She Took a Huge Risk at 25… And It Changed Everything | Noelia Surace

Step inside the world of luxury interior design with Noelia Surace, founder of Noelia Surace Design, Inc., as she joins the Gold Coast Podcast hosted by Eric Winegard.

In this episode, Noelia shares her incredible entrepreneurial journey, from graduating from college and working on Worth Avenue, to taking a massive leap of faith at 25 years old and launching her own design business in Manhattan with nothing but grit, talent, and one life-changing opportunity.

They dive into:
Building a luxury brand from scratch
Growing through networking and relationships
The realities of entrepreneurship and hard work
Interior design trends and luxury living
Moving from NYC back to South Florida
Balancing motherhood, marriage, and business ownership
Why human connection still matters in business today
The launch of Pattern House Studio

If you’re an entrepreneur, creative professional, interior design enthusiast, or someone looking for motivation to take the next step in life or business, this episode is packed with value and inspiration.

Follow Noelia Surace Design:
Instagram: @noeliasurace

Follow Gold Coast Podcast for more conversations with entrepreneurs, business leaders, and creators across South Florida and beyond.

Thank you all for listening in on today's episode of The Gold Coast Podcast!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I'm just always fascinated by cultures, heritages. What what is Noelia?

SPEAKER_00 0:04

What I'm Mexican descent.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Mexican? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Both my mom and dad.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

So Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

My um so I I got married about a year and a half ago. We're having our first child here in a couple of months. Oh, I'm so excited, yeah. But I my mother never got married.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

My last name, my father's last name is Rotundi.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

My last name is Weingard, but I'm heavily Italian.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

And I met my wife, her last name is Tambi, also extremely Italian.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

But unfortunately, getting married, it's Weinguard, and we've married the Italian out of us, kind of.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

So, but we are going with a relatively Italian name, Sophia. Sophia can go in a lot of different directions for sure, but uh, we're so excited.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

That's nice. Good for you. I'm on the tail end, so I have like my son's gonna be a senior in August. So he'll be gone in a year. Yeah. And then my younger son's in middle school, so he'll be a teenager next year.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Cool. Now, so yeah, there's two different ways to do it, right? You can have kids young, and just so you know, you can like move around just as long as the light's kind of near you.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Like kind of close.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, kind of close, yeah. Um, yeah, like I've seen parents do it two different ways. Like, I'm I'll be 46 when she's born.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

So the pros to that are I'm emotionally stable.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Yeah, a life well lived. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

I'm not craving going out on a Friday night, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

So she's gonna get a great, she's gonna get the best version of a father. But unfortunately, when she gets married, I'll be 70. So I know a lot of peptides I gotta take. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

But then the other way is, you know, um, to kind of have a child young, and sometimes a parent's not ready, right? So sometimes the sometimes, I'm not saying all the time.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Struggles, those growing pains, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yeah, you know, mommy and daddy become parents when they're still not like adults, that can happen too. So I there's no perfect time, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

No, it happens when it happens. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

So I want to dig into the business. Um thank you for doing business with us. Yeah, you know, excited. We're excited, we'll kick butt for you. Like, whatever, just so you know, whatever your goals are, just draw them out and map them out for us. And and you know, we are we scale businesses, that is what we do here. So we're we're we feel honored to work with you. But tell me a little bit about the business. How long have you been in business? What's like your main um so June.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

This June uh will make 20 years that my business has been incorporated. Um I started it in Manhattan in 2006, June 7th, 2006. So this June will be 20-year anniversary. Oh, congrats. That's impressive.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

A new website. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Celebrating with a new website.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Um we could do a little promo video for you or something. I think that'd be cool.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah, that would be fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Um, but yeah, I mean, I went to Florida State Interior Design program. I have a bachelor's of science in interior design. Um, I was really fortunate enough that my internship was with a firm on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. So, like right out of the bag, I had like top-tier experience. Um and then from there, that was a little boutique firm on Worth Ave. And then from there, I went on to like a large corporate interior design firm up in Palm Beach Gardens. Okay. Uh worked there for four years, worked my way up to senior designer. And then when I was 25, I left and moved to Manhattan. Um, started my own business. It was very scary. It was a big risk.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

