The First Steps to Starting Your Interior Design Business (That Most People Get Wrong)
You’ve finished your interior design qualification. You’re excited, full of ideas, and ready to get going. And then, somehow, the excitement curdles into overwhelm.
You’re googling business cards. You’re down a rabbit hole comparing logo fonts. You’re staring at a blank Instagram grid wondering whether to post a mood board or a flat lay of your Pantone swatches. Every direction looks important and none of it feels like actual progress.
Sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone, and you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re just starting in the wrong place.
Most new interior designers do. And it costs them, in time, in money, and in confidence.
In this post, I’m going to show you what the right starting point actually looks like, why so many talented designers skip it, and how to build a business that’s genuinely set up to last.
Why Most New Designers Start in the Wrong Place
Let’s be honest: the fun parts of starting a business are very appealing. Choosing brand colours, picking a website template, crafting a witty Instagram bio. These feel like progress. They’re creative. They’re visible. They make the whole thing feel real.
But none of them matter until you’ve built something underneath them.
I’ve coached and mentored a lot of designers over the years, and I’ve seen a pattern emerge again and again. A designer invests hundreds of pounds in a beautiful website, only to completely rebrand six months later because their business has evolved in a different direction. Another hands out business cards proudly, then changes her business name when she realises it doesn’t reflect who she actually wants to work with. Another spends weeks building an Instagram presence, then feels deflated when it doesn’t bring in clients, because there was nothing strategic beneath the content.
These aren’t stories of failure. They’re stories of starting in the wrong order.
It’s a bit like designing a gorgeous room on sand. It might look lovely initially, but without solid foundations, the cracks appear. And when they do, the designer starts questioning themselves, when the real problem was never their talent. It was the order of operations.
The Real Cost of Getting the Order Wrong
Starting without solid foundations doesn’t just waste time. It can genuinely undermine your confidence and your results.
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, around 60% of new UK businesses don’t survive their first five years. A lot of that comes down to poor planning, lack of market clarity, and running out of motivation when the initial excitement wears off. [SOURCE: ONS business survival rate data, ons.gov.uk]
Interior design businesses aren’t immune to this. But the designers I’ve seen build thriving, sustainable practices all have one thing in common: they spent real time on the foundations before they worried about anything else.
The Three Foundations Every Interior Design Business Needs
Before you think about your Instagram handle, your website, or whether you need a logo, there are three foundational questions you need to answer properly. These aren’t quick checkboxes. They’re the strategic core of your entire business.
1. Know Your Why
This sounds a bit fluffy. It isn’t.
Your why is your brief. And as any good designer knows, a clear brief is everything.
Are you doing this to have more creative freedom? To build financial independence? To help families transform the homes they’re stuck in? To specialise in a niche you’re genuinely passionate about? All of these are valid, but they lead to very different businesses.
A designer I was coaching recently came to me frustrated that she wasn’t attracting the clients she wanted. She’d been positioning herself as a general residential designer for nearly a year. When we dug into her why, it turned out she was deeply motivated by designing spaces for people with young families, creating homes that were both beautiful and genuinely liveable. Once she got clear on that, her messaging shifted, her content became far more specific, and within a few months she had her first enquiry from exactly the kind of client she’d been hoping for.
Your why shapes your messaging, your niche, your pricing, and the kind of clients you attract. It’s the seed from which everything else grows.
2. Define Your Objectives
Not vague goals. Real, honest, specific objectives.
What does success actually look like for you? There’s no right answer here. Some designers want to replace a full-time salary. Others want a part-time income that fits around family life. Some are building towards a studio with a team. Others want a lean, solo practice doing beautifully curated residential projects.
The reason this matters so much is that your objectives determine your strategy. If you want to earn a full-time income within 18 months, that’s a very different plan from building slowly alongside another job. If you want to work with high-end clients on full interior design projects, you’ll need a different portfolio and pricing structure than someone specialising in online consultations or e-design packages.
Without clear objectives, it’s easy to say yes to everything, which sounds like a good problem to have, but it usually leads to a business that’s stretched thin, out of alignment, and exhausting to run. One of the most common things I hear from designers further down the line is: ‘I’m busy, but I’m not earning what I want, and I’m not doing the work I love.’ That’s almost always a sign that objectives weren’t defined early enough.
3. Identify Your Ideal Client
This is the one new designers resist most. When I ask who their ideal client is, the most common answer is: ‘Well, I could work with anyone.’
You could. But should you?
Trying to appeal to everyone is one of the fastest ways to attract no one. The more specific you are about who you’re for, the more clearly your ideal clients will recognise themselves in your marketing, and the more naturally they’ll come to you.
