Welcome 👋
If this week’s issue feels a little more boardroom than moodboard, that’s intentional.
January is our final check on strategy and planning before heading out into the year. We’re making sure the foundations are sound, the numbers are understood, and the person at the helm knows where they’re going - and why.
This isn’t about turning designers into accountants. It’s about making sure the business can properly support the work you actually want to do.
This is the Hothouse Newsletter - Hothouse is a resource hub for ambitious interior designers - it's free - join here.
1. Closing January…
As we enter the final week of January, Hothouse’s month of Strategic Vision and Planning draws to a close.
During the Planning Event we built from solid foundations:
(a) values first, led you to
(b) a business model that defines your services
(c) we outlined those services, and
(d) worked up revenue projections for them, along with
(e) intentional marketing designed to support the sales you actually want to make.
You can watch it all again here.
This work now becomes our reference point. From here on, the job is simple but not easy: each month we benchmark reality against the plan, measure what’s actually happening, and make small, intelligent corrections to force the business we want into being.
This is how I ran 2025. I found February and March the hardest months to sustain new, more consistent behaviour. But if you can make it through to April, something shifts - momentum replaces effort.
By August you’ll start feeling tingly: the invisible benefits begin to present - confidence, clarity, and that quietly thrilling sense that the business is starting to work with you, not against you.
An invitation: hold your nerve through February and March, then join me in Recipe for Success Bootcamp in April. The clarity, insight, and renewed intention come exactly as momentum is ready to build - and can carry you all the way to year end.
Early Bird places are limited (find out more) and offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
2. …And Introducing February (with this week’s blog)
This week’s blog is about Founder Presence: the version of you that stands at the front of your business. It’s a year-long project I’m working on with my Boardroom Bespoke clients, and it’s also the focus of Hothouse in February, with two live sessions on:
📅 Tuesday 3rd February, 10am UK time.
📅 Tuesday 17th February, 10am UK time.
Links coming soon under the Events tab in Hothouse. Read the blog here.
3. Board-Level Questions, (seen through the Seven Pillars of Design Entrepreneurship - Long Read)
During the Hothouse 2026 Planning Week I encouraged you to think of yourself not just as a designer, but as CEO of a small business.
If someone asked you the following questions about your business, would you answer with confidence… or instinct?
These are decision-making facts about your business - the kind a CEO or board would expect to discuss fluently.
I’ve grouped them under Seven Pillars of Design Entrepreneurship - the seven themes we’ll cycle through in Hothouse this year, as part of planned ‘circuit training’ for your interior design business.
1. JANUARY - Strategic vision & planning
What are we building, and why?
- Who is this business really for?
- What does “success” look like in 12 months, in numbers and lived reality?
- What are you deliberately saying no to?
- Where is growth constrained right now?
Strategy shows up in clarity, not intention. Watch the Planning Event again to address these questions.
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2. FEBRUARY - Founder presence (& radical ownership!)
Who is leading this business?
- Are you willing to look at the uncomfortable data?
- Can you make decisions without perfect information?
- Do you feel entitled to sit at the board table of your own studio?
- How does your presence weave with brand positioning to lift your business?
You can’t govern what you don’t feel authorised to lead.
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3. MARCH - Marketing & brand expression
How is the business understood from the outside?
- Why would the right client choose you?
- Do your brand signals match your commercial intent?
- Which processes provide direction for your marketing?
- Where does visibility actually come from - and where doesn’t it?
Boards watch for drift between identity and income.
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4. APRIL - Sales & client acquisition
How work actually enters the business
- Which services convert reliably?
- Where do proposals stall or leak?
- How predictable is your pipeline?
- Which revenue is solid - and which is hopeful?
Hope is not a sales strategy.
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5. JUNE - Operations, systems & professional practice
Can the business sustain what it promises?
- How many clients can you realistically serve well?
- Where does time leak without commercial return?
- What breaks first when things get busy?
Growth fails operationally long before it fails creatively.
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6. SEPTEMBER - Financial mastery
Can the business support the life it’s meant to fund?
- What is your actual break-even?
- Your minimum viable monthly revenue?
- Your effective hourly rate, including non-billable time?
- Which costs are fixed, variable, or quietly optional?
This isn’t accounting - it’s agency.
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7. NOVEMBER - Design quality & client experience
Is the business delivering what it stands for?
- Is design quality improving as the business grows - or eroding?
- Are you protecting your creative core?
- What is the reputational cost of poor-fit work?
Good governance protects design, not just profit.
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The answers don’t arrive all at once. They emerge as a business develops, and the expectations change accordingly.
You do, however, need to set expectations of what must feel comfortable in 2-3 years’ time.
Hothouse exists to surface the questions a good board would ask, and then stay with them until they’re no longer uncomfortable.
We continue our work in February with Founder Presence, because governance starts with the person at the helm.
4. A Palate Cleanser: What This Looks Like on a Tuesday
That's a lot of talk about CEOs, boards, pillars and governance, but here are a few signs that you'd benefit from being a bit more CEO:
😶🌫️ Sitting on a proposal you’ve finished - not because it isn’t good enough, but because you lack vision and confidence. (Founder presence.)
😶🌫️ Saying yes to a small project you don’t really want, because it feels safer than waiting for the right one. (Sales and confidence quietly negotiating.)
😶🌫️ Being very busy, very tired, and slightly puzzled as to why the bank balance isn’t reflecting the effort. (Operations and financial reality having a private conversation.)
😶🌫️ Posting on Instagram because you should, rather than because it’s connected to a clear service, message, or commercial intention. (Marketing drift.)
None of this means you’re doing anything wrong.
It just means your business is asking to be led a little more consciously.
You're a designer: it's time to design your business.
5. My Week in Hothouse
It’s been a busy week - and a grounding one.
Having 2026 revenue projections in place is proving invaluable. When anticipated sales begin to land, they don’t just improve cash flow, they build confidence in the plan itself. That confidence is stabilising. It helps you feel steady in front of the blank page of a new year; able to tune out noise and conserve nervous-system energy for work that’s intentional, constructive, and often just outside your comfort zone 🤞.
I also submitted my tax return this week. Revisiting the numbers behind it forced a useful re-examination of operating costs, break-even, and what sits beyond survival.
And finally, accountability here does what it always does. The quiet obligation to report in here sent me back to LinkedIn again. Without this column, I would certainly have let that slip...now I'm kicking myself that I didn't squeeze out an Instagram post and lost my green streak.
Overall though, not a bad week. This is compound effect in action: plans, numbers, and visibility reliably reinforcing one another.
We're entering our last week in Siem Reap, January has been so busy, it has been mostly work, but I hope to see a few sights before we head off to Bangkok next weekend...catch you again from there!
Final Thought
January gives us clarity.
February and March test our resolve.
If things feel harder in the weeks ahead, that doesn’t mean the plan was wrong, it's the necessary dues you pay to make it work. This is the point where consistency matters more than motivation, and small, sensible corrections matter more than big reinventions.
Stay close to the plan. Stay curious about what the data is telling you. And above all, keep showing up!
By spring, I promise that momentum starts doing some of the heavy lifting for you, and that’s when business begins to feel less like effort, and more like agency.
Let me know of you've started tracking metrics - we can egg each other on!
OMG...last week of January, hope it's good to you,
Julia
Founder - Hothouse
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