María González Revuelta: Winner of the 2024 Great Companies International Women Entrepreneur Award

Name: María González Revuelta

Business Name: La Academia De Decoración

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Establishment (Year): 2018

Category: Interior Design

Profession/ Specialty: Home Decoration

Website: www.academiadecoracion.com

Social Media: Linkedin

Company Detail:

Their mission is to help millions of people solve their decorating problems and live in homes that they love and make them happy. They achieve this through valuable video content that they disseminate for free through their YouTube channel

@LaAcademiaDeDecoracion and their online training program specialized in decoration. This training program allows individuals to learn how to decorate their home in just 5 weeks while carrying out their first decoration project.

They have created their own method focused on students learning to work with "The 10 layers of decoration". Their strategy so that students can learn with good results, in just five weeks, is based on 3 concepts: theoretical-practical knowledge (short videos, practical exercises, and tests), self-diagnosis, and feedback. Feedback consists of the support of a mentor throughout the training program, via video call.

This allows them to validate progress with their project and achieve security in their decoration decisions. More than 1,000 students have taken their decoration courses. They've earned over 965 5-star reviews on Google. Their YouTube channel has more than 364,000 subscribers and has accumulated more than 55 million minutes of content viewed. As a complement to their training program, in November 2023 María González Revuelta published the first book to support El Método. It is called "Manual of decorative styles. Create a home with its own personality" and it is for sale on Amazon.

In this work, she makes a detailed analysis of the 19 decorative styles most used today and reveals an effective method to help people successfully mix them and create their own decorative style, according to their lifestyle. The book, with 575 pages and more than 200 images, has already reached number 3 of the most gifted books on Amazon.

Unique Selling Proposition or Competitive Advantage:

What differentiates their offer from other decoration training options on the market are summarized in the following characteristics:

(1) Their method, which simplifies the learning process and allows a person, without prior knowledge, to learn and achieve good results in a short period of time.

(2) Feedback from an active professional, who has carried out hundreds of decoration projects and who provides individualized support.

(3) Self-diagnosis, as a starting point to learn decoration.

(4) That they study decoration in 10 layers, with the aim that the student can master each one of them and know how to work on the relationship between them.

(5) Their ability to explain the decoration so that anyone can understand.

(6) That their students manage to learn with excellent results on an aesthetic level, that is, they acquire technique and good taste.

Challenges Faced During the Journey:

The challenges they have had to face to get where they are now have been very great. First of all, when they started they didn't know anything about YouTube or how to make videos. They learned from scratch. But with effort and perseverance, they managed to create their own audience on the YouTube channel. Secondly, they left successful marketing careers to pursue their true passion - interior decorating. In this profession, they have been self-taught and have learned by doing. Dedicating many hours to reading, researching, practicing, and doing projects, first for themselves and then to help other people. Third, they work alone. They don't have employees.

That means that they have taken care of everything themselves: Creating the YouTube channel, creating each of their videos; create The Method concept, its strategy to simplify learning and all its content; edit the videos; publish the content on a training platform, define the marketing strategy, create the website, carry out actions on social networks (Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Google, and Linkedin), serve their followers and respond to their messages, write the book, self-publish it on Amazon and create collaborative relationships with other professionals in their sector. And of course, carry out consultations and decoration projects for their clients. They have achieved all this in 5 and a half years.

Advice for Women Entrepreneurs:

To young women who want to start a business, they would recommend: That they spend time getting to know themselves, identifying their best skills and their main passion. Once identified, they should look for the best way to learn everything about their passion, whether by working for others or dedicating all the hours necessary. Let them focus on helping other people. Be persistent and constant because that is key to achieving good results. Let them work on their mentality, to know how to adapt to market changes, have confidence in themselves, transform threats into opportunities and fight to fulfill their dream. Focus on surrounding yourself with people who give you positive energy and who are successful.

Let them develop their vocation for constant learning and stay away from people who do not believe in them. Let them investigate the market and their competitors thoroughly, before defining their strategy. That they try to constantly learn about new tools and applications in their sector and especially in everything related to artificial intelligence. Whatever you do, don't try to please everyone. That it is not possible to please everyone and that what differentiates us is our essence as people, regardless of who we do not like.

The important thing is to like ourselves. Therefore, we should not be discouraged if someone leaves us negative or disrespectful comments on our social networks. If this is the case, do not respond and block anyone who is not respectful or brings negative energy to our social networks. Have an open mind when faced with changes.