Hothouse Newsletter #52 Designed, Not Accidental - the intentional growth of your interior design business.

Hello and welcome to Hothouse 👋

This is the weekly newsletter for the Hothouse group, and the best place to keep up with the free support on offer for your interior design business in the next week or two. 

If you are new here, it's lovely to have you join us! 

1. Radical Ownership

As part of business planning for 2026 I've tweaked some themes, and have been mulling over the idea of radical ownership. This didn’t originate in business or self-help. It comes from military leadership, most famously articulated in Extreme Ownership, where the principle is stark: if outcomes are life or death, leaders cannot outsource responsibility. If something fails, you look first to your own decisions, clarity, preparation, and execution.

Strip away the uniforms and the battlefield language, and the core idea is surprisingly calm - and highly transferable.

In interior design entrepreneurship, the stakes aren’t life and death. But the mechanism is the same.

Radical ownership means treating your business as something you are actively authoring: not something that is happening to you. Your fees, your clients, your visibility, your workload, your confidence, your cash flow - these are not random outcomes. They are signals. Feedback. The natural result of decisions made, systems used (or avoided), and behaviours repeated over time.

This doesn’t mean everything is your fault. Markets change. Clients behave unpredictably. Algorithms misbehave.

But it does mean everything is your responsibility to respond to.

That shift - from explanation to authorship - is why this theme is front and centre in my work this year. Because designers who quietly take ownership of their performance, measure honestly, and adjust without drama are the ones who build resilient, grown-up businesses that last. 

Radical Ownership: Reason vs Excuse

- A reason explains what happened so you can decide what to do next. It invites adjustment, learning, or a change in approach.

- An excuse explains what happened so nothing has to change. It closes the loop and absolves you of authorship.

Both may sound similar on the surface. The difference lies in intent.

A reason keeps you in ownership: an excuse quietly hands it away.

2. This Week's Blog 

Most interior designers don’t need a rebrand, a new logo, or a grand reinvention in January, they need a few boring, powerful upgrades that make everything run better. In this week's blog I wrote about the five New Year’s gifts I’d give my interior design business (CRM, SEO, planning, pricing, and a weekly CEO rhythm), and exactly how to put each one in place. Read it here. 

3. Founder Presence 

I often write here about founder presence and the intentional development of parasocial relationships. Not to turn anyone into an influencer, but because I believe designers who build these deliberately will fare better as digital competition accelerates (yes, including AI interior designers - more on that soon).

I get plenty of DMs from designers, and I always try to reply personally, using their given name. It’s a small thing, but it makes the interaction human. Which is why I’m often surprised when, even after a decent trawl through someone’s website and social media, the founder remains oddly elusive. No clear name. No face. No obvious “hello, it’s me”.

Now put yourself in the shoes of a prospective client, especially one who hasn’t hired a designer before. They’re excited, but also a little apprehensive. If your business doesn’t have a visible human behind it, that uncertainty quietly increases the perceived risk.

When I’m commissioning services myself, the first thing I search for is a warm-looking human with a name. If I can’t find one, I move on.

So here’s a small challenge for you this week. Take five minutes to audit your public-facing materials:

• Is your name easy to find, not buried on an “About” page (or missing altogether)?

• Is there at least one friendly photo where you look like someone a nervous client could trust?

• Do your website and Instagram bio make it obvious who’s behind the business?

• Do you offer a simple way to make contact, not just “enquiries@…” into the void?

In a world where outputs are becoming easier to generate, human connection becomes more valuable.

Make it easy to find you.

Make it easy to like you.

Make it easy to take the first step.

4. The Hothouse Planning Event 

🌿 One week that could change the shape of your year 🤗

Look under the "EVENTS" tab to find the link to join the live meetings. 

It’s easy to underestimate what a single, well-structured week can do. Next week, inside Hothouse, I’m running a free, live planning week for interior designers. Five focused hours across five days - designed to help you step into 2026 with clarity, direction, and a calm sense of authorship over your business.

This isn’t about perfect plans or rigid targets. It’s about creating a clear framework for decision-making that carries you through the year.

Here’s how the week unfolds:

Monday – 11am UK - Vision & values

Re-anchor yourself in what matters, what you’re building towards, and what no longer deserves your energy. This isn’t fluff, this is the work that gives soul to your business.

