Let’s take a look at some of the most successful Mexican entrepreneurs who revolutionized their niche business.
Sometimes we believe that to undertake a venture it is necessary to have an original idea about a product or a service that is the first of its kind; or to be a technological genius.
However, this could not be further from the truth, since sometimes you only need to think about how you would like to improve your environment to start your entrepreneurial journey.
Here are some examples of Mexican entrepreneurs who decided to make small changes that revolutionized their market niche.
Entrepreneurs who revolutionized their products
Lorena Vázquez, founder of Loly in the Sky
Lorena Vázquez is an entrepreneurial woman from Monterrey who managed to make her dreams come true while revolutionizing the pre-existing ideas of women’s footwear. Since she was a little girl, she was obsessed with shoes, especially those with eye-catching designs.
She decided to study fashion design in Milan and do a master’s degree in accessory and footwear design in Barcelona. It was in that stay that she realized that with her design skills she could venture into the creation of the shoes she needed.
With that idea in mind she returned to Mexico to seek help to achieve her dream of having comfortable, accessible, but above all, feminine shoes with beautiful designs. In 2010, with the help of her brother, she founded Loly in the Sky with a physical store, then she started selling online.
Little by little, her business began to grow, in part thanks to the boost from the accelerator Victoria147, and today she has 14 stores in Mexico City, Monterrey, Queretaro, Merida, Cancun and Guatemala, she also sells her shoes in Liverpool and Macy’s in the United States.
For this entrepreneur, the success of her business is due to the fact that her main concern is always to make her customers happy. Lorena is always in communication with her Lolygirls (her loyal customers) to know what they like. That is why she was able to expand her business to the whole country, because she offers more than just beautiful shoes.
Marc and Joan Segura, founders of Play Business
Marc and Joan Segura revolutionized the way of financing a business, giving first-time entrepreneurs the opportunity to obtain financing for their venture more quickly and easily than with traditional institutions.
The idea arose because Marc Segura realized that many good business ideas remained just that, ideas, due to lack of capital. That is how he created Play Business, a fundraising company to invest collectively in Mexican startups.
In 2013, Marc, a lawyer and economist by profession, began to set up a law firm for small businesses, but with the firm intention of creating a collective investment platform. Although his acquaintances assured him that something like this was impossible, even illegal, in Mexico, Marc did a thorough legal analysis and found a way to create Play Business.
Of course, paradoxically, in 2015, Marc needed investors to fund his platform, so he invited Joan Segura, who invested 200,000 pesos, which he used to pay for servers and a graphic designer to start operations in Joan’s parents’ laundry room.
Its success is due to the fact that the scaleup model allows for anyone to invest from 100 pesos a month in any of the companies registered in the platform, with the advantage that investors will become owners of a part of the profits that the scaleup is generating.
Social entrepreneurs with a cause
Entrepreneurship and business are not at odds with helping society, proof of this are the following entrepreneurs who do their part to improve their environment.
Guillermo Jaime Calderon, founder of Grupo Mia
Guillermo Jaime Calderon began as a civil engineer working for Cemex, where he learned about the living conditions in southern African populations. After working eight years in this company he created his own company Grupo Mia, focused on providing materials for the lower sectors of society and promoting self-construction.
His business model is based on selling a large amount of volume at the lowest possible price, reducing profits to a minimum, but always maintaining the quality of the product. In addition, it offers different forms of payment, federal and state resources, philanthropic contributions and labor contributions.
His interest in providing a dignified life to rural populations, has led him to create Ecofiltro, a product that aims to bring potable water to these vulnerable areas.
Laura Aragón, founder of Mukira
Laura Aragón is a Mexican entrepreneur from Chihuahua, who was concerned about violence in her state, especially violence against women. In 2013, she founded Mukira (woman in Tarahumara), a non-profit organization whose goal is to reduce inequality between women and men.
She supports young women and men to be active leaders in their communities, guided by the principles of equality, justice and human rights. Laura creates different programs that focus on supporting women’s voices and meeting the different needs of youth.
Green Entrepreneurs
In the last decades climate change has been one of the biggest concerns, that’s why for the past couple of years we’ve been looking to develop new products that are ecofrendly.
For a long time, the development of these products was very expensive, so the general public could not use them. Today, thanks to technological advances, it is possible to create more accessible products.
Mexican talent has not been left behind in this new mentality; several young people concerned about ecology have decided to take action and start businesses where the main objective is to care for the environment.
Ulises Navarro, creator of Newen
Ulises Navarro is a Marketing graduate who always thought marketing needed a change of paradigm, because he believed it only generated consumerism; so, his dream was to create a product whose use would be transformed into help.
In his search for his ideal product he met Alfonso Gonzalez, who had been marketing ecological products for 12 years, and Humberto Ramos who had the chemical formulas for biodegradable products.
Together they developed the Newen detergent that helps solve a good part of this problem, since it does not need to be rinsed, thus saving several liters of water and avoiding the disposal of chemical residues. Today it has more than 100 distribution centers nationally and 20 internationally.
Andrés García Gasca, founder of Trisol
Andrés García Gasca is a young entrepreneur who in a class at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) came up with the idea of founding a company dedicated to tire recycling.
While searching for ideas on the Internet, he came across a tire advertisement, which he immediately related to his interest in recycling. This is how the idea of Trisol was born, an innovative company dedicated to tire recycling.
By 2013 he managed to materialize his idea, with the financing of his family, used machinery, and a great desire for his company to move forward and collect the tires personally. Trisol is efficient and sustainable because the process of disposing of the tires does not use fire or abrasives; everything is mechanical, which guarantees a reduced carbon footprint.
Textiles, rubber and metal are obtained from each tire, which are converted into raw material for a variety of products such as flooring, synthetic grass, reefs, building blocks or waterproofing. Andres Garcia has the firm intention of continuing to build a better world and that is why his next goal is to expand to Asia, South America and Europe.
Sara Sacal, founder of ONI
Sara Sacal is a young entrepreneur who always thought that we are accustomed to dispose of things, when many of the objects actually could have a much longer life than we think. Thinking that PET can make a very resistant and durable fabric, she decided to use it to make sneakers and bags.
The businesswoman contacted indigenous artisans to design the textiles with which she decorates her merchandise. Thus, in 2015, she founded ONI which, in addition to helping the environment, helps indigenous communities by paying a fair price for their embroidery.
You can see that entrepreneurs are not geniuses, they are normal people, with difficulties and deficiencies, but, most importantly, with dreams, who were attentive to the problems of their environment and are encouraged to create a solution.
Tell us in our social media if you, like these entrepreneurs, have ever felt that creative impulse.