La Revista Mujer

By Lilia Davis

Pamela Romo, Mexican serial entrepreneur and co-founder of QUERIDA AGENDA, tells her story as she begins the first personalized agenda, aimed at supporting women.  An agenda that has become a successful tool for entrepreneur women, by helping them using time efficiently, organize better, and while doing it practice self love and gratitude. Querida Agenda started in México and is now sold in fifteen countries.  And it’s just beginning...

In addition, QUERIDA AGENDA has evolved from its pages to become a successful podcast in Spanish from Mexico called QUERIDA RADIO, to give support to  enterprising and creative women, and it has become the top 10 business in Spanish for ITunes and its community is growing even more! 

Pamela Romo was born in El Paso Texas and grew up in Aguascalientes, México. Pamela had a rebellious spirit from the early years, growing up with her two brothers in a family environment where, as the only girl,  she felt a little over protected. Pamela had no choice but to rebel even more. She was often expelled from school being rebellious, despite her parents’ scolding. But she always saw the positive side in everything: «In five years I’ll be laughing about this,» Pamela usually said. 

 She has loved painting since childhood. She wanted to study several things in college, such as degree in  journalism, or fashion. In the end she decided to study marketing at the Tecnológico de Monterrey –  the campus at home in Aguascalientes. Later on she studied marketing at Istituto Marangoni in Paris

After starting several businesses in fashion, as lead singer and music, a community in social media and working at one of Condé Nast’s magazines, Vogue Mexico and Latin America, she finally found a project that involves everything she wanted to do: establishing herself as an entrepreneurial mom and helping and supporting women with the use of their time and creating a community with QUERIDA AGENDA. 

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A Project that was Born with No Intention of being a Business. 

I interviewed Pamela Romo, one of the founders of QUERIDA AGENDA, and attractive mother with intelligent eyes and beautiful and long black hair,  who now resides in Austin, Texas, at a coffee shop. She came accompanied by her beautiful little daughter Ema who was wearing a nice pearl necklace, a gift from her grandmother and who behaved admirably during the interview.   

Pamela, after running several businesses, how did Querida Agenda begin?

I was a mother at the age of twenty-six and I wanted to be organized as a mother, wife and entrepreneur. I have always liked journals, but sometimes I used two or three every year and becoming tired of carrying them around, one day I said to myself, «why don’t I organize everything into one single agenda?» 

So I contacted my graphic designer friend in Mexico, Marisa Chambon, and I said, «I want to design an agenda for me, will you help me design it? – The truth is, I had no intention of starting a business at all. I just wanted to solve my problem and that’s it.

At what point did you realize that your agenda was more than just a planning tool for women? 

When my friend Marisa loved the idea, and as I was developing the whole design and bouncing ideas around with her, QUERIDA  AGENDA came out. It was a huge job the first year, but we wanted to support women. So we decided, «We have to do this as a business and I think we will serve many other women». That’s how we became the official founders of Dear Agenda. She lives in Mexico and I live and work in Austin, Texas. 

THE FIRST AGENDAS

How long did it take to produce the first Querida Agenda? 

Once I gave a date for my friend to push the project and told her: «we have to set a date right now, let’s not wait any longer». And so, we started working non-stop almost at the end of the year and designing and customizing 365 days, page by page! We agreed that in order to start, we had to get an illustrator, website, social networks, printing, shipping, among other things, out in a month and we did it.

The agenda had to be ready before the new year, and we started in October, just imagine! With all that pressure, however, we managed to finish everything in two months. 

Later, with the investment of my savings and those of my partner and some of our families, we managed to order the first 1500 agendas. They were sold out in January, and we were still asked for agendas even into February and March! So for 2019 we ordered twice as many: three thousand agendas, and to our great surprise and satisfaction they were sold out before December.  We were shocked.

What obstacles did you have to face when you started? 

Honestly, at first we didn’t get much support. They would say: «your agenda is nice, but it’s too late now, almost all the people have already bought their Christmas presents.  No one is going to buy it». I felt like I was going against the current.

