Michelle Pham: Launching a Home Decor Brand, the Hermès Game and the Libby App

How Michelle Pham, of Inner Child, built a business from one-woman show out of her apartment to regularly receiving wholesale orders from Anthropologie.

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Nan sits down with Michelle Pham, the founder of Inner Child, a New York based home decor brand known for its colorful block print textiles, paper goods and lampshades, all handmade in India. 

Michelle walks Nan through building Inner Child from a small textile line into a company with more than 400 SKUs, sold both direct to consumer and through retailers like Anthropologie. She is refreshingly honest about the unglamorous side of running a small business: the early days when she shipped every order out of her New York apartment, recruiting her retired parents as holiday elves, and determining when it was time to move into a real warehouse. The two discuss their love of color and pattern and how Inner Child stands out in what feels like a ‘beige’ world. 

Michelle opens up about the realities of making things by hand in India, where the weather impacts the production schedule and monsoon season can stall an entire order. She and Nan talk about tariffs, quality control, and the hard call of when to hire. Michelle shares more details on her story, from a childhood in Vancouver with Vietnamese refugee parents, to a tech career at Google and TikTok, and launching her own brand. 

The conversation turns to luxury shopping, where the two bond over the gamified, slightly ridiculous world of Hermès. Michelle recounts hunting down the Savana Dance scarf across auctions in France and Japan, and how Hermes influenced and inspired her to create Inner Child and offer beautiful handmade items at approachable prices. The episode closes with Michelle's three noteworthy tips: the Libby app for free library books, a body scrub at a Korean spa, and bringing a little more greenery into your home.

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Timestamps:

00:00 Meet Michelle, the founder of Inner Child

01:16 Inner Child: handmade, colorful items for the home 

05:59 From Google and TikTok to Textiles

25:20 The Operations of Small Businesses and an Unpredictable Supply Chain 

37:19  Shopping at Hermes: Is the game worth it? 

38:58  How Hermes Inspired Michelle to launch her home decor brand

48:16  Noteworthy Tips: The Libby App, Korean Body Scrub & House Plants

Credits:

Host: Nan Philip

Executive Producer: Julia Aubuchon

Technical Director: Drew Downing

Guest: Michelle Pham

Transcript

0:05

Hi everyone, welcome back to Noteworthy with Nan. I'm so excited. Today we have Michelle Fam here with us, and I am like her biggest fangirl. She has an amazing brand called Inner Child, and I feel like I've been shopping from you for a long time. I was trying to think like how I found your brand, and it must have been Instagram or something. I'm not sure how I found it, but it's an amazing brand, and we're gonna dive in and hear all about it. So, Michelle, thank you for being here. And thank you so much for having us, Nan. We're excited and we love our OG Day One customers. I think you've been with us for a while since the beginning. I bought the makeup like cosmetic bags. I mean, I know your business is almost two years old. Yes, it is. Without a doubt, a year ago, if not longer. So you were definitely with us since the beginning. Thank you so much for the support. Can't wait to talk. So I mentioned the brand quickly, Inner Child, but will you just give a little overview of who you are, everything from like where you live, if you're married, all the stuff for everybody. Yes. So I'm Michelle. I live in New York City, in the flat Aaron area. I love the neighborhood. I recently got married last year to my wonderful husband. We have no children so far. Your child is. My child is inner child. Yeah, that's a date. And a little bit about the business. Um, we started about coming up on two years pretty soon. Um a wonderful business. We actually started with textiles to begin with, um, with a lot of block print, a lot of hand looms, a lot of very colorful and fun. Um and now we've you know expanded a lot to like stationary. We have a very growing uh paper goods business, lampshade business that's pretty nascent coming soon. We actually have some. Michelle brought some things. So if you're listening to the podcast, you might want to switch over to YouTube so you can see. She brought us a few samples so that you can see everything. They're so okay. So have these launched the lampshades? They have launched. Okay. Adorable. We have stripes, we have block print patterns, we have a beautiful, like sort of I love marbleized things. Yes. Clearly, Michelle does too because she's wearing a beautiful marble print dress. I am. Where's your dress from? I can't wait to talk about fashion. Oscar De Lorenta, I think. Michelle has amazing taste. Like, as I was stalking you on Instagram and everything, I was like, ooh, we're gonna have to talk about Hermes. We have some, we have some luxury shopping that we overlap on. I love that you can spot all these things. Usually I'm very obscure about it, but I think you have a great eye. Um, okay, this is so fun. I'm so glad you brought this little cosmetic pouch that has like a blue and red print. I own this. This is what I bought, the first product that I bought. And when Michelle walked into the studio today, I showed her I have one in my purse right now with all my chargers, my lip gloss, all the stuff. So it's really being used. It's actually our best-selling skew. Really? This I think we've sold thousands of these bags. No way. And it's really fun because when I do pop-ups in person, people come to me and they're like, look what I have in my bag. I bought this from you last year and it's going strong. So we build things that are, you know, made to last with great quality, lots of pockets inside. Okay, well, I'm happy you like it. I was gonna say, so yesterday I went and got a massage at um Sage and Sound. Have you heard of that? Yes. It was amazing for any New York City gals. It felt so good. And you know how you go, I was getting like I got on the bus to go uptown for the massage, and I was like, ooh, I need to take my jewelry off. Like you always have to take your jewelry off. And so I opened my pouch to put my watch and my earrings in, and I was so excited that they had pockets so I wouldn't lose my earrings. So I that came in very handy. And you know, the wipable liner on the inside, if you spill a foundation or lipstick, you can wipe it easily. But I do the same thing in airplanes. I take my earrest off and I put them in the pouch. Oh, I don't do that when I fly. I should start to do that. Okay, will you show me this pretty paper goods? Because I haven't yes. Okay, so we have a tissue box that's marbleized. Stunning. And then this is a new line that I'm launching actually this month. Okay, so not live yet, but by the live yet, the episode goes out, it will be up because it will take a few weeks. So you have these wonderful note cards that you can see here. Let me just open them for you. They're actually made out of recycled cotton. So at the end of a textile production, what happens is we take all that leftover cotton and we make it into handmade paper. So it's tree-free. How cool? It's quite cool. So they're quite beautiful, they've been block printed. We'll have marbled versions as well. And my favorite thing is the envelope interior. There's nothing I love more than a pretty like envelope. Oh my gosh. So I'm quite excited about this launch, and I have a feeling, you know, all the stationary nerds, you know, they all love it. So it's a growing space for us. You know, I think journaling and crafting is really having a renaissance. 100 worlds. I can't wait to talk about that because I know you're a bit of a DIY gal. Um, I mean, that really I feel like your brand, Inner Child, is the brand for someone that loves color, loves pattern, loves all those. That's us. It's good too, because I was looking on your Instagram and I saw you say something like, We are the colorful brand in the beige world. Because I am, as everyone knows who follows me, not a beige gal, and neither are you, which I think is really fun. Um, okay, so these are your products. Yes, it is a tissue box uh cover. So these are pretty popular for us. It kind of adds a little bit of a you know, touch of whimsy. Yeah, and they're a good gift. Yeah, they're amazing housewarming gifts. So I think it's a very shoppable um collection. Collection over here. And I can't wait to talk to you all about it. Okay, this is Fab. All right, so let's. Oh, before we dive in, I have like a sort of starting question for you. Yes. What is something random and weird about you that people who follow you on the internet might not know about you? Oh, this is a great question. Um, something random and weird about me that most people might not know. I think I'm actually rather quite nerdy. Love, we love a nerd. I mean, uh before my whole foray into home textiles and home decor, I had a long career in tech. I know, which was so cool. Michelle worked at Google and then at TikTok, which I'm very impressed by. That's true. So a big pivot to do going from that to work for herself. Um, you know, before I went into all of this, into tech and into home textiles, I actually thought about going to academia. I love reading. I I love writing. Um I wish I actually had more time to do it. Now, being a business owner, you know, I try to catch those moments on flights to unplug from the internet. Well, because a lot of these products are made in India, right? They are. So you do have a long flight. I do have a long flight. It's about 16 hours, and I read, you know, one or two books each time and then catch up on movies, new releases. Yes, so key. Oh my gosh, that's a long So I would say like uh yeah, I think a lot of people who start businesses, you know, have like their low-key nerdy tendencies in whatever spaces or niches they might be interested in. Are you good at math and numbers? Or I'm terrible with numbers. I was, I think, you know, obviously I'm Asian. Growing up, I think I had uh a mother who was very attentive to my studies. Um what did they call that? Like a tiger mother. I just was listening to something that said tiger mother's dying and it's being replaced with a new term. But I think, you know, my parents are very old school. They were, you know, immigrants that came, you know, a couple decades ago, and kind of you know, one of the first few ways that started to come. And so I would say um, you know, there's kind of emphasis for everything. We had to know like music, we had to enjoy languages, we had to enjoy mathematics and science, although I don't know how much I enjoyed the latter two, but I have some proficiency. Okay. Um but my interest is always the humanities. So like I was a sociology major. I know that's kind of random compared to how I ended up working in tech. And then now we're a random major. I was an art history major. I liked school. I mean, we both I saw that you went to Bates. I went to Middlebury, so what's very important? A language school. They have a lot of linguistics work there. Middlebury has a great language school that I did not take any classes in. It was actually, I one of the reasons I liked Middlebury is I'm terrible at languages. I mean, I can barely deal with English. Um we'll translate, and AI is here, I guess, to help you. Middlebury, because the language program is so good, they don't require you to take a language. So I got through all of college without taking any language classes. But it must have been a fun place to take art history. Yes, no, it was it was very fun. I definitely knew I probably