You almost look scared right now saying it again.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

I look back and I'm like, wow, I really was fearless, like absolutely fearless, which I guess is a good part of being young. Because if I was, you know, my age now.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Caution to the wind.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Yeah, you you'd have a lot more apprehension. Um, but yeah, I remember I was working on Lexington Ave in the city in the Upper Eastide. I was working for this little boutique firm. And it just so happened that like one of my former clients that I had worked with in Palm Beach Gardens, he called my cell phone while I was at work. And he was like, Hey Noelia, this is Dennis. I'm building a brand new from the ground up house in Connecticut. Would you be interested in doing it for me? And I was like looking at this job at this little boutique firm. I had only been there three months, and he was like, Open up a business and you're hired. You can build the house for me. And I was like, Oh my god, okay. It was just an overnight, like he changed my life. Um so I went on, literally went on what's that rocket something, rocketlawyer.com.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

I mean, what year is this though?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

2006.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yeah, I mean, the internet's kind of archaic in the version of it compared to the internet.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

So I went online. I didn't know what to do. I went online. LegalZoom, that's what it was. Looked up how do I incorporate my name. It cost $99 to do it.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

I paid for it, and the next day started working on his project. And that's how my business started. And it was in this development in Connecticut, and then I got connected to that builder that was building all the houses in there. I did a model home, and then it it just trickled down from there.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

So here you got me with goosebumps right now, and I mean it, okay, because I swear in my life, the reason I started this podcast, number one, selfishly, of course, I want to build my personal brand. Two, of course, I want to uh have our clients have a platform and tell their stories. But three, selfishly, I love hearing this part of people's entrepreneurial journey.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Like, yeah, their story.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah, because what I like, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take me back. This is I'm blown away right now. Take me back to when you had, I don't want to call it a cushy job, but a stable job in one of the most badass cities in the world, maybe, and um, but certainly, you know, in terms of an economic engine, no doubt, right? To the point to where you're being offered a job, but that's only a job that didn't guarantee any other jobs. Correct. Take me back to that moment. What were you thinking? Were you freaking out? Um take me back.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

I wasn't thinking, and I was thinking, right? Clearly. I wasn't thinking about the next job. I was thinking about this one big job that I'm just gonna put all my effort into this. Um and so I think I just got really lucky. It was a combination of luck and then a combination of hard work. Um, but I got really lucky to just be put in rooms while we were building that house with big builders and other big connections that led into me like being able to work throughout Connecticut, and then later on it bled into being able to work through the tri-state area, like Rhode Island, Jersey, all over New York State. Um, so it was just a blend of being lucky, getting that one phone call, getting that whale, like I call them whales, those clients that are really big and they change your life. Um, I was lucky to get that call, but then the rest of it was just a lot of grit. And I was working seven days a week, 14 hours a day. Um in and out of the city, going to Connecticut.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

And you're single, you're single, single young woman.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I was single at the time, um, taking the train from you know Upper East Side out to Connecticut every morning and back. Long days, um, hard days, but I was young, had all the energy in the world, and I think that's a little bit of the difference today now, like fast forward 20 years, like a lot of people aren't willing to work seven hours or seven days a week, 14 hours a day. They're just like, no, I want to enjoy my life, and you know, I need to not have so much stress. And it's like I laugh at that quite often when I hear young people say, like, you know, I don't want to be stressed out and I need to have a quality of life. And it's like, you do, but you kind of gotta put, you know, put a little back into it first and see you soon get to that quality of life.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Yeah, no, no, I I so you and I, you were born just by looking at college, late 70s, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

79. 79.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Okay, I was born in 80, right? So no, this is this is an interesting thing going on in our society right now. Because I think I think COVID accelerated it too. You know, you and I grew up in a generation, I feel like it's like the last, you gotta work hard, grind hard, play hard, yeah, play very hard. Yeah, exactly. And clearly the average 22 or 23-year-old doesn't, I mean, God, they were born in 2001 or 2002. It's so crazy. Wow. Clearly, they don't have that mindset. And then I think that COVID kind of made people even lazier. Oh, work from home.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Right. You know, to me, I feel like COVID um created the death of businesses because I think even today in 2026, that business is built on connection, despite there being social media and TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and yada yada yada, like I still believe that in this day and time that businesses are still created by human connection, by face-to-face meetings, by getting on the phone, talking to people, having coffee, having lunch, um, networking face-to-face, I still think that businesses thrive on human connection.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

