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Eilyn Jimenez: ... and nobody wants to say, "Oh, I had a rough start," but I think that rough start is what makes you. It shows you that you can be at the lowest, and you can be at the highest, and you can still be grounded. I'm proud of it because I started with nothing. I started with projects that were bringing me a revenue of $1,000. Now we're doing projects that are hundred millions of dollars, and it's so, so different than what it was, but I knew that where I am today is a result of where I was when I first started.
Felecia Hatcher: Welcome to So Ambitious, a podcast series about what's possible when Black and Latinx founders can build uninterrupted. I'm your host, Felicia Hatcher. I'm an author, an entrepreneur, an investor, and a mom, and I'm also the CEO of Black Ambition, a non-profit initiative founded by the Pharrell Williams, working to close the opportunity and wealth gap for Black and Latinx communities through entrepreneurship. Today's episode, we welcome Eilyn Jimenez, founder and creative director of Sire Design. You might have heard of Eilyn and Sire Design from her show, Designing Miami, streaming on Netflix. Sire Design is a full-service interior design studio that focuses on construction from the ground up for high-end residential and commercial projects. With Eilyn, we'll learn the small steps to start your business on the right foot, how to grow a business with intention and authenticity, especially when hiring a new team member or picking a new client. Eilyn grew up in Miami in a Cuban-American household, and from a small age, she had an ambitious mindset. For her, there was no dream that was too big.
Eilyn Jimenez: As a kid, I wanted to do an array of different things. I mean, I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be a choreographer. I wanted to be an attorney. I wanted to be so many things. One thing I feel that stayed true was the fact that there was nothing I couldn't do.
Felecia Hatcher: But Eilyn understood that becoming anything she wanted required hard work.
Eilyn Jimenez: That was something that my parents instilled in me, the fact of if you want something, you have to work for it. I always saw my father going through different ventures and having different businesses. He got home late. He left home early. So, I knew that he would work hard, but I had the closest thing to that entrepreneur of, hey, you can create almost anything you want, came from him, seeing him create things and work hard on it and develop. He had a keen eye for being successful at whatever he did, and I like to think that some of that DNA is embedded in me.
Felecia Hatcher: It definitely is, and as Eilyn grew up watching her father bring ideas to life, she eventually pursued a creative career of her own in interior design. But her journey into the field was far from straightforward.
Eilyn Jimenez: So, I actually thought I wanted to become a judge, and so I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go. So, I ended up going to school for business, and while I was in business, I became friends with the dean of architecture, and he's the one who introduced me to architecture. From architecture, I ended up going into interior design, but that's what opened up the gateways. It was a professor who was like, "Eilyn, you put so much effort into the interiors. Why don't you study interiors?" and that paved the way for me creating. I look back now, I would rearrange my furniture. I would select the paint color of my room. I would do all these things that led me to where I needed to be, which led me to studying interior design.
Felecia Hatcher: After finishing college, Eilyn got a job at a showroom in Miami, and she was hired to be one of the showroom's interior designers, but the job was not quite what she expected.
Eilyn Jimenez: It was more about how many sales and how much you did. I mean, don't get me wrong, I got the opportunity to work with an array of different celebrities, but there was something there missing. That emotional connection and creativity wasn't there. It was like, how many furniture can you put? How much can you get it cheaper, and how much can you upcharge the client? I didn't resonate with that.
Felecia Hatcher: On top of that, Eilyn's relationship with the owner of the showroom was awkward, to say the least.
Eilyn Jimenez: She felt it was necessary for us to sexify ourselves, and she would sell us to her clients, which I felt was very distasteful. "Oh, just go out with him for lunch," and I'm like, "Why are you..." and telling them, "Oh, she'll go out with you for lunch," trying to sell me like I was this sex object in exchange for them buying furniture. Not only that, but she even had a say in the way we dressed, and it wasn't about dressing modestly. It's like, "Oh, that skirt is too long." So, when somebody's telling me, "Hey, you have to wear a shorter skirt," just to bring in clients, I was like, "Is this an interior design showroom? Is this a furniture showroom, or is this a club?" I just pretty much cut ties with everything, and I said, "You know what? Screw it. I'm going to do my own thing. If I'm going to be miserable, I'm going to be miserable because I'm doing my own thing."
