hardest moments,

when I had to rebuild myself from nothing.

From then on, everything changed.

I stopped going out, stopped drinking, stopped getting distracted.

I started taking care of myself.

Training, eating well, resting.

Giving all my time to Andesites,

but also to me.

Because I understood that you can't look after a project

if you don't look after yourself first.

That's when I discovered what growing up really means.

Not out of obligation, but by choice.

Leaving behind what holds you back.

Betting on yourself.

And working with purpose.

I realized that Andesites

had taught me how to love.

To appreciate, to be grateful,

to understand what patience is.

And above all, not to be afraid.

To live with gratitude,

even when you don't know

what comes next.

I don't know where Andesites will be

ten years from now.

I don't know if it will grow,

if it will change,

if it will turn into something else.

But I do know one thing:

it has already served its purpose.

Andesites made me who I am.

It taught me responsibility,

love, perseverance.

It taught me to fall

and get back up again,

to trust, to have faith.

It taught me how to live.

Today I look back and I understand all of it:

the "no"s, the falls, the fears, the doubts.

All of it meant something.

Because without that there would be no book,

no story,

no this version of me.

Andesites isn't just a denim brand.

It's a symbol.

Of family, of transformation, of love.

Of a mother and a son

who believed that dreams

can come true

if you build them with your heart.

I'm José Ten Verdú.

And this isn't only my story.

It's the story of how Andesites

taught me to be a person

before a businessman.

Of how love, family and calm

can turn fire into beauty.

And though I don't know what comes next,

I know that whatever happens,

Andesites will always be a part of me.

Because there's no brand without a soul.

And the soul of Andesites,

from day one, was this:

a conversation,

a family,

a dream…

and the certainty that every effort,

given time,

ends up finding its place.