was never gonna go into the academia, the museum space, but I still enjoyed the major. I think it's a very um enlightening degree. And if you can appreciate art, I think you can appreciate many things in the day-to-day life. So it's a good foundation. Um okay, so let's dive into your brand and what your day-to-day is like. You know, you're almost two years into a business that you started. Yes. What was Tuesday like for you yesterday? What are all the different hacks you're wearing? How do you make it all happen? So I'm a small business owner. We have a very lean team, and in fact, my team is very much a growing and recent development for me. Okay. I think one of the biggest pivots that a business owner has to do is try to figure out when to hire and who to hire. And that's one of the most difficult decisions. Because you know, you're you're pretty bootstrapped, you're growing, but you also want to be conscious of you know the financial elements of it. Um, but in order to grow, you also kind of need to have some more staff, right? So it's like a chicken versus egg, you know, which one kind of comes first. And so in this case, um, you know, we were growing so much. I think we're in about um, you know, four inch-plus retailers. That's crazy. That's so many. That's a lot. It's a lot, actually. Yeah. And then we um, you know, do production for a lot of different companies like the Moment Design Store, um, Anthro, a bunch of I saw on your Instagram about getting the anthropology order. Was that so exciting? Yeah, they were actually my first big um buyer. So I will never forget um that very wonderful buyer who was Aubrey Lynch, and she came to me maybe about nearly almost about two years ago. Oh wow. Okay. She's like, I'd love to place an order. So is are their quantities huge? Like was it overwhelming? Really nice quantities for us and great reorders, and they're just a nice team to work with. They're also pretty lean, too. So I feel like their buying team is lean as well. So um I would say, you know, yesterday um was a pretty busy day for us. We met with um our team at Google to kind of go through some new ad strategies, lots of operational work. Yeah. Um I feel like that's a part of like a creative business. I mean, in my mind, I'm like, oh, you have a beautiful product, creative business. But actually, there's a lot of just like a spreadsheet, making sure things are happening. I'm not great at operations. We had a lot of spreadsheet work yesterday. Okay. We were just putting in like new weights and dimensions into the warehouse. Oh, that would be reading our warehouse invoices, you know, looking at purchase orders. Tell us, I was interested that I know you were shipping a lot of the products out of your apartment when you first started. Where, how did you sort of reach the pivot of like, okay, now I'm ready to get a warehouse? What was that? I mean, I'm sure you sort of just broke out of the space of your apartment, but I think that's a hard line to know as a young business owner when the right time is. Like, do you really need to do it until you just can't do it anymore? So I think a lot of different founders have different philosophies to this. Some of them just start straight out of the gate. Yeah. You go into 3PL. And 3PL, for those who don't know, is like third-party fulfillment. That's a warehouse that um is not necessarily exclusive for you, but handles, let's say, like 10 other brands, right? And ships it out to you, right? They take care of all the logistics, receiving. Depending on how much you pay, you can like have them put your cute mailer together, put in a postcard, right? You can do what's called kiting, right? So that's like, you know, they put the mailers in or they can kit things together to you in a nice box. So in my warehouse, it's actually me and two other girlfriends who own businesses. So we're kind of in a you know, trio. Where is it? Where is it? In Pennsylvania. Okay, fine. Not too far, an hour and a half away from here. But to go back to your question about like how do you know when? Um for me, I was very budget conscious. I don't know if I would recommend this for everyone. So I did ship everything out of my my apartment to begin with. And if you know New York apartments, they're not that big. Even the large ones are not that big. What did your building think? I feel like my super is sort of he would not have been happy if that was. My building was actually very generous. Amazing. Amazing. Um, my doormen are wonderful people. Doormen are always. Yeah, they've been very supportive of my business. They've seen, you know, lots and lots of boxes. Um and I think probably the pivotal point came like just after the holiday season. Yeah. When we started shipping volumes, and I was like, oh, like I think we're on to something. Like we're getting regular orders daily. Uh we cannot possibly I'm spending too much time on fulfillment. Yeah. And not enough time on you know, growth growth and all the other things. And then my my mother, my father, and my brother had to come, and they were like Santas Elves during that moment. Stop helping you ship everything. They were my warehouse that's so for two months. My my parents um lived with me and they were warehouse fulfillment. I wonder if my parents would do that. I love them dearly. I'm not sure. It's it's pretty strenuous work. Yeah. You know, but both were retired, so we're like, okay, sure, we'll come. Um, but it's not like it's it's quite, you know, it's strenuous. It's a lot of um detail orientation as well. And once I got into my warehouse in February, they were like, okay, goodbye. We're going on vacation. So that's been a good update for you, a good change being a warehouse. I think um, you know, for new brands starting out, it's uh totally up to you. You know, um, you could go straight into through PL right away, or you could roll the dice like me if you're not quite sure yet. Yeah. Um, but then on the flip side, if you do really well, then you might want to have some warehouses in mind. Right, be ready. Exactly. Okay, okay, I love that. And at the moment, do you have someone who leads operations for you? Or I do. I have a really nice, wonderful team of actually a lot of ladies who work with me. Women in business. They're very sweet. Um, so Christina and Emma, they work with me and they do our business is very ops heavy. I know we make beautiful products. Yeah, that is a huge component of our work too, which is design. But none of this works without the ops, right? Well, you probably have so many SKUs, right? We do. I think we have like 400 plus SKUs. That's a lot for the thing. Which is a lot for a two-year business. It's actually but you know, I feel like it works for us. Um I might, I don't know, I've always been the type of person who I have a lot of interests. Yeah, more is more. It manifests in my business. Like some people they have like a five SKU business, and that's great. This is, you know, very much a pleasure and you know passion project for me. Um so I feel like I should let my creativity go where it goes. Yeah. So when I see something I like, I'm like, yeah, let's let's do that. Let's make it. To that vein, I was curious like, are you designing the pattern files? How does that all work? Yes, it is. So the nerd can also guess beautiful patterns. So growing up, um, my you know, my parents um grew up in Vietnam. That's where we're from originally. And then you were born in Canada? Yes, I was born in Vancouver, Canada. A beautiful city, by the way. If you haven't been, I would highly. I've never, I've been to Canada many times. I've actually never been. I think you would love it. It's one of the few cities that has, you know, a collision of both mountains, ocean, and forests. It does look beautiful, yeah. So it's like, you know, a Canadian Switzerland. Oh, with like US currency being the way it is, it's about 30% off when you go to Canada. So, you know, a great time to go to Canada. Love. Um, I love being Canadian. I'm still Canadian um to this day. Is your husband Canadian? He is American. Okay. And he'd very much like me to be American too, but I think I I don't know. Yeah, I would stick with Canada if I were you. He should be joining me. I think he should join me. I I love being Canadian, but um when I was growing up, um, you know, my parents are from Vietnam. Um my parents grew up during the wartime period. Okay. Um you know, they kind of were in their early 20s or in their teenage years when the Vietnam War was happening. And so my mother got, you know, educated in college and all, but um her father was like, Well, you know, in a wartime, sometimes uh these degrees don't have a lot of uh worth in a new economy and a new reshaping of a country. So he sent her to learn how to sew. Okay, you should always have a skill that can feed you. So here she was. Good point. She actually was a Russian major and she graduated from from university. Um he's like, What is a Russian major gonna do in a post-war situation? He's like, I don't know. So he's like, you should learn how to sew, and that way, like, you'll have that income if you need. Yeah. You know, if if something in your back pocket. Exactly. So she learned how to sew as a result. And you know, when she moved to Canada, um, both my parents were refugees after the war. Um, when they moved to