Full disclosure here…
When I launched my first online interior design tools back in 2009, I hadn’t intended on helping thousands of designers from all around the world to build more productive and profitable design businesses.
In fact, I wasn’t focused on designers at all.
Back then I was focused on the MASSIVE homeowner audience and my only goal was to provide them with tools that made it fun and easy to visualize how products looked within their space and ultimately buy the look.
I have to admit, I was convinced I had a sure fire winner when I launched Olioboard.com.
But I was ultimately proved wrong.
At the time, there was nothing quite like Olioboard on the market and people were excited for it.
We were getting praise from a number of publications. I was invited on TV shows and asked to speak at prominent events and Olioboard was listed by Mashable as one of the top 10 tech startups changing the face of retail.
From the outside Olioboard looked like a success.
But from the inside it was a different story entirely. I had a fundamental problem.
Instead of using the tools to source and purchase products, homeowners were using Olioboard more like a favorite past time to play with interior design.
And with a business model that was reliant on sales, I had a HUGE problem.
So there I was with thousands of members from all around the world, I was gaining recognition for creating some of the most innovative design tools on the market and yet I had nowhere near enough sales to keep my business alive.
By 2014 I was struggling to cover expenses, completely burnt out from the workload and as wonderful timing would have it, the weight of all this came crashing down on me just as I was taking the stage at the Las Vegas Market.
I can still remember looking out at the crowd and thinking to myself – “I don’t have it in me to do this anymore.”
I was exhausted with keeping up appearances. I resented that this business took over my entire life and most of all, I was beyond tired of feeling like a complete and utter failure.
I bombed the presentation, stepped off the stage and walked right out the door.
That summer I walked away from Olioboard and returned full time to our web design business.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own money invested and nothing to show for it.
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I spent the next 2 years working hard on my web design business to earn back the money I lost on Olioboard.
I can honestly say that for a while there it was a relief to only be responsible for building one portion of a business, rather than the entire thing.
But I never shut down Olioboard.
I just couldn’t let it go. I still believed there was immense value in the tools we created but I also couldn’t afford to put any more money into it.
On its own Olioboard generated just enough sales each month to cover the hosting costs so I left it up for anyone who still wanted to use it while I figured things out.
Over the course of the year I’d check in periodically to make sure I wasn’t running the platform at a loss and to see who was still logging on.
And there they were. A die-hard group of professional designers who continued to come back daily to use our tools for their design businesses.
Through Olioboard they could access tools that made it quick and easy to source products, create digital designs, generate full product lists and present concepts to clients all in one simple program.
They were cutting hours out of their workflow and finding more value in the tools than any homeowner ever did.
Realizing this, I wanted to give Olioboard one final try.
So I started reaching out and speaking directly with designers to learn more about their workflow and what they needed to really streamline their process.
With the feedback they provided my team and I got to work building tools that would help them overcome these obstacles.
Through this collaborative effort we were able to build enough tools for a minimum viable product.
So heart pounding and fingers crossed, I launched DesignFiles in the spring of 2017.
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The Result: DesignFiles took less than 2 years to out-earn what Olioboard made in 8.
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By this point I’d taken my failing business and turned it into one of the fastest growing online interior design platforms on the market, helping thousands of designers from all around the world to dramatically cut down their workload and generate more profit.
These days my goal is simple. Help those who helped turn my business into the success it is today.
I continue to spend my days speaking with designers, learning what their biggest pain points are in their business and working with them hand-in-hand to build smart tools that overcome those obstacles.
This collaborative and mutually beneficial relationship is the reason my team and I are able to build some of the interior design industry’s most innovative and loved design tools.
It’s the reason we’ve been able to turn DesignFiles into one of the fastest growing online interior design platforms without a drop of funding.
And it’s the reason I get testimonials from our members raving that DesignFiles saved them 4 hours of work in a single day; that it literally cut their entire workload in half; and most importantly, that it made running their design business fun again.
So, there you have it. If you ever wanted to know how this company came to be and who’s behind it, now you know.
We’re not a big corporation with millions of dollars.
We’re a small but mighty team just doing what we do best… and that’s creating smart, innovative and time saving design tools based on actual designer feedback.
If your interested, I’d love the opportunity to work with you too.
So stay tuned. I’ll be sharing new updates plus useful, actionable content with you via email, facebook and also right here on my blog!
