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Entrepreneurial
Eyes
How four veteran business
owners risked, sacrificed and triumphed in self-employment.
 What
does it take to build an interior design business
and make it last? We asked the experts —
veteran business owners who have established and
maintained long-term businesses — and got
some surprising answers.
Andre Staffelbach, FIIDA,
ASID
Business: Staffelbach Design Associates, Dallas
Established: 1966
 Andre
Staffelbach recalls being a lone interior designer
in Dallas 38 years ago, scouring for clients by
day and designing by night. “I started doing
what I loved to do with no great intentions of
size or success,” Staffelbach says. “It
was work, make enough to pay the bills and have
a beer whenever you want one. It’s a progression
of what I would call ‘hold on and run with
it.’ You have goals, but they can’t
be too long-term.”
Despite his relaxed attitude,
Staffelbach’s firm did grow and succeed.
It emerged slowly and deliberately from a band
of one in 1966 to an orchestra of 50 in 2005.
Staffelbach attributes his success to attracting
good clients, some of which he has retained for
more than 20 years. “I’m privileged
to have people who trust me enough to hand me
immense amounts of money to create environments,”
says Staffelbach, who still works 70 hours per
week. “You really have to sacrifice what
you enjoy to make a business work, so you better
love what you’re doing.”
Staffelbach remembers one
week in 1986 when the oil industry plummeted and
nine big jobs were put on hold. “I had 40
employees sitting there with nothing to do.”
The staff collectively decided to take a pay cut
and become responsible for generating new business.
Many of those employees are still with him today.
“My real pleasure is being able to offer
talented people a place to work,” Staffelbach
says. “In a business, it’s important
to develop a second generation for continuance.
It’s interesting how things change. First
you’re supporting your employees, then they’re
supporting you.”
Mindy Howard
Business: Emick Howard & Seibert, Inc., Seattle,
Wash.
Established: 1977
 Every
morning, Mindy Howard breathes a sigh of relief
when she can turn on the lights at her interior
design and architecture firm. The seasoned interior
designer, who founded Emick Howard (now Emick
Howard & Seibert, Inc.) with partner Jack
Emick in 1977, has experienced the exuberant highs
and plunging lows of business ownership and isn’t
bashful about its pressures. “You can’t
let anything fall behind,” Howard says. “Just
to keep the machine moving is the biggest challenge.
It’s a big machine that needs to be fed constantly.”
Howard’s role in the
firm’s 27-year partnership has been behind
the scenes, developing concept design, quality
control and budgets. “To me, the number one
thing is to understand the business. If you don’t
understand the business side, the design is really
a hobby,” Howard says. “That means always
monitoring cash flow and taking the time to develop
systems that grow with the firm.”
Howard is emphatic about
the importance of cultivating a foundation that
goes beyond good design. “There are more
people who can design something great than can
design something successful for the client and
the design firm,” Howard says.
It took years of beating
on architecture firm’s doors for them to
find success. Now they have enough work to keep
35 employees busy, including 10 architects. Referrals
are their mainstay, so they no longer compete
for jobs.
Howard’s biggest mistakes
have been made in personnel. “I’ve hired
the wrong people, and it has hurt the business,”
she says. Conversely, her employees also have
bestowed her greatest professional rewards. “At
first, I wasn’t a very good teacher. I wanted
them to know everything. I had to learn to mentor.”
Her years of observing employee
work habits inspired Howard to pen and self-publish
a book, How to Work Smart! And Enjoy Your Job:
25 Simple Ways to Be Recognized, Appreciated,
Respected and Valued.
“I really enjoy helping
my employees succeed. That’s why I go to
work everyday,” she says.
Mitchell Sawasy, FIIDA,
AIA
Business: Rothenberg Sawasy Architects, Los Angeles
Established: 1981
 It’s
1981 in Los Angeles, and recession is raging.
A 28-year-old architect and his partner are in
a cramped office calling relatives for loans to
make the rent. The well of work has dried. But
Mitchell Sawasy is confident he’s going to
succeed.
With unbridled enthusiasm
and determination as his compass, Sawasy, with
Mark Rothenberg, has built Rothenberg Sawasy Architects
over 25 years. Today they’re recognized as
one of the top 25 interior design firms in Los
Angeles and have an office in Beijing.
“In the beginning,
we decided even if we fail, we’ll always
regret we didn’t give it a shot,” Sawasy
says.
So how did Sawasy and Rothenberg
make rent back in 1981? Rothenberg met a developer
in an elevator who had tenant improvement work.
He convinced him they could do the job, even though
they had never done interiors. Within two days,
the team delivered a set of plans and became exclusive
space planner for the high rise. For the next
20 years, they designed corporate interiors, transitioning
into mixed-use architecture in 2001.
“There’s nothing
like working for yourself. The best is that you
get to make decisions about who to work with and
what to work on,” Sawasy says. “The
downside is that you have ultimate responsibility
for the success or failure of your own endeavors.”
Sawasy’s partnership
thrives through divided responsibilities and respect.
“It’s like being married to someone
for 25 years,” says Sawasy, who serves as
Design Principal. “It has evolved comfortably
over time but hasn’t been without conflict.”
Rothenberg Sawasy Architects
was tested when another recession hit in 1990.
The firm had to lay off employees, and to stay
afloat, the principals forfeited paychecks for
six months. “When you start an enterprise,
it’s very easy to let the minutia cloud your
vision so you can’t see where you’re
going. No matter what, you have to keep going
toward your goal.”
Mary Helen Pratte, FIIDA
Business: Studio Works, Ekitta Furniture, Austin,
Texas
Established: 1984
 Mary
Helen Pratte has some sage advice for budding
interior design entrepreneurs: “Don’t
do what I did. It’s been insane.”
Over 20 years of practice,
Pratte founded three interior design firms, while
simultaneously heading a design department at
the University of Texas in San Antonio and serving
as Associate Professor. In her spare time, she
launched a furniture company. Call it a frenetic
professional journey or a wild ride. To Pratte,
it’s all the same.
“You have to take care
of what’s inside you and find your passions,”
Pratte says. “You make contacts and keep
searching, and if you really are passionate, you’ll
find a way to do it. I certainly have gotten pleasure
out of doing different things.”
Pratte’s three-pronged
career as academic, interior and furniture designer
has been both cooperative and counteractive. As
an academic, she sometimes had to sacrifice private
clients. But she also has hired students who became
longtime employees and friends. For a few years,
she even taught in San Antonio while running an
interior design practice in Austin, nearly two
hours away. “I realized I wasn’t doing
a good job at anything, so I had to make some
choices.” Her choice was to quit academia
and open her current firm, StudioWorks.
Ekitta Furniture was born
15 years ago out of Pratte’s frustration.
She wasn’t able to find certain glass and
metal products for clients, so she decided to
design and fabricate them herself. Her line of
metal and glass tables, door pulls and planters
now pulls in a healthy annual revenue. “Ekitta
is not a huge business; it’s just a comfortable
one,” Pratte says. “It affords opportunities
to do things on our projects we wouldn’t
otherwise do.”
At every turn, Pratte attributes
her success to doing simply what she enjoys. “I’ve
always believed
that if you work hard enough at your passion,
you’ll be compensated,” she says. “If
I had to do it over again, I might not have played
it so safe — taken a few more financial risks.
But then again, I would have had to give up something
— my clients or my students — and I
wouldn’t trade either. Both have been incredibly
rewarding.”
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