Tuesday – 11am UK -  Business model & priorities

Look honestly at how your business works, where your income really comes from, and what to focus on next.

Wednesday – 11am UK - Money & metrics

Identify the numbers that actually matter, set sensible targets

Thursday – 11am UK - Marketing & visibility

Decide how you want to be seen in 2026 – in a way that feels sustainable, credible, and aligned.

Friday – 11am UK - Your 2026 action plan

Pull everything together into a clear, usable plan you can return to throughout the year.

📅 One hour a day

💻 Live online

🎟 Free to attend

🌿 Hosted inside Hothouse (my free community for ambitious interior designers)

If you’ve ever felt that a little more clarity at the start of the year would make everything else easier, this is that week.

👉 Join Hothouse and the Planning Week here.

5. My week in Hothouse

Q1 2026 finds us based in South-East Asia. We’re currently in Cambodia, we got here on Wednesday, and will move on to Bangkok at the end of the month.

This week I signed up to a beautifully calm, atmospheric co-working space here in Siem Reap - Siem Reap House - at a cost of US$5 per day, including superfast wifi and a free drink. It’s likely where I’ll be delivering the Hothouse Planning Week sessions from next week, which feels pleasingly on-brand: intentional work, done lightly, in a setting that supports focus rather than drains it. I don't normally use co-working offices, I just fancied a change: a different way of working, and meeting fellow nomads. 

We’re seven hours ahead of the UK, which means my working day runs until about 1pm UK time - 8pm for me. But the real gift is what happens before that. I have a full seven hours each morning before the UK wakes up: time to see the place we’re in, take in the atmosphere, get to the gym (hello, New Year resolutions), and do a stretch of uninterrupted thinking and deep work before emails and meetings begin.

One of the unexpected benefits of sitting between time zones is how it opens up new connections. This week I’ve been talking with designers in Australia and New Zealand, conversations that are suddenly far easier when you’re not operating from a strictly UK-centric timetable.

I’m still getting to grips with my new dashboard, above, and spending a lot of time inside dashboards more generally. I’m currently working closely with my Boardroom Bespoke clients to design their 2026 dashboards: deciding what really deserves to be measured this year, and which metrics will most directly support their growth, confidence, and commercial resilience.

It’s quiet, focused work. The kind that doesn’t look dramatic from the outside, but compounds steadily.

My business grew meaningfully last year, and I attribute that growth to the vigilant measurement of a small number of key indicators. They kept me on my toes, and - from mid-year onwards - shone a light on progress that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. That visibility was deeply motivating, and it created a virtuous cycle.

And that, in many ways, sums up this Q1 season of Hothouse: thoughtful planning, calm execution, and building businesses (and lives) that are intentionally designed rather than accidentally assembled.

6. How to work with me in 2026

There are several ways to work with me this year, depending on the stage of your business and the level of support you’re looking for.

Hothouse

Hothouse is the centre of everything I do. It’s my free community for ambitious, values-led interior designers, with planning events, specialist sessions, practical tools, and ongoing conversation around business, money, visibility, and confidence. It’s always the best place to start. Join here. 

Programmes

For more structured support - to work with me personally - I run a small number of focused programmes during the year, including Business in a Box (for newer practices), Bootcamp (for established designers ready to grow with intent), and Designer’s Boardroom (a peer group for thoughtful, ambitious studio owners).

One-to-one support

I also offer one-to-one sessions, available to book by the hour or in discounted blocks, for designers who want direct, tailored input into their business.

Boardroom Bespoke

For a very small number of designers, I offer Boardroom Bespoke - a deeper, strategic working relationship that lasts the whole year. There is currently one space available. Send me a message if you're interested. 

I’ll always be clear about what’s available, what’s a good fit, and when the timing is right. And if now isn’t the moment, you are most welcome to stay connected through Hothouse and the newsletter. The more, the merrier. 

7. A Final Thought 

Everything in this week’s issue points to the same underlying idea: 

OWNERSHIP. 

Designing your business with intent.

Declaring what matters, what you’re measuring, and what you’re committing to.

Delivering through steady, repeatable action - even when the work is unglamorous and largely unseen.

This is the rhythm that makes freedom possible. Not dramatic reinvention, but thoughtful design, clear declaration, and calm delivery over time.

That’s the work we do in Hothouse. And that’s the work that compounds.

I very much look forward to seeing you next week!

Julia 

Founder - Hothouse