Elisa Subirats

Put a lot of enthusiasm and passion on what you do. Work hard, and don’t be afraid of investing some money in useful tools and courses to work in the right direction.

 

Elisa Subirats is CEO of World in Paris, a travel blog about Paris and its surroundings. World in Paris wants to help independent travelers to enjoy Paris Like a Local through travel inspiration, information, and best tips.

Prior to founding World in Paris, Elisa has worked as an architect, and also in Project Management. Over the years, architecture turned into a hobby rather than a job but she is still a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI). During her life, Elisa has spent a lot of time traveling, full time or during her holidays or long weekends. She has visited more than 70 countries as a backpacker on a budget but also on business trips so she knows and understands all the travelers’ needs whatever their budget may be.

Elisa lives in Paris, France, where she is continuously looking for new ideas and tips to bring her audience the best of the City of Lights. In her free time, you can find her hiking, running or training to get her karate second dan. As soon as she has more than 3 days off she is probably out of town exploring other countries and cultures through her lens.

Where did the idea for World in Paris come from?

The idea of World in Paris started after my world tour. I spent a year traveling the world, exploring amazing places every single day. After some days of rest back in Paris, I felt that I needed to go on with visiting new things, and learning new things so I decided to explore “my own backyard” (the city of Paris) and tell people about my quirky findings and best tips. The blog World in Paris started as a hobby which later turned into a business.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

Usually, I start the day checking the blog statistics on Google Analytics and sales made during the previous day. Then I answer /write emails and I go on with a couple of hours of online-learning (paid courses or interesting things that I find on the internet for free) and with blog related tasks (SEO, link building, new blog posts, new products . .). In the afternoon I finalize my morning tasks and do social media related tasks (new posts, answer comments, sharing my articles, etc). My working days are more productive when I prioritize my tasks and segment my days into a blocks to achieve them easily.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I always have a notebook with me where I note the new ideas that come to my mind. Then I ask my team members for their advice and inputs. During the process, I also like to have other opinions from people out of the business, especially if I am working on a new product or service for our users. My friends’ honest feedback is a very precious input in this process.

What’s one trend that excites you?

People are getting curious about the surroundings of Paris and if they have a spare day in the capital they are happy to explore other cities or towns easy to visit on a day trip. That gives us more exploring opportunities (after all, we love to travel!) and more business opportunities.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

I start my working day with few minutes of meditation and positive mantras. This helps my mind to be more concentrated, focused on the work to come and positive for a good working day.

What advice would you give your younger self?

This is a business where bloggers need to dedicate a lot of effort and many working hours before seeing the first positive results. Put a lot of enthusiasm and passion on what you do. Work hard, and don’t be afraid of investing some money in useful tools and courses to work in the right direction.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

That my blog could be a full-time job with a decent income.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Being positive and believe that you can make it is very important, especially when you start a new project or business. I always try to stay positive even during those days when everything seems to go wrong. Having a positive mindset is very important.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

I bought an online blogging course made by a very successful blogger. This course taught me what is essential and what is not that essential (or a waste of time) for my blog’s success. Now my working hours are focused in the right direction and I do the things that matter to make my blog and income grow.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

Wasting many hours working on the things that were not important for growing my business. My time is very precious and I hate wasting it. I overcame this problem with the right information and tools.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

I work on a travel blog so my business idea would be to look around you. I admit that it is more exciting to write about exotic destinations but the knowledge you have about the place where you live or you visit very often is very valuable for your users, and nobody can write better about a place than a local. Also, it is easier to keep the information up to date and establish business relationships with local brands.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

I hired a person to work and optimize my blog’s speed. Statistics show that 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. In addition, Google is penalizing slow websites so improving the blog’ s speed was a great investment.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive? How do you use it?

I use a lot of checklists and tables in excel. Also, I use docs google files (especially excel files) for follow up tables that I update monthly.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

Always related to online business, I strongly recommend reading “The 4-hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferris. It was a very inspiring book for me, also funny, with lots of resources, tips, and tricks for starting or improving an online business.

What is your favorite quote?

“It always seems impossible until it is done“, by Nelson Mandela

Key Learnings:

• The Pareto Principle must be essential in your everyday work. It states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Your time is limited so it is important to understand what are the few main tasks you need to do to reach this 80% of the effect.
• Your weekly tasks should be fit in a small piece of paper. Write only the essential tasks to reach the maximum of benefits and stick to this list until the end of the week. Prioritize these tasks and segment your days into a blocks to achieve them easily.
• Be positive. You need to believe in your business and a positive mindset is very important, especially at the beginning. Believe in your project, work hard and with passion, this is one of the main keys to success.

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