No, for sure. So that uh so if you could give yourself a young 22-year-old version of yourself or a young 22-year-old woman who maybe doesn't have, and I don't know your your family's heritage and worth and net worth and all that stuff, but somebody that is, I don't want to say money hungry, but somebody that's relying on themselves. What would you say? What advice would you give a 22-year-old woman out of college today?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

To put yourself in rooms and surround yourself by people that are going to lift you and help you and people that do have connections. I mean, there what's that saying? Like surround yourself, whoever you're surrounding yourself with, like that's that's who you are. You know, if you want to I've I always uh like growing up, I always surrounded myself with older people, smarter people, more successful people, so that I could learn and like level up. Like if I if I hung out with a bunch of people that weren't really going anywhere, then knuckleheads.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

So this is and not to get like in the minutiae of this, but but if you're 22 years old and let's say you move from I don't know, uh Saratoga Springs, New York to New York City, and you don't really know anybody, and let's say you're just working and going to the gym and you're you're you know you're being responsible, having a little fun on the weekends. Like, how do you how do you find those networks? What is there any advice to to find a higher level network?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yeah, so um, like for instance, in in my field, there's uh I'm an interior designer, right? So there are interior design groups, there's the the better business chamber, there's networking groups in every field that you can join. Um then there's also design centers in Manhattan that they would always have like weekly or monthly get-togethers with other designers and then um textile makers and furniture makers. Um, that would be one way. And then I also think just picking up the phone and doing hard calls, and which is what I did, calling builders, be like, hey, like, can I do this for you? Can I do that for you? And then they're they would be so surprised and shocked that they're taking me up on my offer, like, yeah, okay, you want to do that? And then that put my foot in the door with big people doing big things. And you know, you get opportunities like, hey, do you want to design this model home? Yeah, great. Well, your business card's at the front of that model home. So everybody that walks in this community to build, they're grabbing it.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah, I think what what I'm unpacking, and I and I always struggle with this because I I do want to give good advice to young men and women when they ask it. And I think what you said is great, and I'm gonna steal it from you next time I give advice. Because the common denominator that I heard you say is you don't just kind of wait for it. You gotta be a little assertive, you gotta nudge yourself into these groups, you gotta get face to face. And I love like if there's somebody you want to meet, calm or walk into their business and offer up something, right? You know, like if you want to sell them social media, let's say, and you're a young girl, walk in and say, Hey, I'd love to do a free social media shoot for you and show you what I can do.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Right, right, just offer it up. Nobody's gonna give you anything. You have to like go out and promote yourself.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Um, I know in this I lived in the city for 11 years, and um, the reason I got into a bunch of buildings was because I just flat out asked if I could get on a building list. And people get so surprised, and they're like, Okay, you get on a builder on the building list, you're pre-approved as a worker, and your name gets spread around. Um, it's just going out and hitting the pavement, you know? Yeah, no pun intended, like living in New York City, you're you're hitting the pavement. No doubt.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Yeah, no, yeah. There's so are you not to take you off track? You still you still feel pretty ambitious today.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yeah, I could feel it in there. I still have unbelievable energy, thank goodness. Like knock on wood, thanks to peptides. Need them.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

I have a peptide person on here every week, it feels like.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yeah. Um, I believe in them. But yeah, I always am trying to, even at my age, and I I've been doing this 26 years. I started at 21 when I graduated college, and now I'm 47. So even after 26 years of doing this, um, I still every single week, I was just telling my uh employees last week, I'm like, I'm always thinking all night, every night, how can I tweak something? How can I get a little bit better? How can we just level up just a little bit and always aiming to get better?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

So, no, I love it. You got a great message and a great story. And I've just, you know, my wife is um a very, very ambitious person. And I know this there's like there's like the Me Too movement of women, right? Where you know women are just as you know powerful and as strong as men. Sure, if they want to be, go right ahead. I I I applaud any woman that wants to be a high earner or a breadwinner or just wants to feel fulfilled. But then there's also this other conservative side that I'm very close to. They're like, Eric, why would you have your woman ever work? You know, I grew up with a single mom that worked their tail off, and I did too. I applaud a woman that I kind of like it. What I'm not to get political on you, yes, I'm conservative, but like I'm so attracted to my wife's ambition.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

You know, how what's it like? Obviously, you're married.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

I am married. Okay. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

What's what's it like being a businesswoman and a wife all in one?

