TAMPA, Fla. — It’s not often you see presidents of companies operating forklifts themselves, but Ricardo Teixeira takes his job personally.

What You Need To Know

  • According to the most recent research from the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, the number of Latino-owned businesses has grown 44% in the last 10

  • Ricardo Teixeira started his company out of Sarasota in 2021 after years of experience in flooring, with a desire to transition into the countertop business 

  • Over the past decade, no entrepreneurial group has experienced as much growth as Hispanic- and Latino-owned businesses

“If you think you work hard now for somebody, you have no idea how much harder to get to work when you have your own,” Teixeira, the president of Final Touch Counters, said.

Teixeira started his company out of Sarasota in 2021 after years of experience in flooring, with a desire to transition into the countertop business.

“We did, you know, very little at the beginning,” Teixeira said. “Then start started growing a little, you know, having more demand.”

What started at a rented desk has now turned into a company that’s running out of room, even in a 1,000-square-foot-plus facility.

“We were able to triple and almost quadruple the sales within three years,” Teixeira said.

Over the past decade, no entrepreneurial group has experienced as much growth as Hispanic- and Latino-owned businesses. According to the most recent research from the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, the number of Latino-owned businesses has grown 44% in the last 10 years alone.

Ricardo attributes some of his success to his work ethic.

Take a recent condo project, for example.

He says for tasks that some companies may be reluctant to tackle, like lifting thousands of pounds of quartzite and quartz up five stories without an elevator, Teixeira and Final Touch said, “no problem.”

“We had to close basically the street to bring it up,” he said.

They used a giant crane to get the slabs into multimillion-dollar condos.

“To have business leaders in the community from Hispanic backgrounds and be able to maneuver and solve problems for our clients and for the community, it’s a huge blessing,” said Jorge Tablada, chief operating officer of Nautilus Homes.

According to Tablada, working with a company like Final Touch has been great, especially with Teixeira leading the way during Hispanic Heritage Month.

“It just shines an extra light on it this month,” Tablada said.

And leading is what Teixeira continues to do at Final Touch. Whether it’s personally measuring slabs of stone for homes or lifting slabs on a forklift, he’s willing to do the heavy lifting necessary to succeed.

Final Touch has seen so much success over the last three years that they’ve expanded their operation by opening another location in Punta Gorda.

They say they service homes from Hudson to Naples.