Felecia Hatcher: See, in entrepreneurship we often talk about getting very comfortable being uncomfortable, but this, this is not it. So, if you find yourself in compromising situations, and they can happen from power dynamics and corporate relationships and partner relationships to investor meetings, or even inappropriate requests, please run the other way. Eilyn was determined to start her own business, and to do so, she needed to do it on her own terms. She decided to start with Groupon, the e-commerce platform where businesses can sell goods and experiences. Eilyn created an offer for interior design consultations for just $99.
Eilyn Jimenez: I remember when I first did it, I was like, "Well, I hope people buy," and I'll never forget, when I saw that it aired and 10 people
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bought it, I thought I had made it. I was like, "Oh, my god." I was like, "I made it, 10 people." Mind you, at that point I had just started, and I had no idea that Groupon took 40% or 50% of your revenue, and I was driving 40 miles to help somebody pick paint colors when I was only making 20 bucks for it.
Felecia Hatcher: Even in those humble beginnings, Eilyn was already paying attention to the specifics of her business model, including the cost of her time and her margins. Before the big money started rolling in, Eilyn understood the value of setting up her business for future success. That is one of the most important lessons for entrepreneurs.
Eilyn Jimenez: So, I think one of the biggest important thing is always turning off, and starting off the right way, because when you start things the right way, they end the right way. Before I even started promoting anything within the company, I knew it was very important for me to have my company registered, have an LLC, have a website, have a business card, have a name, because ultimately, you're going to present yourself as a company, and you're going to present yourself. Even though it was me, myself, and I, nobody needed to know that it was just me, myself, and I at that point. But ultimately, you're going to offer somebody a service. You want to make sure that you have all your ducks in a row. You don't want to be like, "Yeah, my name is Sire Design, but make checks payable to Eilyn."
What if you like the name, and then you go register a website and somebody else has it? What are you going to do, change your name then? No, you're going to make sure that everything is aligned the way it's supposed to, and then go out. It shows that it's thought out, that it's put together, that you're serious about this. If you're just doing things on a whim and just like, "Oh, let me see if it works out," people are going to get a sense of that. People are going to know when you're fully invested into something and that you're a professional no matter how big or small your company may be.
Felecia Hatcher: See, this is a step that many like to skip past because it's not the sexy, cool parts of running a business. We're talking about the foundational stuff, making sure that you get all your ducks in a row very early on, and so slow down and make sure that you build the foundation for your business that is solid. Remember, success can punch you in the face if you're not prepared for it, and that intentionality paid off for her. Through Groupon, Eilyn was able to meet her first client, someone who would catapult her career.
Eilyn Jimenez: Her name is Raquel Hussey, and I love her dearly. She bought the Groupon with the intention of me just helping her do some things here and there, and long story short, she gave me a shot to do her living room, to do her office. She even put me forward for me to design the lobby and the common areas. Let's be honest, at that point, I was not equipped to do that type of project. I
didn't have the experience. But the fact that she believed in me so much to be able to put my name forward on there meant so much to me. It showed me that at the end of the day, you never know what opportunities... You may think something is small that can become something bigger.
Felecia Hatcher: Along this journey, as entrepreneurs, we'll meet people, and especially if we're fortunate enough, we'll meet people that see our potential and trust us beyond our expertise sometimes. Angela Taylor, Matt Haggman, Tony Randolph, Yolanda Cash Jackson, Pharrell, these are people that, aside from my family, we're instrumental in my career, and you always need those people in your corner to catapult you. After her first project with Raquel, the referrals kept coming in.
Eilyn Jimenez: She led me to another client, who led me to another client. 12 years later, my business has 100% been created, and the revenue that I have out of word of mouth. I've never done any type of marketing. I've never done any type of promotion. I've never paid for any type of marketing whatsoever. It's all been through word of mouth and referrals, and that means a lot to me.
Felecia Hatcher: There's a mindset in many product development circles that your product should be so good that it sells itself. The same is true for service businesses. Sire Design's growth and success is a testament to the quality of Eilyn's work and the experience she offered her clients. A big ingredient in Sire's secret sauce is knowing their values and relentlessly sticking to them. It informs how Eilyn vets her clients. That's right, vets her clients. Not every prospective client is a right fit for Sire Design, a fact that she embraces.
Eilyn Jimenez: I'm a firm believer that who you are is who you attract to work with. That doesn't mean you're not going to make mistakes, but always being the best version of yourself, giving all the effort that you have, and being really authentic to who you are is going to attract the people that are going to align with what you stand for. You're going to have people that are going to be like, "Wow, I totally vibe with her. I totally cook with her. I totally understand what she's going through. I totally understand where she's coming from."
