We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Guta Louro a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Guta, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

I’ve taken numerous life-changing risks in the past eight years. The first of them was in 2014, when I left a job, I loved with an architect I admired, to follow my own path and open my Studio in Brazil. Brazil was going through a recession and rolling cutoffs were the “new normal”. I had a few small projects I’d been working on the side and saw the recession as an opportunity to start my own business. This could’ve gone one of two ways, and I’m mighty glad it turned out the way it did.
I got home one day after work and informed my parents of my decision to leave my comfortable job and start focusing on my own designs and client portfolio growth. The support I received was unprecedented and encouraging. My father asked what he could help with and the following Monday I began working on my personal and business growth.
A completed eMBA, a successful business plan, many sleepless and late nights and about one year of work later, I had my first project published in a major trade (national) magazine!
In retrospect, I took a huge leap of faith, believing that despite a collapse in my country’s economy some would still like to design their living spaces, but maybe find someone who could fulfil their dreams on a more budget-conscious level.
In 2017 I took my second major risk: moving to NY for my master’s degree in Interior Design, with the objective to open my studios branch there upon the completion of my studies.
The studio in Brazil was growing significantly. We had good visibility, great projects and wonderful clients and although everything was going better than planned, I still had an “even bigger” dream I hoped to achieve and believed the time was “now or never”.
I visited some of the major schools in the USA and applied for the few I felt had a program more aligned with my needs and expectations. In mid-2017 I learned I’d gotten into all of them and informed my clients I’d be moving to New York in August for my masters and business growth.
I ran my studio at a distance while studying at New York School of Interior Design and interning with a local interior designer. Sleep was not a part of the equation.
Towards the end of my studies, I joined numerous networking groups and started working on opening my studios branch in NY. May of 2019, I graduated from NYSID and as soon as I received my OPT work permit, I launched Guta Louro Designs New York!
NY and Brazil were doing great, and I began working on my Visa application to stay in the USA.
Covid then came along. Brazil’s interior design industry was booming during this period, but not having the ability to visit and keep a rigorous quality control, I made the difficult decision to shut operations for the time being. NY interiors life was less than exciting and since I had chosen to start my own company, the Visa application was a beyond stressful experience.
I joined forces with Splice Design, as their Design Director and applied for my O1 visa. This was my third risk. The process, which was expected to take three months, took a little over six months and in the meantime, without knowing what my future would hold, I decided to move to Austin Texas. The state was open for business and the quality of life was beyond exciting after numerous months cooped up in a NY apartment.
About a month after my move, I received the fantastic news that my Visa had been approved!
Splice and I together decided to stay in Texas and open the studios branch here. Yet another risk for me! Texas has since been a welcoming and exciting place to be in.
We now have studios in Atlanta, NY and Austin, and I’ve reopened my Brazil studio earlier this year as well! Oh, we are also exploring the Hospitality world and barging into larger scale projects than our traditional residential and restaurant projects!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I spent most of my young and teen years confident that fashion design was my calling. I loved the way my clothes made me feel and wanted to help other feel the same way. One day, my mother asked me if I had ever even considered other careers. I hadn’t and wasn’t interested in it wither – until she offered to send me to France for a one-month immersive course in architecture. That was a no-brainer. One month in France, “studying”, surrounded by beauty, and young-minded teens? Yes, I was in! There, I fell in love. While others were having fun being teenagers, I was spending sleepless nights on the drawing boards, listening to my favorite playlists and designing away.
Needless to say, I pursued architecture for my degree. While in architecture school, I realized we were all designing beautiful spaces, and very functional ones, but these were not exactly taking into consideration how the spaces would be lived in. I then decided to join interior design school, in parallel to architecture and a job at an architecture studio.
Since then, I have been making my clients lives happier listening to them, and designing spaces that make them feel represented in. In Brazil and in the USA we offer full-service architecture and interior design projects that are conceived with each of our clients needs and desires in mind and exclusively for them. We believe in telling their stories through our designs and applying colors, textures and furniture that make them happy. We love facing new challenges and are always excited to work on projects that have existing furniture and stories!
No one project is the same and color, comfort and sophistication are always on out list of priorities.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Covid was actually a great time to focus on social media growth for me. This is an extremely time-consuming, yet crucial marketing aspect for “visual” products and services like mine. I closed my office in Brazil during the pandemic, knowing that this was a short-term and temporary decision and I saw this as a great opportunity to start fresh and focus on my branding and marketing outreach.
I took the low-time I had to lay out my Instagram page and write interesting posts. I spent hours searching for good content, studying the work of other designers, and even sharing the work of competitors. I tried several different layout for my Instagram page and also shared different content until I found a pattern I was happy with. I would post every other day and share numerous stories every day on Instagram. I also began searching for relevant hashtags, including them in my posts and commenting on the posts made by others that seemed to have the same interests and those I shared in my page. Paid ads helped boost interaction and interacting with my followers also helped.
At times I’ve worked with PR agents, who can really help the wheel spin, but can also be a considerable investment.
Again, this is very time-consuming but strong, well-thought-out content can make a huge difference in a growing/starting business. I highly recommend hiring help or designated a few hours a week to content creation.

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

Listening to my client’s needs, making sure all projects are unique and maintaining rigorous quality control have been the driving force behind building my reputation. No good work goes unnoticed and if you pay attention to your clients wants and needs and are not scared to show your work and reach out to others that can help you get noticed, it should be easy to not only build your reputation, but also make it visible to others.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.gutalouro.com/www.splice-design.com
• Instagram: gutalourodesigns /splicedesign
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/37843801/admin/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/1433941/admin/

Image Credits
purple wall and red rug image + high ceiling home with colorful baroque furniture are by photographer Denilson Machado All others are by photographer Romulo Fialdini