Canada, it was just something that they did to save money. Wow. Like they sewed my brother and my clothes. That is so cool. We had like a lot of matching outfits growing up. Like I realize now. Now it's like coming back. Like I feel like most people might not say that's so cool, but to me, I'm like, oh my gosh, be able to make clothing. And it's a great luxury. Yeah. It's actually like most people to have bespoke clothing made for them today is a very big luxury. As a six-year-old or as an eight-year-old, you think it's very annoying because you're like, I would love to go to you know, Limited Two or Hollister at that time and like buy something off the rack. Um, in retrospect, looking at you know, some of the stuff that my my mother made for my brother and I'm like, this is really cool stuff. I wish you had kept all of it. Like these are great fleeces, great sweaters. She still makes some of her own clothing? Not so much anymore. Um I think you know, as you get older, your eyes just become a little worse. You can't stitch as much. But I have a lot of like sweaters that she made from like the 90s and 2000s, and sometimes I wear them out, and people are like, where did you get that fabulous material or sweater from? You can't have it. Yeah, you can't. And I was like, one of a kind, it's probably dead stock fabric from like the 2000s somewhere. But as a result, I grew up with a lot of textures and pattern. And just in a creative house. Exactly. We had a very creative house, and my father um, you know, did a lot of contracting, and so I learned how to do a lot of uh DIY as a result, you know, from he did a lot of woodworking, he did a lot of painting. So I think unlike um most people, I got a lot of exposure to how things are made. Okay. You know, and we had a great curiosity in our household about you know, when you see something, how is that still? Died into how you know, if we saw something interesting, you know, my parents would look at the pattern and be like, okay, that's how they stitched it, or like that's where the joint of that um table is. And that's and so I think innately I've always been curious when I look at goods to think about like, okay, like what went into that. Yeah, what went into that? And I love that you know, what's that process of it? Yeah. So the designs are very much, you know, the Pantone colors are are chosen by us, all the patterns are are done by us. But a huge lift I would say also goes to my my team in India, okay, who then translates my designs into blocks. Okay. Because when I make an image file um of a design Photoshop or something, exactly an illustrator or whatever it may be, or even on a hand drawing. They can take something from that. They can take that hand drawing, and then you know, my wonderful partner said we'll translate into block carving, right? And that's done by hand. And that is done by hand. Okay. So the it's very much, I would say, um, a partnership. Yeah. Right. The design vision originates here in New York. Okay. Then, you know, our design um block maker then takes that design as like, well, the here's how we can make it to actually be a repeating pattern or all things. Okay. Or to have like the right um detail or right outlines to to work for block making. So um it's a lot, I would say. And I think now that the business has grown so much, I have unfortunately had to move a little bit less and less on a daily basis. I used to spend so much of my day in design because I had so much more time. So you think in time you'll have to hire a designer to join your team. We have a part-time designer right now who is working with us to just do like the the CADs. Yeah, you can take so much time, totally. I used to do a lot of that. Right. And now I'm just like, I don't have time to draw the decisions. Yeah, that's great. So um we do, you know, I think we will have a pretty robust and growing design team by the end of this year. I always think it's interesting to hear like what are you working on right now? Like, are you six months ahead in production? Are you working, are we past Christmas? Like, where are you in the calendar? Actively in Christmas. Okay. Right, Christmas production. So it's May. So yeah, so that's over six months. So like Christmas is, and I think we're probably actively looking into 2027 at this point. Like there are, you know, retailers that I'm in discussion with they're like spring 2027. I'm like, okay, great, I love that we're there. And I'm like, let me wrap up Christmas and I'll be right there with you. Let me catch my brain up to that. But yeah, I think, you know, because we work and deal in handmade products. Yeah. And handmade products have a very different nature to their production than you know, a factory line. Right. Right? Because in a factory line that's like, let's say, like digitally printed and uh has like very specific components to that production, you can know that by like June 15th you will be done. Right. Um but in handmade work there's a big nuance. It's a very, I would say like human production. Yeah, which is lovely, but I'm sure causes stress on your end and upset operations. But you know, that means like there are human centered problems around that. If the weather um is bad, we can't print as much, right? Like if it rains, we don't print that much. Why? Because the ink and the dye uh bleeds. You know, so the weather is actually a very big component in our work. This is our prime print. In in India, okay. So I would say everyone who is in this business knows like this is the best time to print because it's very dry. The moment that you print uh two or three minutes later, that fabric will dry. But come like monsoon season, there's a lot of you know, factors that happen. People get sick, yeah, you know, um there are other things like the the dye just. Not setting properly. Number three, our fabrics can't dry as fast. I've seen like some of your photos. Everyone should follow, of course, Inner Child on Instagram. Michelle and her team do an amazing job, and they show you these awesome videos of like the block prints going down the line being made or all those things. You can really get a sense of what she's talking about. So they if they don't dry as fast, it means you can't stitch as fast, right? So there's a and there's a because we work so much with human hands and you know human power, um, there's just nuances too. Like if people need to take a break, or if there's a holiday. Yeah. They take just in India for how long? I was thinking this time for a little bit over two weeks, which is on the shorter side of my trips. Um how often? I mean, of course, you're early into your business, but do you think you'll go two times a year, four times a year? I think I'll go a couple of times a year. Um mainly because we have so many operations over there, and it's easier for the team to like sample and work with me when I'm in person. Decisions faster, all that. So it's like, okay, great, let's make these. Yeah. I should connect you. Do you know of the brand called Merth? It's a clothing brand. Okay, I should I'd love to learn. Yeah, I should connect you with Katie, who's the founder. I used to do PR for them, and she's lovely. And she makes all her products in India too. So it's all of you. It's always a nice to know because we we all face um similar challenges. If there's a tariff situation, we are all in the same boat to try to figure out what does this mean. Has it gotten any better? Like at the Um Tariffs, I think in August of 2025 went up to 50% for India, which is very big because if you do the math, something that was $50 might be $100, right? So it's it's quite a bit of a very big difference. Yeah. It's a very meaningful difference. So is it still at 50%? It's gone down to I think 18 or 20%. Okay. Don't quote me on that. I'm pretty sure it's somewhere there right now. Good. Something that as a baseline. And then there's like additional tariffs based on this type of category of goods that you make. Um and I would say now I think the biggest problem that you know businesses are facing are like freight costs. Right. Right. Because with the our business has a lot of shipping things by C, or are you doing air? We do, I think, C containers very regularly. Okay. Um air sometimes I have no choice but to. Right to get it in time. If sometimes like we have such an urgent order. Yeah. We started doing a lot of weddings as well. So for weddings, I ship. So someone can contact, can they contact you for a custom wedding thing? We do I think we have like four custom weddings running right now. Oh my god, that's so fun. Um, I mean, your wedding looked beautiful too in Maine, right? Yes, it was I love Maine, one of my favorite states. I think so underrated, and I hope it stays that way. Yeah, we can we can't tell too many people. I love Maine. I just feel like it's a place where you can just um be yourself. Where was the wedding in Maine? Um, it was near Bar Harbor in this really small town called Stockton Springs. Oh, I don't know. Um right by the water, and it was just so um idyllic and and private and quiet. And I mean it wasn't quiet in terms of like the vibe. The vibe was quite loud. But what I mean was like the area itself was just like a a natural paradise. And I don't know. I hope one day, you know, when I have more time, I can spend more time in