I run Studio Renée, a full-service interior design firm I've been building for fourteen years in a market nobody would call a hub. About a dozen projects a year, all sourced locally. I'm on job sites, in vendor negotiations, and in my own books every week. Everything I teach gets tested here first.
Every week on Really Renée I say the rest of it out loud. Pricing, procurement, hiring, and the performatively perfect nonsense this industry runs on. I've spoken at two large-scale events to more than 500 people, which taught me the questions designers ask in private are nothing like the ones they ask in public.
THE DESIGNER
THE HOST
Hey. I'm Samantha.
Only call me renee when I'm in trouble.
Only call me renee when I'm in trouble.
I Got Into Interiors Because of a Bedroom
GET TO KNOW ME
Home wasn't a safe place when I was a kid, and my room was the one thing I could control. So I rearranged it. Repainted it. Made it mine, over and over, because when everything else felt unsteady, that one room didn't.
That's the real origin story. No investors, no family money, nobody telling me what things cost. Just a kid making one room feel safe.
I went to college, spent a year designing in Singapore, then came home and opened my firm in 2012, certain that if the work was good enough, the business would take care of itself.
2026
2024
2021
2018
2012
Rebranded to Studio Renée in March. On track to clear a million again with three people, not the team I had at the peak. On August 1 I launched the Really Renée podcast.
The market stalled. 2022 and 2023 were loss years. In 2024 I laid off my team and rebuilt my pricing and systems.
$800,000 in 2019. $1.2 million in 2020. $1.7 million in 2021. About a dozen local projects a year. It looked like it would just keep going.
In 2017 we did about $120,000. I hired a design assistant and finished 2018 near $600,000. I thought I couldn't afford help. The bottleneck was me.
Graduated in 2011, spent a year designing in Singapore, then came home and opened StruckSured. I assumed if the work was good enough, the business side would sort itself out. It does not sort itself out.
2026
2024
2021
2018
2012
Rebranded to Studio Renée in March. On track to clear a million again with three people, not the team I had at the peak. On August 1 I launched the Really Renée podcast.
The market stalled. 2022 and 2023 were loss years. In 2024 I laid off my team and rebuilt my pricing and systems.
$800,000 in 2019. $1.2 million in 2020. $1.7 million in 2021. About a dozen local projects a year. It looked like it would just keep going.
In 2017 we did about $120,000. I hired a design assistant and finished 2018 near $600,000. I thought I couldn't afford help. The bottleneck was me.
Graduated in 2011, spent a year designing in Singapore, then came home and opened StruckSured. I assumed if the work was good enough, the business side would sort itself out. It does not sort itself out.
2026
2024
2021
2018
2012
Rebranded to Studio Renée in March. On track to clear a million again with three people, not the team I had at the peak. On August 1 I launched the Really Renée podcast.
The market stalled. 2022 and 2023 were loss years. In 2024 I laid off my team and rebuilt my pricing and systems.
$800,000 in 2019. $1.2 million in 2020. $1.7 million in 2021. About a dozen local projects a year. It looked like it would just keep going.
In 2017 we did about $120,000. I hired a design assistant and finished 2018 near $600,000. I thought I couldn't afford help. The bottleneck was me.
Graduated in 2011, spent a year designing in Singapore, then came home and opened StruckSured. I assumed if the work was good enough, the business side would sort itself out. It does not sort itself out.
2026
2024
2021
2018
2012
Rebranded to Studio Renée in March. On track to clear a million again with three people, not the team I had at the peak. On August 1 I launched the Really Renée podcast.
The market stalled. 2022 and 2023 were loss years. In 2024 I laid off my team and rebuilt my pricing and systems.
$800,000 in 2019. $1.2 million in 2020. $1.7 million in 2021. About a dozen local projects a year. It looked like it would just keep going.
In 2017 we did about $120,000. I hired a design assistant and finished 2018 near $600,000. I thought I couldn't afford help. The bottleneck was me.
Graduated in 2011, spent a year designing in Singapore, then came home and opened StruckSured. I assumed if the work was good enough, the business side would sort itself out. It does not sort itself out.
2026
2024
2021
2018
2012
Rebranded to Studio Renée in March. On track to clear a million again with three people, not the team I had at the peak. On August 1 I launched the Really Renée podcast.
The market stalled. 2022 and 2023 were loss years. In 2024 I laid off my team and rebuilt my pricing and systems.
$800,000 in 2019. $1.2 million in 2020. $1.7 million in 2021. About a dozen local projects a year. It looked like it would just keep going.
In 2017 we did about $120,000. I hired a design assistant and finished 2018 near $600,000. I thought I couldn't afford help. The bottleneck was me.
Graduated in 2011, spent a year designing in Singapore, then came home and opened StruckSured. I assumed if the work was good enough, the business side would sort itself out. It does not sort itself out.
Opened in 2012 as StruckSured.
Every one of them sourced locally.
Fewer people than at the peak, and better math.
Hit in 2021, before the market turned.
FULL-TIME TODAY
3
14
12
$1.7M
YEARS IN BUSINESS
PROJECTS A YEAR
PEAK ANNUAL REVENUE
The Design Is the Easy Part
WHAT I BELIEVE
Everyone reading this can put a beautiful room together. That's not what separates the designers who build something from the ones who burn out at year six. What separates them is knowing their numbers. And nobody says that part out loud.
Taste is table stakes. Nobody ever went under because their rooms weren't pretty enough.
Procurement is a profit center. It carries real risk and it should earn like it.
You cannot outwork bad pricing. More hours will not fix a number that was wrong.