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Um, it's great. It's a lot of, it takes a lot of energy and a lot of work because as hard as I work at my job during the day, I come home, I shut that off, and then I clock into my next job. I am the mom that's grocery shopping, that's buying all organic food, that's looking for new recipes. I cook dinner every night, and everybody's like, how do you do it? And I'm like, I just A have a lot of energy to begin with, but I also feel it's like so important for my sons to sit down every night with us and have dinner. That's our we're all running around like maniacs all day long. So it's like that's our one moment every night to be together, to talk, and to just like touch base with each other. And I I'm a big believer in we're sitting at the table and talking. Um, so yeah, I'm it's hard work. Yeah, it's hard work. There's no way around it.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Not a whole lot of Netflix shows that you watch on the weekends. Is that the way you decompress? Yes. I love a me too, but I I struggle to keep my attention. Trust me.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

My husband's like that. He's like, I can't keep my attention. I'm like, you have monkey brain.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Yes, we do. No, I I love a good show. You know, like if it's um breaking bad or Ozark, don't get me wrong. I stranger things I really liked, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

I I think it's because I was born in the 80s and there's so much it's a way to get I need to get lost in something and decompress and not think about anything that I'm yeah doing or responsible for during the week.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, I get that. Turn work off some sort of way.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

No, I agree. I agree. So, okay, so 25 years old. Well, here's another thing that I I'm taking account of of what you said. If we were talking to a young entrepreneur today, there's nothing wrong, you don't necessarily have to be an entrepreneur at 21, 22. You can go work somewhere and learn as much as you can. I believe that. Yeah. So so do you think on those jobs that did it help prepare you for entrepreneurs?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

A hundred thousand percent.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I took little tidbits of of I only had two employers before I opened my own business. So I learned a lot from them. I took tidbits and of information from each one of those jobs and and even about not just the functioning of the business and the way I'm gonna run the business, but also how am I gonna be an employer and how am I gonna be a leader? Um, both of my former employees or employers, sorry, they were both uh like very kind and personable. And they, you know, when it was your birthday, they like sent you to the spa to get a massage and just really like letting you know that you're appreciated. Um, so I took those things from them as well, not just the day-to-day action items, how are we gonna tackle them? Um, so I think it's really important to get your stepping stone and learn from employers first before you go out and take that leap.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Yeah. And I think you have to learn how to follow before you lead, too.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Sometimes being sometimes being a great follower is actually being a leader.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Right? In a lot of ways, it really is.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah, you gotta you gotta build your people skills somewhere too, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

No doubt. So cool. So 25 years old, you get this badass job, nice paycheck for some rich dude in Connecticut, right? And that parlayed into some, you know, more business, it sounds like kind of keep keep going down the path there.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah, so it it um parlayed into me doing a model home in that community, and then everybody that was buying a plot of land and building in that community, they toured the model. So my name was getting put out there that way. Um, I was able to get a lot of jobs through that. Um, and then at the same time, I was living in New York City, and my one of my doctors hired me to do his apartment at Trump World Towers in the United Nations. So I got into that building, and then my name was on the list for that building.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

And then a boy, an ex-boyfriend of mine, his boss was living at Time Warner building. I got to blow up that apartment, so then I got on the list on that building. So everything just started to trickle, and then clients started to sell apartments and then move to other buildings. So then it was like it just started to multiply.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Where your name gets on several buildings, your portfolio grows, your name gets spread around a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Um, or you work with a certain GC in one building and then he's working in several buildings. So then that's how that got to get, you know, spread around as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah. Uh what I'm what I hear when when what you just said there is if somebody wants to make it in life, I do think you got to kind of go get to a big city.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yeah, I think it's it's it's good to like cut your teeth there, right? Like you have to get that, build that grit somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Um, I I'm so happy that I had that experience. I was there 11 years, and then after my second son, I was like, all right, I need to get out of the city. I want to go back to Florida, I need to have a yard for my kids and not be stuck in an apartment all.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

