Lucia Marín is a very driven entrepreneur that started her first business at the age of 22. Since then and after working at a VC she created HeySpanish and now they help hundreds of families from over the world so that their children can stay in touch with the language and culture in a fun way while they make lots of friends. 

Can you tell our readers about your background?

I went to university in Spain where I studied Law and Economics. While I was studying, I worked for a company that organised subsidised English lessons for businesses and I helped them take the business from zero to one. After 3 years working there, they decided to change their business model completely and they offered me to buy the clients that they had and start a business, so that’s what I did as I thought it was a great opportunity at the time. I ran the business for 2 years while studying and when I was almost done with my degree I thought I needed a change and I really wanted to work in something related to my studies so I accepted an internship at a VC in London. Very soon I realised that I wasn’t feeling happy and fulfilled and I thought I felt this way because I was literally working 24/7 so I started applying for jobs and I got a position in Strategy and Operations at a startup.

Even though the working hours were fine and the company culture was great I still wasn’t feeling passionate about it and I missed having a project of my own so I started experimenting with a few business ideas like selling on Amazon or dropshipping and they didn’t go very well. While I was doing this I volunteered teaching Spanish to a group of little children and I found that so much fun. I realised that there was quite a lot of demand for Spanish lessons for children in London so I founded HeySpanish. 

What inspired you to start your business?

Having a project of my own made me feel fulfilled. I had so much determination about this so I didn’t stop testing different ideas until I found the one. While I was working at the VC I joined many events for entrepreneurs that were fundraising and I had a huge urge to be one of them.

Where is your business based?

We are based in London but we have students from all over the world. Now, we have students from more than 30 different countries. At the moment I’m working from Madeira. We have a fully remote culture and everyone can travel around while working.  

How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?

First of all I started with a competitor analysis to find a way to differentiate ourselves from the competition. While I was defining the business I started looking for teachers. This is how I met Laura, she’s my business partner. She fell in love with the idea and the concept from the first time she heard about it and we had an immediate rapport, it was love at first sight. Then I started looking for clients in her area, we were mainly doing telemarketing at the time. In the meantime I also created the website and Laura started developing our methodology and teaching materials. 

What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?

Finding out about our audience's needs by talking to them and then creating valuable content, events and seminars in order to raise awareness.

On the other hand, we learned how to target our audience on social media and this has been very effective in order to run ad campaigns.

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

THE PANDEMIC. Everything was going very well. We started the business in July 2019 and we already had a few clients on board numbers were getting better every month until the 16th of March when we received emails and calls from all of our clients to cancel our services. 

I thought this would be solved and that we would go back to these places after a month or two but just in case we started thinking of alternative ways to keep the business going. We decided to try moving all of our lessons online and at first, we were a bit hesitant about how the children would react as we only had 3-6-year-olds at the time and we thought it would be difficult for them to engage in online lessons but it was a huge success.

We started doing daily lessons, with lots of children joining every day and we started getting clients from many different countries. This made us realise that there was a need for Spanish-speaking parents living abroad to access lessons that were 100% in Spanish so that their children could stay in touch with the language and culture. So we used this opportunity to really target this niche and to open our lessons for other age ranges. Now we do lessons for 3-12-year-olds. This was an amazing discovery and now this service is 80% of our business.  

How do you stay focused?

I am a productivity freak. I use the Pomodoro method when I work, this helps me a lot with focusing on one task at a time. Also, I plan the week ahead on Sunday evening so I start the week with a lot of energy and knowing what the goals and main objectives are. When I don’t do this I find myself staring at my laptop, checking my inbox, and not knowing where to begin. Lastly, I use a productivity planner from Intelligent Change that also helps me a lot to stay productive daily. Lastly, reviewing the objectives for the next 90 days weekly really helps me and the whole team to be on the same page with regard to priorities. 

How do you differentiate your business from the competition?

We make sure the lessons are fun and that the children enjoy them. In our classes, they learn through music, storytelling, games, and drama. 

We make our own music, which is available on the HeySpanis youtube channel. Also, we’re focusing now on a very specific niche which is children from Spanish-speaking ex-pat families.

What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?

The most effective thing for us has been using Facebook ads that target exactly the niche that we’re focusing on. 

We’ve published two books that are available on Amazon Worldwide, the first one is “Learn Spanish with Pepe” and the second one is “Pepe Magic’s World”, this helped more people know about us and we got many clients that booked our lessons after buying our book or ebook. 

What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?

I would tell them to start by creating a plan, think of the goals that they want to achieve in the next 90 days, divide this into monthly actions that help them achieve them, and use a spreadsheet to help them keep track of this and get to work!! When you want to take a business from zero to one is really more about taking actions rather than overthinking the strategy. 

What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?

My favourite app is Instagram because I follow a few amazing founders and seeing their content gives me a lot of inspiration and joy and also because it’s a very powerful tool to communicate with our audience. 

I’m not very into blogs so I don’t have a favourite one. 

My favourite book is “The hard thing about hard things” because I found it very useful for my business. 

 What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?

I love ClickUp, we use it for project management and we’re finding it extremely useful. 

Who is your business role model? Why?

My business role model is Mimi Ikonn as she always shows the importance of being present in what you do and having balance. Also, we co-created Intelligent Change and I love all their tools to stay productive. 

How do you balance work and life?

I really like to unplug during the weekends and also something that really made a difference was when I got a phone for personal use and another one for business use and I never take the business one when I’m outside or during the weekends. 

What’s your favorite way to decompress?

I love going on hikes with friends and enjoying nature. 

What do you have planned for the next six months?

We will be fundraising and scaling the business. 

How can our readers connect with you?

They can connect with me on Linkedn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucia-marin/

You can also find out more about HeySpanish on our social media channels: Facebook and Instagram.