How Carlos of AP Resin Is Building the Epoxy Floor Market in Mexico

Carlos’s first epoxy floor did not go well.

He is an engineer, and his construction company, Altura Projects, was renovating a snack shop. The owner wanted a white floor. Carlos had heard somewhere that epoxy was “like paint for floors,” so he bought some kits and got to work.

Three kits later, he had nothing to show for it. All three “completely cooked on me,” he says.

So he did what a lot of installers do. He went looking for answers on TikTok and YouTube. That is where he learned the first lesson of the trade. “First of all, it’s not paint,” he says. “It’s epoxy resin.”

A course, and four mentors at once

The research must have caught the attention of the algorithm, because Instagram started showing him epoxy courses. One of them was a four day course in Guadalajara.

He signed up. It turned out to be a lucky choice. “From that course I had like four mentors,” he says. “So I have great, great mentors from my start.”

When it came time to name the new business, the answer was easy. AP already stood for Altura Projects, his construction company. So the coatings side became AP Resin.

The floor he is proudest of

His favorite floor so far was for a tattoo studio and barbershop. It started with some of the worst concrete he had seen.

The process took six days from start to finish:

• heavy grinding, then a self leveling layer to fix the slab
• three base coats of white epoxy, to make a clean white canvas
• printed vinyl laid across the whole floor
• artists working with airbrushes and spray paint to add outlines and shadows, until the fish in the design started to look almost 3D
• a clear coat, then a top coat to seal it all

“It was pretty sick,” he says. It was also one of his first large jobs. AP Resin filmed the whole process for its Instagram.

Selling a luxury nobody has heard of

Carlos is clear about the challenge he faces in Mexico.

“What we do, it’s not a necessity, right? It’s more like a luxury,” he says. “And even more here in Mexico, pretty much nobody knows about epoxy floorings in the artistic way.”

His answer was video. He saved money to hire people to film and edit, and put his budget into marketing and social media. People who had never seen an artistic epoxy floor watched the videos, got curious and started asking questions.

“I’ll say pretty much eighty percent of my leads come from marketing and my videos,” he says.

“We’re just babies down here”

Compared to the United States, Carlos says the Mexican market for decorative epoxy barely exists yet.

“We’re just babies down here,” he says. “I like to think that we’re starting to build it.”

In the US, he sees huge demand and a lot of experienced artists. In Mexico, epoxy has mostly lived on the industrial side. He sees AP Resin as part of a first generation of epoxy artists in Mexico doing decorative work the right way.

He is glad to see the wider industry paying attention, with US installers running courses and expos in Mexico. And he believes growth comes with a responsibility.

“It’s also our responsibility to educate the next installers and teach the new generations the right way to do these floors and systems,” he says. A floor should not only look great. It should be durable, and that only happens when every step is done correctly.

“

“We’re just babies down here.”

An opinion for the highlight reel

Asked for an unpopular opinion about the epoxy industry, Carlos took aim at the culture of views.

“A million views on your epoxy reel doesn’t really mean that your floor will last five years,” he says. “Tons of views doesn’t mean you’re a truly professional, so be careful guys.”

For homeowners, that is good advice. A great video is not the same as a floor that will last. Ask how the floor will hold up, not just how it looks on camera.

Be everywhere

The best advice Carlos received came about two months into the business. A fellow installer told him that if he was serious, he needed to be at every event and every expo.

“Make yourself noticeable in the industry,” he says. “Thanks to that, I’ve been knowing a lot of people, great, great people from the industry.”

A night he will not forget

At the Golden Pour Awards, Carlos won International Rising Installer. He was not expecting it.

At the time of the interview, he had been doing epoxy for thirteen months. Epoxy, he says, arrived at a time when he was not happy with what he was doing.

“I’ve put a lot of hours and work and tears and blood,” he says. “Taking that home, it was one of the greatest nights in my life.”

And now he cannot picture doing anything else.

“Epoxy truly changed my life,” he says.