AG's Design Journey - Part II - Starting a Business
Picking up where I left off in Part I of this Design Journey series… We moved to Brazil in 2008, at a time when blogs were really taking off. Living in a foreign country, with a one-year-old baby, I felt very homesick and isolated. We were assigned a house in Brasilia, and although it was nice, I felt frustrated in an environment where we couldn’t control much of the design and atmosphere in our home. I found some solace when a friend introduced me to interior design blogs. On those platforms, I saw that there were people - professionals with education and licenses - out there making homes beautiful, and sharing their knowledge with people like me! I quickly learned the difference between decorating and designing. I wanted to learn everything, and spent the next five years soaking up all I could about design. I started my own blog as a creative outlet, and went about experiencing Brazil’s fantastic, eclectic and rich design aesthetic. It felt like the best kind of classroom!
By the time we were transferred back to the States in 2013, I knew I wanted to practice as an interior designer, but I didn’t want to get another degree. We had a newborn, so within a year and a half, I took a certification course in decorating in the evenings at a local community college, and figured I’d work for another designer to learn the business. Key fact: The business of interior design is not something that is taught in school! Because I hadn’t learned the technical design programs (CAD, SketchUp, etc), interior design firms in the DC/VA area were not interested in hiring me, so, with my trusty willingness to take a risk, I went out on my own.
So, what do you do when you’ve never owned a business, or worked for a small business owner?
You wing it!
To say I had zero experience to pull from is an understatement. I set out with no business processes in place, no plan or manifesto - I just knew I needed to get work, and try to build a portfolio. Designers often recall that their first projects came from friends or family for whom they worked for free to build their business, but not being from the area where we were living, I found that really tough. Instead, I focused on remodeling and decorating our own home, so I could have it professionally photographed. Once we had enough rooms done to capture what felt like a full project, I contacted a local professional photographer and stylist with contacts in the interior design network.
I was very fortunate that my home was selected for publication by Better Homes & Gardens, which helped put me “on the map.” I used the images to have a website professionally developed, and invested in paid marketing via Houzz. As the work started to trickle in, I realized I didn’t have any systems in place to run a business - even more, I didn’t know a thing about developing those systems and processes. To help, I did my best to network with other designers, and learned a bit here and there about how people did things. I learned very quickly that there’s not a lot of industry standard. The fee structure and methodology in particular seemed to be something of a moving target, so I did a lot of trying things, to see what would stick.
In the process of addressing client needs, and building my own systems, I developed documents and templates that often felt like I was “recreating the wheel,” but I knew I needed them. Today, several of those documents are available in our Resource shop, so hopefully, other people just starting out can save themselves some steps! I also invested in design-specific invoicing and project management systems like Ivy, which allowed access to a network of experienced professionals willing to help me “learn the ropes.”
As projects increased and grew in size, I added people to my team, and now rely on a tight-knit “village” of skilled and savvy associates, most of whom have businesses of their own. One thing I have found to be true is there are talented and kind folks who are happy to see another’s business grow, and that’s the sort of people I surround myself with.
Owning this business has meant wearing all the hats - often all at once. It is not for the faint of heart, but has also provided me so much insight into my capabilities. The design business requires you to be a problem solver, a therapist, savvy, smart AND resilient. There are plenty of days when I wish I had “formal training” in design, but I fully embrace, and would never change the scenic ;) route I’ve taken to get to this point.