That authenticity is what attracts the same kind of people. I think the type of client that attracts to us is one that respects our craft more than anything, and they respect what we do. They understand what we do and the value that we bring to a project. They value us as people. They value our opinion as designers, but they also allow us to be ourselves and enjoy the process, which is the biggest thing. I said if you're going to go into this process, not have fun, don't do it, because there's so much fun in what we do.
Felecia Hatcher: Part of the reason why Eilyn values these kinds of connections with her clients is because interior design is intimate and personal work.
Eilyn Jimenez: You're touching two of the most important things, people's homes, people's spaces, or people's pockets. There has to be a certain level of trust there, and connection base. It's kind of like picking a gynecologist. If you're uncomfortable with your gyno, you're not going to go. You're going to be like, "No, I need to get another one." Yes, I'm not in that level of personal space, but it is personal. You have to be able to be like, "Eilyn, I know you love that light fixture, but I think it's hideous," and know that I'm not going to get upset, and know that I'm going to be like, "Well, I disagree with you, but let's find something else." So, creating and nurturing that relationship in the beginning and really understanding who your client is and who they're on a real level, and caring for them, and the things that are important to them have to be important to you.
Felecia Hatcher: When it comes to gaining people's trust, one client, Jim, stands out for Eilyn. The trust is so deep that Sire Design has already designed nine homes for him, with several more in the pipeline.
Eilyn Jimenez: Now we're working on, with him, it's a construction from the ground up with a 7,000-square-foot house on the water, and it's midcentury modern, which is completely different from what we've done in other homes. But every other project, he would be like, "Eilyn, I wired you X amount of dollars. You have four months to do it. Don't bother me," and I'd be scrambling. You know what I mean? Running. I was like, "Four months? What do you mean?" and rushing. But the end result, we always delivered, to a point where in these nine projects, we've only had one contract, one.
We've never had to sign a contract again, not because I don't want to. He's just like, "Eilyn, I don't need a contract. I trust you." The person just wires me money. Again, that's a trust that I don't take for granted. But it's been so cool to be able to do such a different array of projects for this one client. So, it's like his taste has also evolved. He's learned. He's seen all these different styles, and he'll be like, "Eilyn, what are people designing now?" I'm like, "Jim, forget about what people are designing now. What do you love? What do you find beautiful?"
Felecia Hatcher: This client did not hesitate to refer her to another person.
Eilyn Jimenez: There was another client, another prospect that was calling him, and they were asking him a bunch of questions like, "Oh, and how is Eilyn in this, and how's her team in that?" He told me, and the client told me too, he was like, "Listen, just hire her. You're not going to regret it. I worked with her for nine projects. She's not going to screw you over. Her team is on it. They love what they do. Just hire her."
Felecia Hatcher: This is how Eilyn has managed to build her business with word of mouth, by staying authentic, cultivating trust, and nurturing deep relationships with her clients. Eilyn's list of clients and projects has kept growing over the years, and Sire Designs has transformed
from a one-woman show to a team of seven people. Eilyn still remembers how it felt to hire her first employee back in 2010. It was not an easy step for her to make.
Eilyn Jimenez: Around 2010, I was like, "Okay, it's time. I need the help." I needed somebody to draft. I mean, I was working till 2:00 in the morning, waking up at 6:00 in the morning to do it. It was just me, myself, and I was doing an array of different projects, and I was like, "Okay, it's time." Don't get me wrong. I was so scared to hire somebody. I was terrified. I was like, "Oh, my god. What if I go bankrupt? What if I can't afford them? What if I have to let them go?" I was terrified, and I took the jump, and I hired somebody, and she was working out of my house for probably easily a year before I decided to get an office.
Felecia Hatcher: Hiring your first employee is really hard for many entrepreneurs, to go from that single person doing all the things to literally saying, "I need help." But one of the first mistakes that people often make when hiring their first employee is thinking that I just need someone, another one just like me, another extension of themselves, and that's actually the opposite of what you should do. Whatever your zone of genius is and your highest contribution is to the business, that means that there are other areas in which you're not that great at. So, resourcefulness, can they go out and get it? Can they find the solution to the problem? Their skillsets, do they have the actual skillset, where you're not just bringing on someone with potential, but they have the present skillset to be able to do the job that you need them to do, and then passion. For Eilyn, the most important criteria in hiring is synergy.
