Welcome to Week Forty-Nine.
As we approach the finish line of 2025, we’re taking a steady, honest look at what this year gave us and what it taught us. You are part of a community of designers who want more than vague dreams. You want clarity, momentum and a business that feels intentional. Welcome back.
What is Hothouse?
Hothouse is a free, values-led community for ambitious interior designers who want structured support, strategic thinking, accountability and confidence as they grow their studios. It is where we come together to plan, analyse, stretch and celebrate progress. If you’re not yet inside, join us here:
2. This Week’s Blog
The Fear We Don’t Name: Why Success Can Feel More Frightening Than Failure
Last week I wrote about failure, and why I believe it deserves celebrating. Failure means we aimed high. It means we stretched. It means we behaved like people with ambition and courage.
Because I routinely bang on about targets and goal-setting, I’m often asked, “But what if I fail?” My response is immediate: failing is great! 🤗! It shows you tried. It shows you’re in the arena. And the only people who will ever judge you for trying are those who never do.
In my opinion, failure is nowhere near as scary as success.
I'm speaking from personal experience, but not about the shiny, external version of success. Instead, I mean the internal reality of who you have to become to reach it and hold it. When I was building this business, the period of most intense growth required real change: giving up alcohol, routinely working across all seven days, setting aside hobbies, reshaping parts of my life to make space for the ideas and impact I wanted to create. I've learned that growth has a cost, and that society is not always comfortable with women who choose this path.
So this week’s blog looks at a fear that doesn't get much attention: the fear of succeeding. The fear of carrying success with integrity. The fear of stepping into the next version of yourself.
It comes with three tests to see how prepared you are to press on, break through, and refuse the very human urge to swerve away… not from the worst, but from the best.
If that resonates, you can read the full post here.
3. Long-Read
Working with Trades – Don't Teach Your Clients to DIY!
Stick with me, this loops back to something important.
A few years ago my flat flooded, and the insurance company sent in their reinstatement contractors. They appeared within days, worked with military precision, and left the place immaculate, bang on schedule. I watched them with a designer’s eye, thinking, I could do with a team like this. But when I asked, they didn’t waver: we work only for insurance companies; not for private clients; not for designers. It was a calm, unequivocal no.
And frankly, I admired it.
Because when we introduce our own trusted collaborators to clients, this is exactly the effect we want: a team who leave our clients impressed, but who are untempted, unavailable, and wonderfully immune to the wilder instincts of certain clients.
So how do you create that culture and those boundaries from day one?
Here are six principles:
1. Negotiate exclusivity long before introductions
This conversation with your tradespeople must happen before the first job; try something simple and professional:
“When I introduce you to a client, you’re part of my professional ecosystem. I ask that any future work arising from that introduction comes through my studio. That helps me stay in business, so I can keep giving you business.”
This single boundary removes almost every future ‘can we go direct?’ dilemma.
2. Find talented collaborators and work intentionally to nurture long-term trust and respect
Think about how you like to be treated and the kind of culture that inspires loyalty - develop standard operating procedures for trusted collaborators that help them invest emotionally in the success of both of your businesses.
3. Frame your team as part of your service, not as contacts
Never hand over numbers. Bring people in as part of your managed, professional service.
4. Offer generous ideas, not working instructions
Protect your intellectual property and the project’s integrity by keeping technical details inside paid phases.
5. Keep communication centralised
You are the hub. Clients and trades flow through you. It keeps everyone aligned and reduces risk.
6. Reveal your orchestration, not your systems
Let clients feel your leadership without seeing the full machinery - gently articulate the invisible work:
- checking lead times
- coordinating trade availability
- detailing and specifying
- sequencing and dependencies
- pre-empting problems
- quality-checking specifications
- managing approvals and timings
This builds trust in the very thing they cannot replicate: your orchestration. When clients feel your steady hand on the reins, when they understand the value you represent, the idea of “going direct” loses appeal.
A Last Thought:
The highest level of service is structured transparency. Cultivating working practices that share the headlines of what's going on behind the scenes, without troubling clients with the stresses. It's a balance: enough visibility for clients to be somewhat in awe of the undertaking - but not enough detail to imagine they can run the show without you.