 People also told us «How can you invest in something that you don’t know if it will work?» But many others supported us, especially after, to their great surprise, the first agendas were sold out in a month and a fortnight. 

What do you think is your competitive advantage of Querida Agenda, compared to others in the market? 

Well, it is the first agenda aiming to support women and we’re the only agenda that comes in one day per sheet. It has annual and monthly goals and space to track your expenses. It’s also the only one that collaborates with experts on each topic and share tips with us every month; beauty, business, entrepreneurship, and among other things, it reminds you how many glasses of water you’ve had. 

As for its package design, it comes in a beautiful box designed with the themes and colors of the agenda and protects it very well. It’s really a very good quality product. It also has a lot of room for gratitude, your achievements, your pending matters, your well being, reminding you each day to love yourself. I think that’s where the power of women starts taking shape.   

QUERIDA RADIO

Now tell me, how did you decide to start a Podcast too? 

For a long time, and among other things, I also wanted to do a Podcast! (laughter). After the success of Querida Agenda, its popularity has evolved from its pages to become a successful podcast in Spanish from Mexico called QUERIDA RADIO. The podcast is aimed at entrepreneurs and creative women, and its community is growing even more!  We’ve been in the top 10 Spanish business podcasts on iTunes. 

We produce it in Mexico four times a year and we interview all the guests there. We now have many followers and have begun to participate and conduct panel discussions and seminars to help women in various parts of the country. We have been very well accepted in that medium and now it is like an audio extension of Querida Agenda. For me it has been a super satisfying experience.  

BALANCE IN YOUR DAY 

You manage almost three businesses and two young daughters, how can you find that balance in your day? 

Yes, managing QUERIDA, the podcast QUERIDA RADIO and my business of Interior Design ABRO HOME, here in Austin, is hard, especially with two little girls. But for now I find that balance by dividing my duties during the day. For example, in the morning I work on my business, and in the afternoon I am a full-time mom, – so that’s why I needed a personalized agenda (laughs).   

DESIGNS

The cover and inside pages designs of Querida Agenda stand out by its modern and original designs ¿Who makes the illustrations? 

I think the illustrations are a super important factor for QUERIDA AGENDA. The illustrations make our agenda unique in each version and for this, every year we invite a new Mexican illustrator to collaborate with us.

This year we fell in love with the illustrations of Christian Castañeda who helped us represent a powerful, independent, rebellious woman who has an incredible connection with the universe, energy and herself. This woman is our Querida 2020. 

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

Are you considering having a digital version of Querida Agenda in the future?

In general I want to concentrate on Querida Agenda, Querida Radio and the Community.  We also want to make an application that embeds the organization with a community. Personally, what I want most is to have a community of support with other women. Because living in another country, I need that support very much. We also want to make a bilingual agenda for 2021.  

TIPS

What are two essential tips for a woman who wants to start her business? 

• First: Make a list of your goals and break them down as much as you can. Start slowly, don’t get overwhelmed. Make the list and write it all down;  

• Second: Don’t wait for the perfect time because most likely it won’t come, so do it now!  But above all, do everything with a good dose of gratitude on every page of your day.

What motivates you to keep going at the end of the day?

Knowing that there are thousands of women who are or have been in that moment of frustration because they don’t know how to balance their time and also knowing that I am not the only one who fights for their dreams every day. That motivates me a lot and gives me strength to keep going. 

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In today’s world where everything comes to us in digital form, from your daughter’s school schedule, your job, all by just touching your screen and there, you’ve got it! It’s refreshing to see that the therapeutic ritual of writing down the course of your day in a journal page by page still exists. And by doing so you are helping to empower your time and stay organized like Pamela Romo did. QUERIDA AGENDA does that and more, it makes you feel loved.

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Order your agenda now. Just use the code QUERIDA MUJER with 10% discount until February 15th here – and start sharing this experience!

https://queridaagenda.com/ Follow in Facebook & Instagram @queridaagenda

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