Eilyn Jimenez: I feel it's important that you work with people that you click with because at the end of the day, yes, this is a professional setting and I invest in people professionally, but I also invest in them personally. So, they have to be able to have this demeanor about them of wanting to grow, and I think that's the two. I think ultimately, it comes down to character and who they are as people, and that is what the package that I look more than just a beautiful looking resume and portfolio. Yeah, that's a big aspect, but people as a whole are more important.
Felecia Hatcher: Eilyn felt so confident in her first hire that she helped her relocate from New York where she was living at the time to Miami, where Sire Design is based. Eilyn also helped them find an apartment and a car.
Eilyn Jimenez: I think she grew with me as I was learning how to be a boss that I had never been. I had bossed my boyfriends around. It was also learning what the dynamic was. She was in my home. It was very personal. It was very easy for those boundaries to break.
Felecia Hatcher: Knowing how to differentiate between the personal and the professional is a unique journey many founders go through. That's something Eilyn had to learn while building her team.
Eilyn Jimenez: I'm here to support them and love them and care for them, but creating that boundary between like, "Okay, listen. Right now, I have to go professional mode on, and I'm your boss at the end of the day," is the most important thing that I've had to learn. Specifically, when you're young and you have people who are in your same age group, it's very easy for those lines to get blurred. At the end of the day, what I say is the final word, whether you agree with it, and it's that example of sometimes they're not going to agree with what I want to do business-wise. They're not going to agree with the decisions I make, and they don't have to agree with it. They have to respect it.
Felecia Hatcher: In his world-famous book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective Leaders, Stephen Covey talks about listening more than you speak, and businesswoman and author Carla Harris encourages being what she calls a kingmaker, that you should invest heavily on your personal development and your team's personal development, and both are necessary. I've made many mistakes growing up as a leader, and I've learned a lot over the years, but trust, communication, and professional development are good starting points for bringing on a team. For Eilyn, becoming an effective leader also means learning when it's best to part ways with an employee.
Eilyn Jimenez: Because ultimately, I have my eye on the prize, and I understand that if somebody does not align with the vision of what I have for Sire Design, then that is a route I have to go. We all have to make tough decisions. There's times where we have to cut friends off or we have to cut relationships, and that's okay. It's not personal. Ultimately, if a person walks away from your company, be grateful that they did it because you don't want anybody there for the wrong reasons.
Felecia Hatcher: After several years working together, Eilyn and her first employee recognized that their professional relationship had to come to an end.
Eilyn Jimenez: The vision of what I had the company of being and where I wanted to grow, we weren't aligning anymore. It wasn't the same vision. It wasn't the same thing. As she started with the company, it worked, but I also knew that it got to a point where I had outgrown her, and I needed something more than what she was providing at that point. She's been the only person that, unfortunately, from the team that we've had right now, has gone in a different direction because we did grow apart. We went our separate ways, but I learned so much of it. I learned so much from that experience. I learned how to be a boss. I learned what things I didn't want. I learned how to stand up for myself. There was so much, and that taught me to be the boss that I wanted to be today to the employees that we have today.
Felecia Hatcher: This is important because the people on your team make your company culture. My biggest advice is to prioritize the people whose values, energies, and skillset are most conducive to
your team's growth, productivity, and profitability.
Eilyn Jimenez: No, you've got to create a great work culture and create a place that you would want to come to every single day. I think that's one of the biggest things. I want to come to a place that I love, and everybody that's a part of it has to feel that same way.
Felecia Hatcher: Eilyn's team is comprised entirely of Hispanic women. It's something she's incredibly proud of, especially in an industry where Hispanic people are underrepresented.
Eilyn Jimenez: We're a team of creatives that really love design and feel that it's important to live beautifully and live in spaces that invite us and are welcoming to us, no matter what it may be. We like telling stories. We like evoking emotions, and that's the heart of what Sire Design is.