nature and whatnot. I'm not there yet, but maybe 10 years old. You have your garden for now. I do, I do have my rooftop garden. I grow a lot of things there: vegetables, roses, lilacs. What would you say, like with your business? Is it the operations, the tariffs? Like, what's your biggest challenge right now? I think for where I am right now, um, we are in like a hyper growth phase. Okay. And I'm a little bit of an ambitious person, so I have a lot of dreams. A lot for where we're gonna go. Yeah. And so I'm really excited for the next five years because um I finally feel like you know, I've got a grasp on things. I've I've I have a really wonderful team that is growing. Um but the biggest challenge I would say is like supply chain. Okay. And I think a lot of that is being resolved now because we started to to own and operate our own workshops. Oh, that's right. And so when we do that, um a lot of things are now in your hand, right? And you're not waiting for someone else's product to go first or exactly. And I think from like an IP point, it's nice because all of that can be true to you and it's just within your walls. Okay. Um and the second point, you know, managing the quality control. Um Have you had any issues with that? Like, I don't know, getting a whole shipment of something you couldn't sell. I think I had this issue when I first opened in the first month. Yeah. And what happened was that there was a mistake in the packaging and it ended up spoiling part of that that shipment. And I just ended up giving all those samples away to my friends and family. Like every time someone comes to my house, I'm like, here, take this, you know, and they're like, I love it, you know. Right, like to most people, it wouldn't bother them, but I have a very um strict high standard. Yeah, I have a very strict standard of I think what should pass, right? Well, I think you want that out of the brand, though. And I think you need to have that as a brand owner. Um, and when you set that tone with the rest of the workshops, I feel like everyone else then strives for that standard of excellence. Yeah. Like, yes, we are handmade, but our handmade is very detailed. One of the comments that people give us is like, it's interesting that all your products are handmade because the stitch work is not cheap. Like, if you look at our even a toiletry bags, they hold up so well. Um, our tablecloths, all these things, stitch work is like perfect because if anything is out of order, I just can't help it. I'm just like, guys, whatever, you know, this is not the type of work that we should be producing. And you know, even with you know, things like our shades or our tissue box covers, small things, um, I cannot help it. I just notice it and it bothers me. And you fix it. So yeah, it's probably so annoying for my team. They're probably just like, please just let it go. But I feel like if we have that rigor, it will help us scale. Oh, and like it will help us. Gonna have your customers be more appreciative of that. Where we can limit, we owe you know, where we can limit customer complaints and increase customer happiness. Yeah. We're really focused on that. Do you feel like you hear from your customers a lot? I'm always curious about it. I do. My gosh, you know, um, sometimes now it's pretty surreal for me because it's like inner child in the wild. Yeah. You know, and I how cool. I've been so busy. I haven't had chance a chance to like tally like everything that we've sold in these past years. Yeah. I think it's actually been a lot. Sometimes now in the wild, like on a TikTok or an Instagram, a friend will be like, Look, look what I spotted. They're like, That's your bag. Or like, that's your bin, like in the corner of like someone's wedding. And I'm like, I had no idea that they were using it for that. Um, or like when an influencer picks us up, and you know, I make placemats. And um, a lot of things that we do, we try to strive for like an art form. It's like everyday art that can be functional in your home. Yeah. And so um, I think our placemats are kind of emblematic of this. Okay. And she took our placemats and she put them in a frame. Oh my god, so cool. And I think from her like shop my, we've been still selling so many placemats. One of the gals who worked for me, because I don't have time to be on TikTok to like see it all. Yeah. She's like, hey, I think we went viral. And I was like, Oh, I didn't know that. But that explains why we keep selling these places, like these two placements. She just framed it as art on her wall. And I was like, that's kind of cool to see, like, you know, sometimes as well, like we had a moment um where we, a mom of one of the I think like sorority members at University of Alabama, bought a bunch of tablecloths from us, and she used them to make um reupholstered benches and to make like throw cushions. And I was like, okay, maybe I need to get into like the running fabric, right? So we will be making running fabrics. We have a lot of requests from tier designers, like, can you do this? Yeah. Because right now, what everyone's doing is just buying the cloths and then maybe reprofessing them. Yeah. So I always tell people we will get there, give us some time. Okay, so fine. I was curious. I always think it's interesting to know where is it influencers, is it a press placement? What has been like a really big impact on your business? Has there been one thing where you're like, oh, it was getting into anthropology, it was being in the New York Times, like what made a difference, and maybe didn't see as many sales right away. You know, press is great, and so is PR and influencers and whatnot. But I think the thing that does well is actually the quality. Totally. Because someone coming back return like a return customer. It's actually very word of mouth. I think a big part of our business um comes from people seeing our stuff at someone's house or someone's where's that from? Yeah, and or someone's store. Um, because I always ask retailers like, how did you find us? Yeah. It's the number one question I have my my ops team ask. Right is like, you need to figure out track down how they find us. And so I I read all of those. And is it just on Instagram or at a trade show? They often say, like, well, we saw your stuff at someone else's store and wanted it too. And or we saw your stuff online and you've been on like our radar for some time. Cool. And so we've just been waiting for like the season to like restock and like bring on new vendors. And so how much of your business would you say is direct-to-consumer versus your partners? We are a huge um it's interesting because when we first started, we were pretty DTC. Okay. Um heavy. But our wholesale business, I would say, is like a good 60 to 70 percent, and our DTC business is 30 percent. So that's like I feel like very I mean, I'm not a business person, but a healthy margin. Like it's healthy for us, and I think DTC um is something we will be growing. Like we will we will within the investor start investing because I didn't have time. Right. You know, like my wholesale business really took off. If you can imagine, you know, managing 400 plus accounts is a lot, plus larger retailers on top of that. Totally. So we um we're building capacity okay, you know, with the supply chain. Yeah. So I really do think 20 second half 2026, 2027, we're also gonna go into um a new segment, which is loungewear, robes, pajamas. And I think that also is going to take off because people have been category, okay. Yeah, so I've been doing a lot of these custom orders for like bachelorette parties and brides. And so um I, you know, my team was like, you know, why don't you just like let's make that a product? Just make a small, small batch run and get some feedback from the market. But they were just like, you know, people seem to be wanting them for their private events. So they love the fabrics. Let's just do it. So we've got a lot of stuff coming up in our you know, best-selling seashell pattern and cherries. Oh my gosh, lots of things. Yeah. Okay, I'm excited. Let's switch gears slightly and talk about your life outside of the business. If that's possible. Let's have some fun. When you do run such a small business that I feel like takes your whole life. Like what are you making time for outside of it? Do you still have hobbies? Are you still able to even like go out to fun dinners with your girlfriends? What have you had to drop and what are you leaning into to make sure you have time for? I think if anyone's honest with you about running a small business, it's a very unglamorous job. At the beginning. Yeah, I think those first few years head down. It's very much a grind. So I didn't very much have a life for the first year, but I did make it out to all the important things. Okay. I mean, I got married in that first year. So I had to show up to my own wedding. Right. I'm pretty sure my wedding planner was like, oh my gosh. Or you know, it's pretty funny. Um, I prioritized like everyone else's work first. And at 3 p.m., you know, right before I have a to-do list. So like 3 p.m. of my, you know, wedding um welcome party, they were FedEx dropped off two remaining tablecloths. Stop. And I think at like four, it was about to start. So like they were moving people in the cocktail hour and like steaming these