Summary:
- Ópticas Ver de Verdad addressed nonconsumption, not a medical gap, by recognizing that millions of Mexicans lived with correctable vision problems because glasses were unaffordable, inaccessible, or simply not prioritized in an average household spending.
- The company innovated through business model design rather than technology, offering free eye exams and affordable glasses first, deliberately targeting first-time eyeglass wearers and competing against everyday discretionary expenses rather than other optical chains.
- By turning nonconsumers into consumers at scale, Ver de Verdad expanded access to vision care, created local jobs, improved education and productivity outcomes, and inspired replication of its model across Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2011, Mexico was a country of more than 115 million people. Literacy rates were high, school enrollment was rising, and GDP per capita was growing. Yet millions of Mexicans were living with something deeply limiting in their daily lives: blurred vision.
School studies from the early 2010s show that a significant portion of students attending Mexican primary schools lived with uncorrected refractive errors, conditions like myopia and astigmatism. Conditions that can be easily corrected with prescription lenses, meaning the problem was not one of medical impossibility, but one of nonconsumption. Ópticas Ver de Verdad saw the opportunity to address it.
Seeing the majority
The creation of Ópticas Ver de Verdad traces back to one entrepreneur: Hugo Ladislao Moreno. Originally a civil engineer from Culiacán, Sinaloa, Moreno was unsure of what came next in his life when he met Michael Chu at a Latin American business conference at Harvard University in March 2011. When Chu, co-founder of investment firm IGNIA, asked to review Moreno’s business plan, Moreno didn’t have one written yet. He only had an idea: glasses should not be a luxury good, they should be affordable and accessible to the majority.
After an initial rejection (because it turned out IGNIA didn’t fund startups), a call back three months later (because it turned out IGNIA couldn’t get Moreno’s idea out of their head), by December 2011, with IGNIA’s backing, Ópticas Ver de Verdad had opened their first store. The second one came only two weeks later.
Moreno didn’t begin by serving affluent consumers and moving down-market. He began with the majority, the nonconsumers. That meant competing not against other optical chains, but against the daily spending priorities of lower-income households. Because 52% of its customers were first-time eyeglass wearers Ver de Verdad had to teach nonconsumers that they needed vision care at all. Moreno understood that his real competition was not other glasses, it was purses, snack runs, and other discretionary purchases. He needed to make vision a priority.
To do this, affordability alone was not going to be enough.
Envisioning a new model
Ópticas Ver de Verdad did not introduce new optical technology. But it did introduce a new business model.
Instead of charging for eye exams, the company offers free vision tests. Revenue comes from the sale of glasses that start at roughly 350 Mexican pesos (about 20 USD). After a customer comes in for a vision test, workers at Ver de Verdad are instructed to first offer the most basic glasses to their customers. The cheapest solutions that deliver the best possible value, made possible by importing materials from China. By removing the upfront consultation fee and offering affordable solutions first, Moreno eliminated a key barrier to accessibility, and flipped the traditional optical model.
Moreno found that although some customers did purchase the most basic options, others wanted variety, and soon his stores went from offering just corrective vision glasses to also offering blue light glasses (specialized lenses designed to filter screen light), what they call “Blupers”.
Ver de Verdad was successfully turning nonconsumers into consumers, but scaling required discipline and humility. Moreno emphasized listening to customers, learning from the sales floor (which he tried to be on at least once a month), and building standardized, replicable store models.
By 2015 alone, just four years after founding, the company had conducted over 210,000 free eye exams and delivered more than 150,000 pairs of glasses. By 2019, they operated 101 branches and employed 539 people. Today, they operate 143 branches across 17 cities in Mexico.
More than clear sight
Ópticas Ver de Verdad helped improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Vision correction affects educational outcomes, productivity, road safety, mental health, and dignity. When more than half of customers are first-time wearers, the social benefit is profound.
In addition to the direct health and social benefits, the company has had economic benefits in and far beyond the cities they operate in. Each store employs licensed optometrists, building localized health infrastructure. But the model has also traveled. EYElliance and Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship developed a 12-module playbook based on Ver de Verdad’s approach, teaching entrepreneurs in Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. In Africa, entrepreneur Jérôme Lapaire studied the model before launching Lapaire, now operating across Sub-Saharan Africa.
From one store in Culiacán to 143 across Mexico and ripple effects across continents Ver de Verdad demonstrates something powerful: prosperity does not always begin with new technology. Sometimes it begins with asking why millions of people are living with a solvable problem and then building a solution to serve them.
