Taking The Beauty E-Commerce Industry To The Next Level, With María Villanueva
Introducing Women of Color Talk Tech, a series of interviews with Women of Color leading tech communities, projects and companies.
Our first invited guest is María Villanueva, CEO of BeautyQlick: an innovative BeautyTech company.
Wait! BeautyTech? 👉🏾 Yasss! The use of innovative technology by beauty brands to offer personalized experiences of their products and services. In short terms: Reinventing the beauty experience with tech 💁🏾♀️. So, what can we learn from Maria's story? Let’s see...
J/EMMSTech - Can you please tell us a bit about yourself?
M - I'm from El Salvador, my family and I moved to Sweden in the late '80s. We lived in a small town called Skultuna just 15 min outside of Västerås.
J/EMMSTech - Where did you work or what did you do in the past?
M - I worked for Chanel in London for almost 5 years, that was one of the most fun jobs I ever had. I was quite lucky for being 20 years with no makeup experience and the opportunity they gave me. Not only did I learn but I also got a lot of responsibilities within my role.
After 5 years I decided to move back home to Sweden and study International sales and marketing. I have been working within these two categories for more than 15 years. But for the past 5 years, I've been more focused on working with e-commerce for different types of companies.
J/EMMSTech - How long have you worked in this industry? What attracted you to this field?
M - I've been in tech since the beginning of the 2000's I started working for a company that creates software for heavy engines like Harley Davidsson and Polaris. Then I started working as a project manager that helped companies optimize their website to a responsive way. Back then almost all sites were built in Flash and were not smartphone compatible.
After that, I had a role as KAM for an IT consulting firm that later led me to e-commerce. Beauty Tech is still quite new here in Nordics but it will soon take over the Nordics. I started in 2014 building a beauty community and that led me to where I am today with BeautyQlick.
J/EMMSTech - Why did you start BeautyQlick? What needs did you see in the market?
M - Having experience in Beauty and also working with a commission-based salary. I knew that that was the pressure of selling and hitting my target. But I decide to always be honest even if it meant not selling anything that day. But my client's circle grew larger and larger soon I was very popular because of my way of working. They even brought their friends and I selected makeup and skincare for their specif needs sometimes I would even guide my clients to the counter next to me just because I knew they need specific products from another brand.
I started in 2014 building a beauty community and that led me to where I am today with BeautyQlick.
I've always thought of beauty as an investment that you do in yourself. This led to when I moved back home to Sweden and I did not have the possibility to shop for the brands and products I was used to. This made me spend a lot of money on products that did not suit me.
I always do my homework and study all the products, but sometimes you want to trust the person that sold the products; the problem was that they were not interested in helping me, just doing the sales. That's when I saw the hole in the market: a platform with honest reviews and a big community where you can turn to was very much needed.
J/EMMSTech - What type of technology do you use in BeautyQlick? 👩🏽💻
M - Our AI is built similar to Spotify's recommender engine as for now, but we have a big plan in how we want the end result to be. On top of that, we’re building a platform that is currently handling a product catalogue of +130 000 SKU.
J/EMMSTech - What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced in this industry?
M - That there are still very few POC women in the tech field. We need to be more and to show people that we are making a difference.
J/EMMSTech - What do you think is the future of AI in the beauty industry? 💭
M - We will depend on AI to make choices for us as the algorithm will know us much better than we know ourselves.
+Random question ✨
J - What advice would you give to women entering the tech field? Anything you wish you had known?
M - If you have passion for it JUST DO IT! You will learn on the way of creating your dream.
Quick last message on behalf of the EMMSTech Team
🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽
María, you are an inspiration to all women. You saw an opportunity and decided to take the chance, and look at where you are now! Your platform is transforming the beauty market.
We look forward to hearing about your upcoming projects! ⚡️
Thank you very much for your time!
⇩ Find out more about BeautyQlick ⇩
