"Never get tired of learning and improving" with Lara Garcia
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Lara Garcia is a single mom, graphic designer, and the Founder of The Mood Guide, a visual shopping guide, and a new solution for baby and woman products shopping.
Can you tell our readers about your background?
I pursued a university degree in graphic design and did a year of internship in Germany, at the Stuttgart Hochschule der Medien (Stuttgart Media University) where I studied Jungian psychology and learned a lot about neuro-marketing and neuro-design.
After graduating I worked for 4 years in advertising with graphic design, web design, SEO, and affiliate marketing, until I got pregnant and finally decided to put my ideas into practice and start my own business.
What inspired you to start your business
When I was pregnant shopping for baby essentials, I realized that I had a hard time finding things with my style within the huge amount of things that exist on Amazon. I didn’t like the Best Baby Stuff blogs because they were so generic, never considering someone’s personal style or identity. I also knew that there were things of much higher quality than those on Amazon, but I didn’t even know where to start looking.
I just thought: ¨I wish there was a blog with all the best stuff from the best brands in one single place, visually organized by style, category, and colors, as we see in Marie Kondo or the Home Edit organized wardrobes, on pretty Pinterest Boards and on perfect visually cohesive Instagram feeds¨. So, I decided to make it happen!
We started writing only about baby stuff, and now we’ve expanded to fashion, decor, and beauty products for millennial women. My vision was to write insightful content about products not just describing their function but providing a deeper emotional connection between the reader and the products we write about.
I also wanted to have more time with my daughter, be a role model and inspiration to her, and work with purpose.
Where is your business based?
My partner is based in Seattle and I am currently in São Paulo, Brazil.
How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?
During pregnancy (2018 and 2019) I experienced so much discomfort and morning sickness, so I quit my job, planned and built The Mood Guide website.
By the end of my pregnancy, I asked my sister to be my partner, because she had experience with management and finances, besides being one more person to create content and think together. In March of 2020, we started as a company.
What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
I still don’t invest money in ads, so I invest my time on Pinterest and in a good SEO strategy to rank well on Google.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
Face my fears and believe that I was able to do it all: work from home, start a business and be a single mom. Knowing what to prioritize is a daily challenge.
What makes me able to cope is to have my sister as a partner, and to be tremendously privileged to be able to count on my parents, who take care of my daughter during working hours of the week so I can work.
How do you stay focused?
I organize all the tasks the day before. I list a maximum of 7 items and do as much as I can. What I don’t finish, I leave it for the next day and don’t do any other task until I finish my list, even if it takes a week.
How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
The Mood Guide does not reinvent the wheel. It is another ¨Best Stuff¨ blog, but with an important differentiator, which is always to think ¨This is Best for Who?¨.
I knew that the psychological reason behind the purchase motivation is the search for individuality, so I based myself on Jungian psychological principles and set up The Mood Guide to help women find what they really need to express their true selves.
At The Mood Guide, we understand that people are different, and most of all, that women have different lifestyles, phases, personal tastes, and moods. We are so complex, complete, and versatile. The Mood Guide to celebrates that.
Some of us might have a rock and roll style and others are just in the mood for a very girly and pink living room decor. Many of us have all the styles together, which change according to the stage we are in life, or our mood in the day.
At The Mood Guide, we carefully curate the best stuff on the internet and organize them by mood, always thinking about the aesthetics, the visuals, the texture, and the look and feel of every product and image, to match the millennial women/mother style, lifestyle or mood, and visually guiding them to find the best stuff that will make them feel what they want.
Think of a well-organized wardrobe: If you have a unicorn-themed children’s party to attend, you’ll know where to find pastel and soft pink clothes. If you have a Halloween party, you will know how to find creepy accessories and black clothes. The visual organization helps us make faster and more accurate choices. That’s what we do, but for the best products in the female universe online!
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
For now, mainly SEO and Pinterest. I am learning more about public relations and press releases.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
If you have a good business plan and a lot of willpower, be patient in the first year and don’t give up on working every day, even without immediate return. Sometimes the financial return takes time to come, but every penny that comes in, positive feedback, or a new partnership with a brand makes it worth the wait and effort.
Another piece of advice is: never get tired of learning and improving. I wanted to start a business and had no money to invest, so I studied, asked for a lot of help, and studied more so that I could do as much as I could on my own at the beginning.
Working with purpose and passion is a great motivator to always want to keep learning! You will hardly be a good leader if you don’t understand at least a little bit of all sectors of your company.
What’s your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?
Too obvious I know, but I love Instagram. Not to know about people’s lives, but to discover new creative geniuses. I always get inspired when I see someone showing their personal talents on Instagram and being rewarded for it.
I love to read Refinery 29 and Bustle. The book Women Who Run With the Wolves is one of my favorites. Reading it during pregnancy inspired me to prove to other women and single mothers that we are much more capable and powerful than the world makes us believe.
What’s your favorite business tool or resource? Why?
Paper and pen. Sometimes I use Evernote to organize ideas. I also use Adobe XD to visually organize my mind, but for planning, I prefer the good old paper and pen. For me the simpler the tool, the more efficient.
Who is your business role model? Why?
There are many women that I find inspiring, like Oprah and Beyonce, but after a lot of thinking, I saw that I don’t have a business role model, someone I look up to. I couldn’t think of any half African half Hispanic single mom who created something big and got great recognition, unfortunately.
This motivates me even more to create a business aimed at women. I hope that someday I can be a business role model for single mothers that are in minority ethnic groups, like me.
How do you balance work and life?
I’m still learning! I think we all want a balance between peace of mind and financial peace. I thought I was almost there until maternity came and I had to learn everything again! I divide my day between time for me, time for work, and time for my daughter. I don’t work on weekends because I want to be there for her.
At night and in the morning I do something for myself and just for myself, like Yoga or reading a book.
What’s your favorite way to decompress?
Yoga, running, walking in nature, and dancing.
What do you have planned for the next six months?
I still have a lot to learn and improve in a market as competitive as blogs and affiliates. I hope to be able to dedicate more time to Instagram, hire someone else, and launch at least 2 more moods on the site. Currently, we have 4 and we will launch a Mystic Mood next month.
How can our readers connect with you?
@themoodguide on Instagram and on our website Contact Page.