Think about your ideal client in real, specific terms: what stage of life are they at? What does their home situation look like? What’s frustrating them about their space right now? What do they value in a designer? Are they price-sensitive or are they investing in quality? Do they want to be heavily involved in decisions, or do they want a designer to take the lead?
When you know your ideal client well, your marketing almost writes itself. You stop creating generic content and start speaking directly to the person you most want to work with. That’s when things start to shift.
Here’s What This Looks Like in Practice
Let me give you a concrete example of the difference these foundations make.
Designer A: She knows her why (creating calm, clutter-free family homes), her objective (earn £2,000 per month within 12 months, working part-time), and her ideal client (families with children under ten in the South East, with a budget of £3,000 to £8,000 for a full room design). Every piece of content she creates speaks directly to that client. Her website is clear about what she does and who she does it for. When someone lands on her page, they either think ‘this is exactly for me’ or they don’t, and that’s fine.
Designer B: She’s equally talented but hasn’t done this groundwork. Her website says she does ‘residential and commercial design’ and her Instagram is a mix of everything she finds beautiful. Her enquiries are inconsistent, her pricing isn’t settled, and she finds herself doing consultations that don’t really go anywhere.
The difference isn’t ability. It’s foundations.
How to Work Through Your Foundations Without Overwhelm
This doesn’t need to be a complicated exercise. Set aside a few hours (a quiet afternoon, a notebook, your preferred drink) and work through these questions honestly.
For your why:
- What drew you to interior design in the first place?
- What impact do you want to have on your clients’ lives or spaces?
- What types of projects genuinely excite you?
- What values are non-negotiable for you in how you work?
For your objectives:
- What does your business look like in 12 months? In three years?
- What income do you need to support your lifestyle?
- How many hours per week do you want to work?
- What kind of work does an ideal week actually include?
For your ideal client:
- Who do you most want to help?
- What’s their biggest frustration with their space?
- What do they value in a professional designer?
- What budget can they realistically invest?
These aren’t questions you answer once and move on from. Revisit them as your business evolves. The answers will shift, and that’s completely normal.
Once You Have Your Foundations, Everything Else Gets Easier
Here’s what changes when you do this work first.
Your branding has something to say. Your website knows who it’s talking to. Your social media content has direction. Your pricing reflects what you actually want to earn, not just what you think clients will accept. Your enquiries start to come from people who are the right fit, because you’ve made it clear who you’re for.
You stop throwing spaghetti at the wall and start building with intention. Which, as designers, is fundamentally what we do.
This is exactly why the Launch Lab Experience, our 12-week business mentorship programme for interior designers ready to set up or scale, begins with foundations. Not with marketing tactics, not with social media strategy. With who you are, who you serve, and what you’re actually building towards. Because the tactics only work when the foundations are solid. You can find out more >HERE<
If you’re earlier in your journey and still working towards your qualification, this is also something we build into the Level 3 Diploma in Professional Interior Design, because knowing how to design a beautiful space is only half of a successful career. Knowing how to run a business that sustains you is the other half.
You’re Not Behind. You’re Just at the Foundation Stage.
If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or like everyone else has figured this out except you, I want you to hear this: you’re not behind. You’re not failing. You’re simply at the part of the process where the real work happens, quietly and unglamorously, before the visible stuff begins.
The designers who build businesses they’re genuinely proud of aren’t the ones who launched fastest or posted most often. They’re the ones who knew what they were building and why, before they picked up a paintbrush or pointed a camera at a mood board.
Take the time to lay your foundations properly. Everything else will follow.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If this has resonated, your natural next read is to read: Stop Building the Wrong Business! How to Align Your Interior Design Business with Your Vision. It picks up exactly where this post leaves off, going deeper into how to make sure everything you build is pulling in the same direction. It’s the practical companion to laying these foundations, and it’ll help you avoid one of the most common (and costly) mistakes designers make once they’re up and running. Just click the image below to have a read:
Last reviewed: April 2026
References
Office for National Statistics, 2024. Business demography, UK: 2023. [online] Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/bulletins/businessdemography/2023 [Accessed: 28 April 2026]
GOV.UK (no date). Set up as a sole trader. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/set-up-sole-trader [Accessed: 28 April 2026]
About the Author
Kate Hatherell is the founder of The Interior Designers Hub and a qualified interior design professional with extensive experience in the industry. She has helped hundreds of people transition into successful interior design careers through the Hub’s Ofqual-regulated Level 3 Diploma in Professional Interior Design and a range of business training and mentoring programmes.
Kate serves as a consultant and professional advisor to AIM Qualifications and Assessment Group, contributing specialist industry expertise to the development of new interior design qualifications across the UK. She also delivers SketchUp training to students around the world, and is committed to providing practical, industry-relevant education that prepares designers for real-world careers and thriving businesses.