like tablecloths at the same time. So I don't do as great of a job prioritizing myself, but I am now re-prioritizing it. Okay, I also want to set an example for my employees to have some sort of balance as well where we can. And the truth is, like, if you're seeking work-life balance, then do not start a company and do not work for a startup. It's true. Good tip because it is not um, it's not something that can be optimized for because there's just a fire drill every day. There's like geopolitical things, macro things in the world that just you cannot control for, right? But you have to respond to. So um I would say now I'm starting to have more of a life. And there's small things that I do now, like um, you know, going to see friends, starting to travel a little bit more. And you love to travel, which I know. I love to travel. What's up? Verizon. Like, what's your next trip? Um, you know, I'm going to California next week, but that's more of a work thing. I'm I'm going to give a talk at Google. Um cool. Okay, that's not like your Google ad was so partnership that you just posted. It was so cool. Thank you. It's for their small business week. I love Google. I mean, I used to work there. I still love it, but like honest, I love it. I still think it's an amazing tool, and it really is an equalizer of information for a lot of people to learn. Um and wait, that must be such a fun pinch me moment to go back to where you used to work and be speaking to that audience. So we had an event called Google Marketing Live, which is where they release like all the new products. Okay. So I'm quite sure. And one of them, I guess, is this AI tool that you're talking about. It is. Tell everyone about it, what it is quickly. So it basically helps you um do marketing campaigns. Okay. So let's say like for your Google ads or for anything. For anything. It helps you like make assets, make a brand book. Um, the product is called Pameli. Um, it was a pretty game, big game changer for us. Um, we have like a very um robust creative team in India mostly, and some folks here. But I would say um sometimes we're all just we just don't have enough time. We have to push something out very urgently. And so in this case, I need to push out our shades, and it helped us like generate the bases for all the shades. So our team here shot the shades, yeah, and they were like, Michelle, we just cannot find 60 bases in time to launch by by three days when you when you go to this trade show. So they're like, Can we try this? And I was like, Yeah, let's give it a go. And so it was it saved my butt, essentially. But I think um, you know, where small businesses can um save time, you know, that's it's a huge lean into that. Something less for for one other person to be like on their to-do list. Totally. So um California next week, then I'm going to Canada, Vancouver. And then this summer I have a lot of dreams. There's a lot of places I'd like to go, maybe to Tanzania, maybe to Europe for a little bit. The summer's like any day now. I am very guilty of like my last since since starting my. I used to be a very type A person. Okay. Travel booking. Yeah. And I would book everything with a detailed itinerary, eat detailed travel list. And these days I find myself so busy. I I it's last minute. It's sometimes it's like, okay, where are we going next week? And we're like, okay, boom, boom, boom, boom. That wouldn't okay. Maybe I need to start a business like that, because that would be good for me. I'm very type A and need a need to know what's happening six months from now. I love, I would, you know, if someone offered me the service, I would definitely it's just I don't have bandwidth to think about it. Okay. So these days where I can like delegate outside of my very full head, I do. And you just roll with it. That's awesome. We know you have a beautiful interior design taste, but you also like to shop like I do. I do. And many of the listeners, I think you're a bit of an Hermes gal. Yes, I had a different. I definitely had a phase. I think I I'm in my face. And my wallet would like me to be outside of my um that phase. It's a very um Hermes is a very unique experience. I think it's a very gamified shopping space. It's ridiculous. It's so enticing. And then I'm like, Nan, what are you doing? Yes. Like, I can't believe you know, that's the bill that I'm getting. But I was like, okay, you know, close your eyes, move on. But I like hearing that maybe you like move past it because that would be good. I need to like know that two years from now I won't be in this deep dark world. Once your podcast is going to be like, you know, one of the top 10 podcasts coming in the future, you won't have time to go there as much. Maybe you'll send a personal shopper together for you. But I would say um, you know, it's a very big investment of time, and I definitely had um a phase where I was like very curious to understand like, how does this all work? You know, totally it's such a game. It is. And I think they have a really fascinating way of like operating their business and pulling the customer in, but then you kind of feel like having a scarcity, yeah, scarcity um mindset and like the availability of products. Um it's a wonderful business. I think their business model is fascinating. And they're doing really well, yeah, super well. Um, very coveted goods that retain their value. Um and also, I think beautiful patterns, beautiful craftsmanship. I mean, I love their scarves. Yeah, gorgeous. I love the show. Like your show loves pattern. It's a good business for us. And it's a great way to kind of um you know spice up an outfit. Yeah. And it's warm and cozy. Um I yeah, you know, actually, part of my RMS journey is also kind of what got me to start this business too. Because I started spending so much money there. My you're like, um, I could be making this. It doesn't need to be that expensive. And then I started to wonder, like, okay, so like this has got to be a really good profit margin for them. And you know, being the curious person that I am to be like, okay, how are things made? I start to actually go back a little bit to be like, okay, you know, who are the people who are making these items? And especially in our mes, they have something called like exceptional items or exceptional items. And that like the beaded, you know, scarf. Exactly, where they have like um, it's not a lot of them, like five or ten in the world, where they do like these really, you know, elevated craftsmanship things where they might do like, like you said, bead work or embroidery work. Um it's beautiful. My sales girl has shown me a few. None have come home with me. And so I um had seen on an interior designer's Instagram this wonderful um blanket that was part of this exceptional collection. Okay. And I had, you know, wrote in the comments, like, where can I get one? She said, There's one of one only. And I was like, Can't be true. I was like, Ermez if they make you something exceptional. There has to be a few. So for like maybe about two years, this is while I was still working in the corporate world with my nice salary, I was chasing this quilt down because I really wanted it. I thought this blanket was just so um the pattern was called Savannah Dance. Okay. And it has, I think, um, either a leopard, I think it's a leopard, a monkey, um, some lotus flowers on it. It's a very classic print. It's very beautiful. We'll like we'll find a picture. And then I saw it at a French auction and I told my husband to go bid on it, and then he fell asleep, and I suddenly he wakes up earlier than we forgot to. And then I found it later um at a Japanese auction and I purchased it, and then I was like, wow, this original price was quite expensive. Um and I was like, how much are the artisans actually getting paid? I actually did have this like intellectual question for myself. It was like, you know, we all know that like Chanel, Hermes, Dior, they do a huge amount of their embroidery and beadwork in India. Right. Um, my husband's Indian. And so I was just like, oh, you know, out of curiosity, like, where what are these workshops that they um contract to and what is the life of those artisans finding out the truth? And then, you know, I got really curious and was like, should I go into beadwork and embroidery? And that's actually where I initially thought. Oh my gosh, so interesting. I had thought about doing more like premium um like luxury embroidery and beadwork. But at the same time, I felt like there was a big gap in the American market for more accessible handmade goods. Yeah. Um like maybe we didn't need another very expensive, very like niche product. I do believe in like you know, parts of me, I th I do think there should be egalitarian access to beautiful things, right? Totally, yeah. Where it can be possible for everyone to to have a benefit, like the artisans themselves getting their fair pay, getting good work conditions, for the brand themselves also to be getting some profit, and then for the user themselves to get a beautiful product that they enjoy at home at a price point that they feel comfortable with. And I feel like handmade in the lexicon was very much viewed as inaccessible. Yeah. Like if it's handmade, it's like I can't afford that. And I was like, well, why not? Like what if there's a way like you