A young Cuban has been in Mexico for 7 years and already has his own music group, a barbershop, and a pizzeria.

Ricky Thyam is Cuban, from Banes, Holguín, and arrived in Mexico in 2017, with the idea of continuing on to the United States. There, he formed a music band, to which he lent his own name, and things started to go well. In seven years, he has managed to bring his entire family together in Mérida and has opened a barbershop and a pizzeria. He employs 16 people and has much bigger dreams. He wants to expand his Cuban pizzeria branches to Colombia and other Latin American countries.

In an interview with CiberCuba, Ricky Thyam explains that in the area where he lives, he does not see the violence that can be seen in other parts of Mexico, a country to which he owes everything he has. He never imagined in his wildest dreams that the future would bring him a career as an entrepreneur.

In his family, the only one who showed signs of being an entrepreneur was his grandfather, who had a small business in Cuba and also attempted to open an ice cream shop. But the thought of starting his own business never crossed his mind while in the island.

However, when he arrived in Mexico and started making money with his music band, he followed the advice of a friend who told him that if you have a tree that gives you four fruits and you eat those four fruits, you have to wait to harvest again. But if out of the four fruits you harvest, you plant two, you start multiplying your business. And that's what he did. First, he opened the barbershop, which now has five employees, and then the pizzeria, where his parents help him and he has hired four people.

This last idea was born because Ricky Thyam is a lover of Cuban pizzas and he started trying one recipe after another until he got it right, and a friend ordered ten pizzas. That first order was the first attempt. Then Atope Pizzas was born and soon will open its first branch also in Mérida. The recipe has been perfected by him and his father and the business, which has been open for two years, is already profitable.

Yours is a story of overcoming and dreaming big. None of this, he admits, could have been done in Cuba because one does not believe in what they cannot see.

Asked about the controversy that recently surrounded El Uniko, for setting up a food truck in Miami and receiving criticism from the public, Ricky Thyam applauded the reggaeton artist for starting a business because he believes that it is a mindset that Cubans carry over from Cuba, where you are only one thing: if you are a musician, you are just that. "Here we are entrepreneurs."