4. THE HOTHOUSE STRATEGIC FOUNDER MANIFESTO
Hothouse Annual Planning Week
12–16 January 2026 | 11am – 12 noon UK daily | Free online event
Most of the world’s businesses are not led strategically. Even in industries full of managers and executives, true strategic thinkers are the tiny minority. And yet, strategic thinking is not a talent for the chosen few. It is a learnable mindset - a way of looking up, making deliberate choices, and building a business with intention rather than drift.
Creative professionals are no exception. Interior designers work with extraordinary skill and dedication, but too many run their studios reactively: overwhelmed, and without the structural clarity that turns effort into momentum. They are sleepwalking businesses through the world when they could be designing them with the same intelligence, courage and imagination they bring to their projects.
We believe this can change.
We believe every designer can learn to think strategically - after all, it's what you do for your clients!
We believe every studio deserves a founder who leads with clarity and confidence.
We believe that strategic thinking is not optional: it is the engine of a sustainable, profitable, meaningful design practice.
We believe that when designers dare to look up, everything changes.
This movement is for those who are ready to shift from operator to founder, from reactive to intentional, from talented-but-tired to focused and formidable.
This movement is for those who want to build not just beautiful rooms, but beautiful businesses.
If you want to lead your business with intention in 2026, add these sessions to your diary now.
Monday–Friday, 12-16 January, 11am UK, one hour a day.
If you’d like to join us, simply head to the Events tab in the Hothouse Facebook group and click ‘Going’ on the Annual Strategic Planning Event. This will save the sessions to your calendar and ensure you receive reminders each day.
Protect the time and make 2026 the year you chose to back yourself.
5. A Small Favour 🙏
Please share this newsletter with other designers who would enjoy it. Your support genuinely helps me reach the designers who will benefit most. Thank you so much.
6. 🌱 My Week in Hothouse
A technical glitch meant last week’s update didn’t make it out, apologies, here's this week's progress.
This week (1st December) marked Check-In Point 2 for The Big Push, and once again accountability has worked its magic on many of us. I have finally started work on the next suite of Meta ads (hooray!) something I've avoided for months. It’s one of the areas where I feel least confident, so I’ve been procrastinating. But a deadline (16 December) and accountability to a peer group has once again unlocked action.
This is also my penultimate newsletter of 2025 - I'll be taking a break and returning to your mailbox on Sunday 2 January. Next week, Issue No. 50, will include a clear-eyed summary of what a year of consistent effort has delivered: the wins, the failures and the lessons that will shape 2026.
Call to Action: Your Turn
As we approach the end of the year, I encourage you to pause and reflect:
What went well?
What didn’t?
Where did you move forward?
Where did you stall?
And what needs adjusting for 2026 to feel more intentional, more confident, more manageable?
This isn’t about judgement. It’s about understanding how you work so you can plan better.
Once you’ve reviewed your year, look ahead. What do you want? What are you ready to leave behind? What opportunities will you create? December is a powerful moment because the year ahead is still completely open.
Everything is still possible.
A little reflection now will give you a much stronger start in January.
7. How to Work With Me in 2026
Visit my website to explore how I can support your business next year.
Whether you are launching or scaling, there is a programme to meet you:
🌱 Business in a Box for Tier One* start-ups
🚀 Recipe for Success Bootcamp for Tiers Two* and Three*
🎯 Boardroom Bespoke for any designer who wants deep, year-long strategic partnership and accountability
🫂 Designers' Boardroom to join a monthly group meeting of maximum 10 designers, setting goals and targets for your business, and discussing each month's wins and challenges.
You’ll also find:
• One-to-One Coaching – ad hoc or six-session blocks
• Self-Directed Courses – affordable, self-paced, practical training (scroll to the bottom of the page for these)
• Free Community Access – Hothouse on Facebook and YouTube
Wherever you are in your interior design business journey, there is a clear next step.
8. Final Thought
The more I work with designers, the more convinced I am that strategic thinking isn’t a universal instinct. It is a choice, and a brave one. Most people stay close to the comfort of the day-to-day. They don’t look up to see what their business could become.
But a small minority do. They pause, plan, reflect, and lead with intention. They value accountability because they know it sharpens them. They step into visibility, even when it feels uncomfortable, because they understand that growth requires being seen.
So if something in this newsletter nudged you, if the planning event or the idea of taking yourself more seriously in 2026 speaks to you, trust that instinct. It’s telling you something important about your potential.
Strategic clarity isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking better questions and backing yourself with action. That’s what Hothouse is for.
See you inside 🌿✨
Julia
Founder - Hothouse
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