take a little bit less as a brand, um, you give a little bit more to the artisans, and you know, people get to have a little bit of everything. So an inner child was born. And that is that is actually how air mad was actually a very big part. I spent so much that I was like, maybe I should invest this into my own business. Okay, well, that is a good that makes me feel a little bit better for your purchases. It's like it was worth it. Yes, I think I was purchasing so much, as you know, like I was offered a very limited edition market. Beautiful birthday. Which was, you know, I did you take it? I did take it. I hope so. I mean, it's amazing. I will link to the video. Yeah, it's so stunning. I think I explored the whole world of like special orders and all that. But I was just, you know, I feel like I love these beautiful things and I love their craftsmanship and I think it's gorgeous. Um but I would love to do this myself in my own design house. Yeah. So I think that's what we're doing now, and now more of my disposable income goes there. Now it's switched gears. Yes. But you have the bags. Yes, I do, I do have a very sizable collection. But I haven't gone back recently. I just don't have time. Yeah. Because to play the game, you have to have someone else to do it for me. Maybe someone else has got to go. I have, you know, my essay still texts me from time to time, and I'm just like, I just don't have to have a bag. She's like, where'd she go? Yeah, she I've referred other friends to her. I was like, Is she in New York? She is in New York in Madison. Maybe you'll have to send me her info. She's very nice. Okay. Because I have a girl, but I don't know if we're like the same vibe, which is a very interesting thing. The vibe is important of the Arames game. She's been so nice to me. She just said that I could like we have a wish list for a photo bag, all the things. So we're making progress. I think chemistry in life is a very um, it's a very important component. Yeah. And people don't realize how important it is. You have to have chemistry. With your business partners, your suppliers, with friends, with people in the world, you know, partners, everyone. So sometimes the chemistry is not there. That's a thing that limits you from. I feel like you like that anxious talking to her. I'm like, wait, they're spending a lot of money. That's what I'm saying. Exactly. You need to be with someone you have fun with. Yeah. You know, and who's just like, they get that you're there for something, right? And you know, you get that they're there for something, which is their commission. Yeah. But you still have an enjoyable time in this transaction. So if I find a quota bag, get one, spend way too much money on it, I'm thinking, but I would need to know if you approve. Of uh Birkin 35, Togo Leather. Ooh. Um, gold hardware. I'm a gold girl. I think I'm gonna, I really want to get a green. I love that. Like, um, I I'm not well versed in all the names, but I have it saved. Like a vert something, like a darker, one of their darker greens. Is that crazy? I don't think it's I think I know the green that you're referring to. I think I have like a mini Lindy in the bag, and it's very pretty. Okay. And I feel like it goes with a lot of things. I know green for a lot of people might be like, oh, that's not that versatile, but I wear green a ton. I love it. And I think for like a bag that's that expensive, I wanted to kind of make a statement. And I feel like you should get what you want. What I've realized in life is it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Right. Who thinks that's a good idea? If they don't like how to buy green. It's not for you. It's for you know true. It's for me. Yeah. And so it doesn't matter if you don't like this orange or if you don't like this, you know, hardware, because it's not for you. So like thank you for your feedback. But it's what I like. The older I get, I'm like, okay, great, thank you. But this is me. Have you had to probably do that with your business too? Like I'm sure people give you a lot of unsolicited advantage. People do. The nice thing is actually most people like our designs. But sometimes sometimes when people offer me um new product ideas, yeah, I actually do make them. Where people are like, hey. And sometimes those suggestions they make are very profitable for us. There you go. What was an example of that? So two examples come to mind. Um, one was like toiletry bags. I had started making so many textiles at the beginning in the home home linen section. Yeah. And then I had a friend at the Times who was like, hey, the moment you make toiletry bags, I'll buy them. And I was like, okay, do I really want to make toiletry bags? I'm like, I'm in home linens, like that's not the direction I'm going. And then I was like, okay, why not? We have the fabric, let's just stitch it and try it. Now you said it's one of your best sellers. It is my number one skew, is toiletry bags. Okay, so listen to your friends. So I was like, okay, you know, and then you know, I had another um client who bought one of our toiletry bags from us, but she had arthritis in her hands. Okay. And so she couldn't, she needs a zipper that goes more down. So then I developed um what I mean by down is like the taller ones. Yeah, and so she needs a different type of zipper because her hands are not able to like get into the crowds. Because she has arthritis. And so I was like, okay, great. And so I made that design and also became another bestseller. And that's your sort of standing one. Standing man in the case. And then I used to make napkins with a much thinner, um, thinner weight cotton. Okay. And I received one email one day. And when I receive like feedback, I don't look at it as complaints, I look at it as opportunities for us to improve. Um good. This customer was like, this napkin is too thin. I was like, okay, sh like, so what do you want? I was like, so tell me like what is a type of napkin that you wash that you use regularly at your dinner table. Like what material does that look like? And she linked and she showed me photos, and I was like, okay, I'll do it. Yeah. And then six months later, we had probably less than six months, maybe two or three months later, we had re-prototyped all our napkins. Okay. And I was like, hey, here you go. Would you like to try it? Then she bought like 10 napkins and she's like, This is great. It's pretty amazing that came to be. Yeah, that you, you know, I gave you the feedback and you did it. And I'm like, well, that's a nice thing about being a small business. I think we're very um, even if I, you know, where I agree, I make action, and where I don't agree, I'm just like, okay, let's see. Thank you. I'll add it to our feedback to consider. And if we get a lot of feedback of the same, then we action. But I think there's always something to learn from folks. So email email your brand. Yes. Okay, that's a good lesson. Let's switch gears and dive into your noteworthy tips. I know you came with a few ideas prepared. I love that you do this, by the way. It's a thank you. But I mean, obviously, as you know, the podcast is new. But I think my goal is that everyone who listens, you know, maybe they haven't heard of you or they don't know about inner child yet, but they're like, oh, I know I can walk away from listening, learning about this new person, but also without a doubt, I'll walk away with three potential things I could add to my life. To make it easier. Yeah. And like, don't we all want that? Life isn't already hard as it is. Whatever we can do to make it easier, let's go, right? So three things. I think the first thing, um, I love reading. I'm not really a Kindle person, but I do read on my iPad quite a bit. Okay. Um and I love the New York Public Library. I've been a library girl all my life. And they have a great e-reader called Libby. And so if you even if you're not in New York, you can be in Charleston, you can be in San Francisco, Los Angeles, everyone's library system has some sort of online e-reader system. So if you find yourself at the gate for a flight and you're like, shoot, I don't have a show downloaded, I don't have a book, you know, ready. 