A yard down here in Florida? Yeah, actually. You must have a nice place.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Um, but I was like, I can't live in the city in an apartment with two sons that need to run around and you know, expel their energy.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

So we have a pretty big backyard, actually. That was uh important for me with the dogs.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

I need to be able to let them out and run around.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, and now we have two dogs too. And my mom and dad were always here, so I missed them. And I was like, I knew one day I'd end up coming back to Florida, and so I'm glad we did. We came back 11 years ago before everybody else started, you know, hustling in here.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

So what year did you come back down to Florida?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

2016.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Okay, okay, wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

So no, actually, I'm sorry, 2015. It's been 11 years since we've been back.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

So describe Florida in the past 10 years. What have you seen?

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Oh my god, immense growth, yeah, immense population, immense traffic. Wow, like when I was when I was growing up down here, there was nothing but dirt past Lions Road. There was nothing. Yeah, really? Nothing. Like when I grew up, there was like two lanes going north and two lanes going south on 995, and that was a lot.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Like it was there was nothing. There wasn't even like a Palm Beach Gardens mall. There was always a Boca Ratone mall. Um but yeah, it was not this developed at all. So it's crazy to see what it looks like, especially like in West Palm Beach.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Where I'm from in uh Rochester, New York. I'm gonna sound really bougie here. Yeah, okay, and I apologize. Um I'm not that bougie. My wife kind of has made me a little bougie. But if you wanted to go to a Gucci store, you had to either drive three hours to Toronto or drive six hours to New York City. Here in South Florida, there is an area of every single mall everywhere you go. Yeah. That's it's crazy. That's Gucci Louie, you know, the I don't even know what to call those.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Um designer designer luxury stores.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah, there's like seven or eight of them. They're all packed in the same area. It's every single mall everywhere you go. It's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Yeah, the access is big.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

And the fact that people there's enough people to buy it to support all of those stores. That's which is crazy. That's wild to think, yeah. Um, because if it was in Rochester, New York, it would just go, you know, bankrupt or that that location. Um very cool. Okay, so you came down here now. Coming down here, was it difficult to build your business once again, or did you already have a network?

SPEAKER_00 24:40

So that's an interesting question. So I had when we left New York City, I had been in business 11 years. Um and probably, as you know, you don't leave one state and then move to another state and like boom, everybody knows you. So I had to, and it it it hurt me, but it also helped me. When we moved down, I took a job with another design firm in Boca.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

And I was very transparent with the owner. I said, look at my website, this is my business, I'm not closing my business. This is I'm here for a moment in time to transition until I can get my own business up and running. Um so I was there 11 months and he was like, Great, come on, because I don't have to train you, you know everything. Walked in as a senior designer, took care of a million projects, made him a bunch of money. He loved me. And then after 11 months, my phone started ringing. A lot of my northern clients were buying houses down here, needed to build them, design them, decorate them. The phone started ringing, and I was like, hey, I have to go. Thank you so much. And he was like, fine, great. He's like, I'll even hand you some business if I don't want some of this business. I was like, great. Um, so that was it. It was just 11 months of me working for another firm, and then I was back on my own again.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yeah, that's cool. So was that so I like to dig into this? I don't want to call it humbling, but was it a moment of I gotta get in line and reset a little bit? Was it was there a little bit of mental anguish about going to work for somebody?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Oh, a lot. Okay, oh my gosh, a lot of tears because I wasn't um although I always worked a lot, it was still on my watch, right? Like if I wanted to take a two-hour lunch in the middle of the day with somebody, I could. Or if I wanted to leave for a week on a vacation, I could. Like I wasn't asking anybody for anything for 11 years. Yeah. And then I was working for this firm, and I was like, oh crap, I'm here Monday through Friday, nine to five. I can't, I can't go anywhere, I can't do anything. Like they own me. So that was very stressful. Um, but I was also grateful to have the job. Yeah, um, made more connections. I always believe like everything happens for a reason. Like, you know, it just does. So I got to meet more builders, more subs, more people. So I took it as an opportunity to grow some more and to get reacquainted with South Florida because I had been gone for 11 years and it had changed quite a bit since I was gone. Um, I knew everybody in New York, but I didn't know anybody in Florida. So I I took it as a really big opportunity to learn more, grow more. Again, keep evolving. Like you can't stand still in in any business.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

