Mariana Macedo, 28, from Minas Gerais, is one of the personalities on the Forbes Under 30 list, which includes young people up to 30 years old who excelled in their fields of activity in 2023.
The architect is the founder of Brazil's largest architecture and design platform, Casoca, which was launched in 2019. She has two partners in the project, Marcelo Martins, also 28 years old and on the list alongside Mariana, and the economist Matheus Melo.
Born in Belo Horizonte, the Minas Gerais native studied architecture at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and graduated in 2018. She says the idea to create the platform came from her Course Completion Work (TCC).
“I wanted to do an entrepreneurial TCC. My partner Marcelo and I investigated what problems architects had when choosing products. We saw that there was no catalog that brought together all the Brazilian brands, mainly related to the 3D file (project in threedimensional format),” he explains.
Mariana says that in the beginning she and Marcelo curated brands and products that were on the market. “We have already collected all the information the professional needed: photos, dimensions, description and the 3D file. This has made life much easier for professionals.” According to her, the research for TCC revealed that there was a lack of a platform for architects to research and select products.
There the two joined the third partner, Matheus Melo. “He already had a platform called Casoca, but it sold products from decoration stores. We combined the two ideas, he also understood that it worked much better as a catalog than as a standalone retail location.”
Word of mouth and pandemic
The architect says that architects, designers and students have received the platform very well after its launch. “It turned out they were great supporters of the idea. One person showed it to the other, posted it on Instagram and that’s how we grew.”
Marcelo, Mariana and Matheus are the partners of the Casoca platform
Lara Rafaela/Disclosure
The partners also contacted the brands and demonstrated the benefits of being on the platform. “In the beginning it was more difficult, the brands didn’t understand it. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I think it became more clear for brands to have a presence on the internet with complete information and in easily accessible locations. Then we set off. “2020 was a milestone in our approach,” he remembers.
Mariana says that from then on, brands began to understand the relevance of being on the platform. “The professionals themselves have asked brands to become part of Casoca. We have managed to create an engaged community that understands the purpose of the platform.”
The tool brings together all the information and content architects and designers need to select products for their projects, organizing the official catalogs of more than 300 Brazilian companies in areas such as furniture, lighting and coverings. Casoca is now the official specification platform for the Brazilian market, bringing together a community of more than 240,000 professionals, 12,000 daily users and one of the biggest hits in the category with more than 4 million page views per month.
Global spread
Given the success of the platform, the partners' goal is to expand to other countries, mainly in Latin America and Europe.
“We are working on bringing the platform to other languages. We already have access from other countries. In speaking with our customers and brands, we discovered that the same problem professionals have finding information and discovering products occurs in every country. In addition, professionals from Latin America draw a lot of inspiration from Brazil. Many of them buy imported products from the Brazilian industry that are already in our catalog,” explains the architect.
In her opinion, Brazilian brands export a lot to neighboring countries. “This expansion will be interesting, also for our customers, so that they can also reach these other countries with very complete catalogs and have products specified by professionals.
Entrepreneur
The platform is not the first initiative by the architect from Minas Gerais. She opened her first company while she was still studying. “They were design pieces. I have always enjoyed developing products and I love learning from the market, listening to the customer and trying to develop something that really interests someone.”
She believes recognition from the list can help the platform grow. “It will definitely have an impact. “It is an additional seal for our work and will help us grow. “It also shows brands that are not yet on the platform how important it is to be in an environment with so many professionals who use our platform every day,” he concludes.