Pour yourself a big glass of wine…. Every month should be Women's month
Time to enjoy a slightly different August blog post based on friendship and women doing it for themselves. Most importantly this is a story that will hopefully inspire you enough to put on some big girl panties and chase those big dreams
The team (Christi and I) met each other studying Interior Design. I think if you had asked our lecturers who they would pick as two future Interior design business owners, it would definitely not have been us. We were always veering off course from mainstream design.
After studying, both our career paths took us in some interesting directions. Looking back now, I can see how it was a massive learning curve. Stumbling over huge building blocks in our industry, we would often phone each other during work lunch breaks dreaming about how we would approach and do things differently.
From taking the leap of faith and stepping out of our comfort zones, we both decided to leave our jobs and dabble in the grey area of unemployment, working odd jobs and freelancing in the industry until we eventually both found ourselves helping each other out on small projects. Over multiple cups of coffee and glasses of wine, we decided to join forces.
We had such incredible backing from the people that cared about us and wanted to see us succeed. Before we knew it, we had landed our first few projects and then the true learning really happened. Some serious crash courses in Tax , accounting, marketing (the list is endless).
In our first year operating as Botanika we were told in meetings. (Yes, this unfortunately still happens in today’s day and age).
“A women’s place is definitely barefoot in the kitchen “
“What do you two GIRLS know about designing a house “
“Your husbands must be nice to allow you to playhouse “
“must be fun playing with scatter cushions for a living “
“Young lady you can meet with me when you know how to build a house with your own hands “
Experiencing this 1st hand made us work even harder, it gave us more tenacity and drove us to become stronger as business owners. We have made mistakes along the line, but without these trials and tribulations, we would have never experienced so much growth. The ups and downs of starting a small business teaches you daily how to reevaluate your goals and to not fear making small errors here and there. But to rather learn from it and see it as room for improvement.
We are two strong women who know what we like and what works when it comes to Interior Design. It’s what we breathe and know best. We are big creative dreamers (I think you need to be a dreamer in this industry). We know what our company goals are, and we take pride in everything we do. We love getting to know our clients on a personal level and taking some insight from them as well as opening their eyes up to the wonderful world of design and colour.
If we had to give advice to a woman starting her own Interior design company, it would be to invest in a good coffee machine and wine collection. You are going to need it. Say Yes even if you think you cannot do it…. jump into the deep end…..the results are so much more rewarding. Don’t forget and be scared to ask for help and advice from the people you trust.
Remember you will not be able to please everyone so stay true what feels right for you.
Welcome to the school of hard knocks. It’s one heck of a ride but YOU CAN TOTALLY DO IT SISTER!
Images by https://christoffswanepoel.com/