No, I love it. My wife, I'm sure this is common in your uh household, but I want everything now, yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Yeah, you know, and and we are you a fire sign?

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Uh I'm a Gemini.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Oh no, sorry. I'm a fire sign. So I'm I'm an Aries, okay, and I'm the same way. Zero patience. I want everything yesterday. So need to be. And I have to like try to like calm myself down, be like, just be patient, but I have the patience of a bug.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

So well, I think Geminis are you know split personalities, so I'm sure the you know I'm jovial, but then I'm like also really intense too. Um no, no, it's uh the reason I bring this up is there there yes, there are get rich quick things that have occurred, and I think we all hear those stories, but those are such anomalies. The truth about business, and this is something that I'm realizing, and I and you're talking to a guy who grew a hundred percent in a year at one point, right? Wow, yeah, but I want 500%, yeah, right? Like it's never enough.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

And you're like, what else?

SPEAKER_01 29:03

What else? What else? Yeah, build, build, build. And you know, my wife always has to kind of put me in my place a little bit, like stop and smell the roses. A little, a little, a little. More like, like, do you realize you're already in the top 1% of like 1% or whatever? And I go, Yeah, I guess you're right. If if you would have told me I'm in this place eight years ago, I would have been, I'll take it. Isn't that wild? Yeah, eight years ago, if you'd have said, Eric, you can have this, this, this, and this, and this, this great company, all these employees all across the country, this great reputation, these incredible networks, this incredible lifestyle, this beautiful wife, uh about to have a beautiful daughter, I would have said, give it to me.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

But now that I'm here, I've I've fast forwarded into the future and I got it all. Now I'm like, oh, I need more. So I think one of the one of the psychological hurdles is is is to be not smell smell the roses. For me, it's tough for me to go that far, but but but appreciate what you do have. You know, appreciate what you have.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yeah, stop, take a moment, have gratitude. Yeah, yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

For sure. Um, you would love my wife, by the way. She's like I'm sure. She's like a perfect, she's like the perfect human. Oh no, she's pretty. Isn't Alexis the perfect human being? No, she's perfect, she's smart, she's she's an alpha woman, but she knows not to be gotta be soft. Yeah, very, yeah, you know, very, and she's uh, you know, she's just she's a perfect human being. She she's very, you know, she could run her own business for sure. I mean, she really runs the accounts, she really runs our company in a lot of ways. Like I'm the face, but she actually runs it. That's great in a lot of ways, and she'll tell me, hey, I'm not getting this from these people. Can you go have the conversation? I have to do that a little bit, but she's actually the little decision maker behind the scenes. I probably shouldn't say that on camera. Yeah, for sure. The neck. No, she is, and people don't realize that. She'll say that to me sometime.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Behind every good man is the even better one.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Yeah, she goes, I don't think these people realize how much influence I have over you. I'm like, influence. I'm like, I'm just speaking for you. Um no, but I I love it. Um, I I think you got a great story. Um, and I think it's cool that you because there's got when you're an entrepreneur, there is a or a business owner. There is an element, I don't want to say status, but there is an element of accomplishment to it. You know, I'm an owner, I'm a CEO, right? There is an element. So for you to take a momentary step back, I think says a lot about you.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

And I think uh I think that's a great message to people. Sometimes you do need to take a step back, and now your business is crushing today.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Yeah, right? Yeah, it's good to be humbled, and then it makes you celebrate the wins like even more.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