18-hour flight to India. Exactly, you can just go into this app and they have a wonderful like selection of books, like a massive selection of books. Okay. And they tend to like curate it from like, you know, pics from this month or like themes. Like this is AAPI Heritage Month. So they have AAPI Heritage Month books that are curated. And the nice thing too is like it's free and it's accessible, and like it doesn't clutter my house because I already have so many books in my house. My right. And if I really like a book, I'll buy it then. Because they may be like I do that too, where I finish reading a book. I just did that for strangers, that book strangers. And I was like, Oh, the book that is, I heard people have been devouring that book. Have you not read it yet? I, you know, my girlfriend just called me last night and she was like, Have you read this book? She's like, everyone I know, they just can't put it down. I told her, like, when I have a moment on a flight in the next long flight, I will be reading it. Honestly, you could probably, I mean, I think I read that book in two days. That's what I've heard. They're just like through it fast. They like devoured it. Strangers. And then the other book that I just read that I really liked yesteryear. Have you heard of that? I haven't, no. It's about sort of a trad wife influencer. And all of a sudden, she's sort of a modern-day trad wife influencer, like we see on Instagram. And then all of a sudden she ends up and she's living that actual life in the 1800s. I think I've heard the premise of this book, actually. And so you're kind of like, wait, how'd she get there? But she's sort of, you almost feel like, so she's trying to figure out is it a movie set? Is it real? What's happening? But you're like, well, you posted about making your sourdough bread, living this simple life. So now you really have to know what it's like. And it is so good. And I need more people to read it so that I can talk to people about it. Because the ending yesteryear. Okay, I will get the Strangers Book and the Yesteryear book on your book. I have like four flights that would take the next two weeks. So I shall be getting them. I have definitely used the Libby app before, and then I just don't think I have it on my phone right now. So I'm gonna download it. Yeah, it's great and um it's non-committal. Yeah, you know, so like you can just read it. If you get through the first chapter and you're like, this book is not for me. Yeah. You've got another book you can read. Um so Libby is a great thing. And I think the second tip I have, I think I need to do a lot more relaxation. I think I have a lot of cortisol in my system from this job. So um one of the times I found myself very lost to just enjoy um is usually when I'm in water. You can't you can't bring a phone into water. You can't um you have to be present when you swim or when you're at a spa, like you gotta put all that stuff away. So there's a really great Korean spa in New Jersey. Okay. I know that sounds far for a lot of my folks in Manhattan. It's called King Spa. Okay. It's pretty no-frills, and it's one of the original. Like, would you take an just take an Uber there? Yeah, yeah. We took an I took an Uber there. Okay. Um it's a little outside of my comfort zone. My friends are like, I don't even like really go to Brooklyn that often, which is ridiculous, I know. But I love to take tips for things. So I'm gonna get an Uber, call an Uber, and go to King Spa. King Spa. Um, if you go on a weekday, it'll probably be so empty on a weekday. Okay. Um they have it's so relaxing. So Korean spas are very unique. Um they're probably kind of like the Scandinavian spas a little bit where like you don't really wear a swimsuit in the gendered areas. Um, but they do this amazing body scrub. Okay. Oh, I've sort of seen those on the internet. If you if you want to see a very funny episode of what the body scrub is like, Conan O'Brien did a really funny episode in LA's Korea town where he went for a body scrub. And it's a hoot. Like he's quite it was, I mean, he was like, I feel great after this. But you wouldn't believe like how much gunk or like build up you you have. And when you're done, you're like, wow, I feel like a whole new person. Oh, I'm gonna have to try this. So podcast field trip. It's really worth it. If you can like don't be nervous, just like go with it. Do you think you need to sort of like go with friends so that you can all like laugh laugh through it and be like, how'd you do in there? So, you know, I actually prefer go by myself. Right, just really because then I'm just like naked by myself and then be scrubbed. So most people um like most people just go there to go in the pools and like they go and they go into the um steam rooms and like these hot rock rooms and like these saunas and everything. But I think the scrub is legit because I can't do that to myself at home. So it's like I need someone else to help me like remove all this layer. Exactly. You will feel like a baby after. So I think, sorry, I spent so much time on that second tip. Clearly, I really like it. I have the questions. Okay. Um and my last tip um for you would be I think um in the modern world, we are so busy, and especially Americans. Americans in particular, I think work at a pace that is um much more demanding than than anywhere else in the world. But more than Europeans. Um I mean, Asia they work a lot too, but they also take, you know, in India they take a lot of holidays for religious reasons and whatnot too. But as such, um I think ways to slow down in the house and uh in your morning and your evening are important. I wish I could take my own advice more often, but the way I do it is I garden. And if you don't have an outdoor space, which most people don't do, you can do that indoors. I've been raising plants since I was like 21 out of college in my small studio apartment. Love. Okay, now Michelle is very lucky. She has a beautiful or do you in this new apartment have an outdoor patio? I do have a very nice patio there. Um I have a garden where I grow, you know, tomatoes. I have a huge herb garden. In New York City. I know it's it's actually I would say a great privilege to do so. And it was always my dream. I always told my husband, like, I loved, loved, love to have a garden. Obviously a very expensive dream. Yeah. But um, you know, finally I think we got one. And but for those of us who aren't there yet, yeah, what tips would you have? Like, okay, so I live in an apartment in New York City. I have space inside my apartment. I currently have an orchid that has been alive for about two or three months, which is big for me. And I travel a good bit. So I've like been gone for a week and it came. I when I just came back from my trip, I was like, will it still be alive? And it is. But what should I start with? So I would say you probably have a very design-centered audience who's listening. There are two things that I think you could opt for. One is a hydroponic system. Okay. Um that were like the lights and the water. And it's like a stackable system that you can buy. There's a lot of companies that do them. Um, just look for a hydroponic um growth system. Okay. And they're great if you have kids too, because I think the kids can watch the movies. I think city kids should learn how to garden. Yeah, I like that. City kids should see plants, you know, and understand how their food gets made. It's really important, in my opinion, to get close to I go to the farmer's market all the time. I grew up going to a lot of farms in Canada. Canada has a lot of farmland. And I think it it really influenced a lot of the way I look at the world. And yeah, that's why I do so many floral patterns. If you look at my brand, we have a huge amount of botanicals and leaves and things, and that's because I grew up all around nature and farms. Um I would say um, you know, hydroponic systems are a great way to teach kids and yourself about how things grow. Would it be more be like herbs and vegetables and plants? Herbs and such. And those are super low maintenance. And the grow system is kind of an operational system on its own. Okay. So it's not a very high maintenance system. You just gotta put it in first. Okay, get it set up. Get it set up, and then it's kind of a grow on your own. The second system is a Japanese system called a kokodama. Okay. I think kokodamas are very interesting. So I don't know how it works is they have you have the root ball of a plant. Okay. And then on the exterior, you wrap it with like a moss or like a peat material, and then you put a bunch of wire around it. And so you have this circular ball and the plant coming out of it. And so there's no soil that is outside. Okay. It's all compacted into this ball. And um it's as a result, it's pretty compact for apartments. It works in a small space. Okay. It doesn't have any like dirt that comes out because it's all inside that space. And then all you need to do take care of it is you just soak the root ball in water once a week or once every two weeks. I can't. It's very low maintenance for men and women to have a spruce of nature in their home. And the presentation of it looks quite chic. It's very, you don't need a planter. Right. You don't need anything, it's just a um beautiful moss ball of and you can grow a lot of things from that, like staghorn ferns. I have uh a bonsai that's grown out of it. Awesome. Um, there's a lot of people in New York um in the Brooklyn area who make these, they're called kokodamas. Okay. Um, I tend to buy from them and support their little businesses. Okay, I'll find it. We'll find it the vendor for you after. Okay. I'm gonna work on that. I feel like I could definitely have a bit more greenery in my home. I'm sure. You'll feel better too. Yeah. It's healthier for you, right? Oh my gosh. Okay, those are amazing tips. Thank you, Nan, for having me today. It was such a pleasure to be in your podcast. I can't wait for it to explode. I don't understand. I can't wait to know, and I can't wait to listen and hear all these interesting episodes to come. Well, thank you so much, Michelle. We will link to everything that we've talked about and also Michelle's brand, Inner Child, so you can find everything. But thank you for being here, and we will be back next week with a new episode. Thank you, Nana. Thank you, everyone. That's a wrap. Do you have a noteworthy tip? Leave it in the comments below. Thanks for listening.