“I’ve started generating revenue, and my plan for the future is to grow”

“What started three years ago as a simple home decor blog has grown into a digital platform offering tips and inspiration on how to improve your home on a shoestring budget—thanks to CEIN’s tutorials,” says Irene Echeverría, the founder of Blanco Metro.

In this case, the entrepreneur—a woman—has a passion that she channels into a blog or similar digital platform, through which she achieves such a high level of visibility that she decides to take the plunge. She becomes self-employed to transform what was once a passion into a sustainable business idea. That is, broadly speaking, the story behind many of the projects that have emerged in recent years, especially since the 2009 crisis, and it is, to a large extent, the path taken by our protagonist, Irene Echeverría, founder and sole partner of Blanco Metro.

As she explains, what started out as a home decor blog led her, by 2018, to register as a self-employed worker; just a year later, she rebranded herself as “a digital platform where I offer inspiration and tips for improving your home on a shoestring budget,” she says.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TUTORIALS

Echeverría rounds out this work with “low-budget home staging projects designed to transform and prepare a home for sale,” as well as an innovative service called “Blanco Metro to the Rescue,” in which “I go to the home of someone who asks me to transform it for free,” she explains. This latest project, incidentally, is a marketing strategy that Irene Echeverría herself developed during her CEIN tutorials—the service she has valued the most. Because, as she herself states, “since I’m on my own, I have no one to bounce ideas off of and see if they’re crazy or if they might actually work, so the tutorials are the most important thing for me.”

Today, Blanco Metro is a reality. “We’ve started generating revenue, and our plan for the future is to expand our presence across all social media platforms so we can charge higher rates to various DIY, home decor, and interior design brands,” explains the company’s founder, who participated in the Impulso Emprendedor accelerator program.

He even left the CEIN Innovation Incubator a few months ago to strike out on his own, so Echeverría has this advice for anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps: “Believe in yourselves. I’ve had my moments of doubt too, but the failure of an idea isn’t the end of the world, so I encourage you to always keep moving forward and pursue your dream,” he concludes.

 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Founded: 2018

Founders: Irene Echeverría

Industry: Real Estate