Founders & Friends
Founders & Friends is where interior designers and creative entrepreneurs come for real conversations about building a business—and a life—that feels good.
Hosted by a designer-turned-founder, each episode dives into honest, behind-the-scenes stories from industry leaders, creative thinkers, and bold business owners who are shaping the design world on their own terms. We talk about the big wins, the hard lessons, the financial truths, and the messy middle of entrepreneurship.
Whether you're just starting out or scaling something big, this podcast is your reminder that you're not doing it alone—and that success can look a lot of different ways.
Come for the insights, stay for the community. This is Founders & Friends—where business gets personal, and conversations get real.
Founders & Friends
23. A Deep Dive On Design Process With Candace Plotz
In this episode of Founders and Friends, Ronniesha Rivera sits down with Candace Plotz, founder of Candace Plotz Design, for a candid conversation about building a design business rooted in intention, clarity, and real-life balance.
Candace shares her unlikely path into interior design — a leap from a secure career in healthcare and pharmacy into a creative life sparked by renovating her own wartime home. What started as a personal project quickly became the catalyst for a full-time studio, even before she had a formal business plan. (Spoiler: she signed seven clients in her first week.)
Together, Ronniesha and Candace unpack what it really takes to grow a firm: building a portfolio from scratch, trusting transferable people skills, and learning the behind-the-scenes processes no one teaches you. Candace also opens up about a major recent shift — downsizing her team and closing her beloved, profitable Homeful storefront so she could return to the creative work she missed most.
They dive deep into Candace’s structured intake and design process, her move from hourly to flat-fee pricing (and why she’s considering a hybrid model), and her philosophy of “intentional layering” — designing homes that feel comfortable, effortless, and deeply personal instead of staged.
If you’re a designer navigating growth, team structure, pricing, or just trying to build a studio that supports your life and your creativity, this one is for you.
Topics we cover:
- Transitioning careers into interior design (without a safety net)
- Building a portfolio and landing early projects
- The transferable skills that matter most in design
- Downsizing your firm on purpose — and why that can be powerful
- Creating a repeatable, clear client intake process
- Switching to flat-fee pricing + designing a hybrid model
- Presenting budgets without letting clients spiral into line items
- Designing for comfort through scale, proportion, and layering
- Protecting work-life balance as a business grows
You can find Candace at
https://www.candaceplotzdesign.com/
https://www.instagram.com/candaceplotzdesign/
This Episode was brought to you by Vetted by Design
If you are looking to outsource anything in your design business check out Vetted by Design to find some amazing highly vetted pros you can trust to help you grow your business.
www.vetted-bydesign.com
https://www.instagram.com/vettedbydesign/
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