So yeah, we're gonna celebrate our 20th anniversary, and I'm like, where did 20 years go? That's weird.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Do you have a do you do a lot of social media? I haven't looked at your profile.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Um, we try. It's a lot, it takes a lot of time, you know, out of your day, and we're busy like designing. So we try to do the best that we can. We do videos and we do like tutorials on like how to like get a room together. We do like wallpaper Wednesdays, and or we'll post like a bunch of like short clip videos or testimonials, like client testimonials.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

I'll make you a deal just because I like you, you're awesome, woman. Send me a bunch of that stuff, I'll make you a cool badass promo video for 20. Yeah. So just I'm saying if you have a bunch of stuff, just send it to us and we'll figure out a way to make like a really cool 20-year anniversary clip for you. Awesome. All right, yeah, we'll hook you up. So tell me, um, but before we wrap up, I I really want to and I love your journey, by the way. It's really inspiring, and I hope somebody sees this as and is inspired by it. But tell me, let's let's dig into the business today. Who who are you working with? Who's your ICP? Who are your uh ideal customers that you're working with? Kind of unpack um Noelia's surface today.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

So, I mean, our ideal clients are people that that have a vision, um, but they're confident enough to like step aside and like let us do our job. People that are like wanting to hold your hand the entire time, or they're like overly anxious or overly emotional, like that only like you know, slows down the process.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

You're making me what do you say? Oh no, no, no, no, yeah, no, it's mind-resistant.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

It's like um, you know, you hired us for a reason. You you know, we welcome people. Actually, not only do I welcome, but I suggest homeowners to when you're interviewing a designer, like do your homework, call their last five happy clients. Ask, was the designer on time? Were they on budget? Did you guys get along? You know, how was your relationship? I think a lot of people skip that part and then they have end up having a horror story. And I've I've heard it, I hear it on a weekly basis. How clients they're like, God, I wish I would have met you first because I had a bad experience here, or it's because they didn't do their homework. Because they just I'm like, Oh, well, how did you hire that person? Oh, I just picked a name off Google and did no homework. Yeah, no calling, no reference checks, um, or get get a friend to refer somebody, like have a little bit more of a a personal referral in the way of getting connected to a designer. Yeah. Um, but, anyways, those are our our fun clients that they A have a great budget, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Um South Florida, baby.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Yeah. And goods are, you know, price of goods have triplefold since the pandemic. Oh, yeah. Um, so stuff costs a lot of money. It just does.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Um, and then you obviously show those materials costs with absolutely yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

We're 100%. We're 100% transparent, and any good company should be. If you got something to hide, then something's up.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Um, but anyways, a good client is, like I said, somebody with a great budget, somebody that has a great vision, they're very decisive. Um, ambiguity is not going to get us anywhere. And then trusting us and trusting the process.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

I got a good question for you because I like to do rapid fire questions, but I have a selfish question. If I was a single dude, how do you handle a guy like me that has no idea the first thing about your business? I just know, yeah, that looks cool to me, or yeah, that doesn't look cool. How would you deal with someone like me that doesn't even know where what you even do, but just make it look cool?

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Um, I I always just ask, because I've I've had some single gentlemen as clients, and we ask them, what do you love as far like I like to know what people love, but I also more importantly like to know what what do they hate? Oh, I hate the color green. I had one client that was like, I hate the color green, this guy. Okay, for whatever reason. So I'm like, okay, what do you hate? What do you love? And then what do you want to feel when you walk into your space? Do you want to feel energized and pumped up, or do you want like a calm, serene surrounding? And then we'll also like what do you want to put out there and tell people? Like, do you want somebody to walk into your space and it it looks like a single or single bachelor pad, or do you want to have an inviting place that might be inviting like someone else into your life?

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Or I'm laughing because it depends on the man's state of mind, right? Did he just get divorced?

SPEAKER_00 36:54

So a lot of questions, and we had to know what are you trying to emulate?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

So here's kind of a cool question. You've designed in places like Palm Beach and New York. How does location change the way you approach design?