Felecia Hatcher: In September 2020, Eilyn got a huge opportunity to showcase her company and team. A TV reality producer she had worked with in the past called her up and asked to film a pilot for a new show. The producer wanted to feature her and her husband, Ray Jimenez, who also owns a separate interior design firm. Not long after that, Netflix bought the show, and in September of 2022, Designing Miami launched its first season with eight episodes. Eilyn saw the series as an opportunity to bring people into the world of interior design, to go beyond the glitz and the glam of luxury homes and into the hard work that actually goes into making these homes memorable. Interior design, like most industries that are primarily relationship-based, is rampant with nepotism, old boys' club, and the kind of gatekeeping that would make it nearly impossible for a young Cuban-American woman to get her foot in the door, let alone build a thriving business.
Eilyn Jimenez: Showing what hard work looks like in a level from somebody who didn't come from a silver spoon, showing what hard work and success looks like from a bunch of immigrants that came from different parts of the world, that all had one goal and created a name for themselves, showing that if you work really hard for something, you could achieve anything, and the biggest takeaway I wanted people to feel was feel inspired. You could do anything you want. You could create anything you want. If you work hard, if you're a good person, and you do things right, the doors automatically open for you. We're a woman-led company, 100% women, and I love that because we're from different parts of the world. We're from different cultures, but we all have one goal in mind, and it's to be the better versions of ourselves on a professional and on a personal standpoint.
Felecia Hatcher: Eilyn also wanted to challenge how people romanticize being a business owner and founder.
Eilyn Jimenez: We need to normalize being normal. Since when do we live in a society where everything has to be pitch perfect, where everything has to be polished, and everyone has to be gorgeous, and everybody shows up in nine-foot stilettos? That's not real.
You may feel amazing in one thing and feel you're super stylish on one day, and another day you feel like crap because you didn't do great in a presentation. That's real life, and being able to showcase that and know and show people that that's normal and that it's normal to have a regular life and make mistakes and still be successful, I think is so important in today's society, in the world that we live in.
Felecia Hatcher: Let's sit with that for a second, being normal. Ambition does not mean perfection. For Eilyn, it means never compromising on who she really is, and allowing herself to make mistakes. The challenges are part of her success, too. From switching subjects in college and feeling objectified in her first job to starting a company using Groupon, and now working on million-dollar projects, Eilyn knows that with effort and intention, it will get better. Just keep moving forward.
Eilyn Jimenez: I think it always comes down to having goals. Constantly having goals and constantly working towards something, constantly always wanting to grow as a person and as a professional I think is the key to success and the key to constantly evolving and bettering yourself and bettering your craft.
Felecia Hatcher: Eilyn is just so ambitious.
Eilyn Jimenez: I think being ambitious, at least for me, represents not only what I can bring to the table for myself, but also what can I bring to the table for somebody else. That first client that gave me that opportunity, she believed in me, and I wanted to prove myself to her up to a certain point. That to me is the definition of ambition. I feel like now I'm building with an uninterrupted because at the end of the day, I can't control what people think and say. I can only control how it makes me feel. It doesn't matter if that person thinks I should be a white man. That's his perception, not yours. That's his battle, not yours. There's a saying in Spanish that says [Spanish 00:23:14], which means that what's for you nobody's going to take away from you. If you go at it with that mentality, knowing that no matter what situation's around you, what happen, if you go at it with the right heart and mind mentality and the hard work, there's nothing that you can't accomplish.
Felecia Hatcher: On the next episode of So Ambitious, we'll be hearing from Camille Bell, founder of the cosmetic company, Pound Cake, and the winner of the 2022 $1 million Black Ambition Grand Prize.
Camille Bell: We were sick of doing these pitch competitions because we were always getting in. We were always getting selected, and a lot of times we would make it to the final round, but the judges were always white men, and it was always, "Is this really a problem? I don't know. My daughter is into makeup, and I don't really..." Okay, but your daughter's, I'm assuming, white, first of all. You know what I mean? Come on.
Felecia Hatcher: That's next time on So Ambitious. To learn more about Sire Design, check out the show notes, and be sure to rate, like, and subscribe to So Ambitious wherever you listen to podcasts. So Ambitious is a Black Ambition production brought to you by Heineken and co-produced by Moso Haus, and You Had Me at Black. Our executive producers are Martina Abrahams Ilunga and Ivana Tucker. Samiah Adams is our supervising producer. This episode was produced by Jess Jupiter. Charlotte Morley is our associate producer. Our music is composed by Terrell Brook. Sapphire Stubbs is our marketing consultant. Special thanks to Moses Soyoola at OTHERtone, and Samiyah Malik, Christine Joseph, and Jermeen Sherman at Black Ambition. I'm your host, Felecia Hatcher.