We were lucky to catch up with Erika Lin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Erika, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

I never saw myself as a business woman, I remember myself as a child playing to be an architect with a big firm and supporting another architects, developing my profession with passion, walking between the walls of the places that i designed. The love for the architecture and the constant effort to do impecable things brought me to be a business woman.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I studied architecture in the city of Tijuana, Mexico, during my studies I started my first architecture firm with friends from school, the truth is that it was a disaster, but it helped me discover what I was most passionate about about projects, the interiors, I lost myself imagining the sensations that the spaces could provoke, sizing for enjoyment, selecting the finishes, creating unique spaces and impacting the lives of the users, when I finished my studies I moved to Mexico City in search of learning and work on larger, more luxurious and challenging projects, I spent 2 years in Mexico City learning and working very hard, with the vision of returning to my city more prepared to start my architecture firm. When I returned to my city with great desire and enthusiasm, I started EL interior, an interior design firm, it was not an easy start, people were not used to paying for an interior design project, so little by little I was gaining clients, I started with projects small, bathrooms, kitchens, little by little I grew until I hired my first designer and began to make extensions to houses, the firm began to grow, gain popularity and be recommended, at 5 years old we were already doing complete houses, we jumped from the middle level to residential, our projects began to be published and 8 years after the firm began to carry out projects outside of Mexico, as of today we have 1160 projects in the USA, the talent of the firm is growing, so we took a big step, we began to apply innovative methodologies and the use of artificial intelligence in work procedures, that helped me create a quality system in the processes and with this came great growth, the firm became a design group EL Arquitectos and we formed 4 design companies : Erika Lin Arquitectos, EL interior, ELAM Arquitectura Medica and EL studio.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I have grown my reputation by being coherent between my promise, my commitment and my result, I have documented each process in procedure manuals, creative meetings and I have fed it back with my team, in experiences with clients, with the firm purpose of being better every time, We like to share our growth, our processes in talks, conferences and links in different social networks.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

The best strategy has been to generate projects with a lot of passion, dedication and effort, this has resulted in outstanding projects, nominees and winners of different awards, which have been published nationally and internationally, this has made more clients approach us their projects.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://erikalin.com/en/
• Instagram: arq_erikalin
• Facebook: ERIKA LIN
• Linkedin: Erika Lin