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Lifestyle, you know. Um, I think people are coming down when they're in Florida, they're coming here for a change of scenery, a change of pace. Um, they're probably not spending their holidays here. This is more of a retreat. I actually had a client come into my office yesterday, and she's just like, Yeah, this is like my spa when I come down here, you know, and when I go back up to New York, it's like that's where we celebrate Thanksgiving. That's where we have all my kids live there, all my grandchildren live there. Those were all the holidays are spent. It's a it's a different vibe.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

And she's like, when I come down here, like my house is my spa. It's like a retreat. Um I've done houses out in California where it was like a ski home. So again, it's like everything's built around skiing. I think it's just it depends on what you're doing in that house. Okay. And like that's what you know, we're gonna design it around.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yeah, one more cool question. Okay. This this one's gonna be juicy. Cause and I wonder if you've ever dealt with this. If a client gave you a blank check to design their home, blank check, whatever you want to do. What's the first thing that you would buy? And I know that's for the house?

SPEAKER_00 38:24

For the house. Um the first thing I would buy for the house.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

To make this the most impressive showpiece home design ever.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Stone. Stone. Okay. Natural stone. Not porcelain, not fake stuff. Natural stone.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Okay, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

It's my favorite thing in the world to shop for. I love walking through slab yards. I think it is so beautiful to see like what's coming out of the mountain quarries at this very moment in time. And like the stone, you can put it anywhere and make it a showstopper. You can build anything around it. You can build a bar, you can build a wall unit, you know, you can do countertops, anything. Um, and then you can build everything around that.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

So that clip might go viral. That's why I was trying to ask you that question. That was good.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Okay. That was good.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

That's why I was asking those. Um, this this was fun. I hope, I hope we had a good time.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I had so much fun. It was not as stressful as I think.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

No, no. And and I don't know if you noticed, I just sneak into the podcast so people don't feel as uh and then we edit it in a way for the intro. But um, but but do me a small favor with that um beautiful face and and beautiful presence that you have, Noelia, um, look into that camera and if someone who should if someone was gonna reach out to you, who should it be? And if they do decide to reach out to you, where's the best place that they can contact you or find you?

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Okay, so if anybody wants to contact us, we're at www.noeliaserace.com. We also have an Instagram handle at noeliaserace.com. Um, and then we're just here to help any discerning homeowners that are like looking for just a really great experience to have fun because at the end of the day, this should be so much fun designing your home.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

So that's where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 40:21

In Boca Ratone, in central Boca Raton. We're at uh 1020 Holland Drive.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Should they look at your website or Instagram?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Yeah, both. Our website is um getting updated at the moment through us here. Okay, we'll put links down there for you. Yeah, put the links and then our Instagram handle at Nolius Race. Uh, we also have a sister company, it's a wallpaper studio that's open to the general public. It's called Pattern House Studio. Um, I didn't tap into that, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

If you want to unpack it, we can.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

We can do but just like a little tiny.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Yeah, talk. Tell me a little bit about Pattern House.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Okay. So that was born uh in October.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

So it came to me as an idea because I kept on getting DMs on Instagram of people watching me install wallpaper on our clips and our videos that we would post, and people were DMing me and saying, Hey, can I buy that wallpaper? And I had kept initially responding saying, I'm sorry, I can't, because this is like to the trade only, and this is for private clients. Um, and then after so many DMs, I said, Well, why am I not selling this? Uh, because the the lines of wallpaper that we carry, they're they're to the trade only.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

So you can only gain access to it through an architect or a designer. Because the sellers of these wallpaper companies, they're not selling it retail, they're not selling it to the general public. So I'm like, I saw um like a white space. Yeah, and hey, I can fill this space. So we open Pattern House, wallpaper studio, it's in Central Boca, and people, anybody off the street, they're able to walk in, they can shop through the wings, shop through the books, buy all these designer luxury wall coverings, and we straight drop ship it to their house.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah, like people normally are like looking through architectural digest or house beautiful, and they'll see ads to all these beautiful wallpaper companies, but they don't have access to it.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Unless you're that, you know, top two percent of wealth that actually has an architect and a designer working for you, then you have access to everything.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

Um, but most people don't. So I was just filling that gap in the market.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah, good for you. And a way to recognize it and capitalize on capitalize on it. So guys, thanks again for tuning into the Gold Coast podcast. I am your host, Eric Weingard. Make sure to like and subscribe, and we'll see you again.