We recently connected with Jessica Neilas and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

I imagined my first business in 2009, after convincing a friend of mine who was an Architect that we should start our own firm. This wasn’t a popular idea at the time. In 2024, I would say more than half of my friends own their own businesses, but I did not know anyone my age who was an entrepreneur back then. I had saved up $40K and I was renting a small but charming downtown apartment. I had learned the ropes of interior design at a small firm and had grown out of the position after devoting a good chunk of my time. So, there I found myself, young, hungry and unemployed. I saw two paths before me; I could buy a condo and go corporate or roll the dice, start my own company and see what I was made of…….. Obviously, those dice flew hard….

I feel it is important to note this business wasn’t considered a “startup” with funding or investors or a business plan in any way, shape or form. It was simply an idea that seemed plausible and exciting.
It was 100% a rough and tumble, hap-hazard, day-to-day, whack-a-mole kind of universe where anything was possible: opportunity or crisis.
My learning curve of becoming an entrepreneur took center stage over a focus solely on being a ‘designer’. I was now a different person with a new career, and the harsh realities of what it took to rent office space, hire, and fire employees, review legal docs, arrange insurance and accountants, bookkeepers, payroll and create websites and promotional material, etc. tested us every day.

We had so many ideas for the company at the time, frankly too many. Our mindset was to just throw everything at the wall and see what stuck…. There was the largest component, the interior design team, but then we had started making these cool furniture pieces we designed out of scavenged railway parts, we had a custom art and print shop happening, a branding and graphic design component to our offerings, even an Asian tile line we were considering getting behind! Our office had a resident DJ at one point and between the promotional parties, employee managing, admin laundry lists and general hustle of a 24-hour grind, we got so busy we were sleeping and practically living at our office, pre SBF.

There were days I would leave my office space, to walk the winding corridors of our converted loft warehouse building, until I was almost lost, and I would curse myself for not just choosing a simpler existence. I thought about my first job in high school, as a barista. Wasn’t that a peach of a job? I wondered if I could just go back to that, and I hated myself for the answer: hard no. I knew the allure of making it all work and having success was too exhilarating for me to turn away from. As a confessed adrenaline junkie, laying it all on the line to see if you could move the needle, even just enough for a couple of others to notice, that rush of low to high kept me coming back for more and truthfully still does to this day.

This business was a fast-tracked education in do-it yourself start-ups and we were able to grow our strength and confidence through naive courage and risk. It was an extremely rewarding time.

My business partner and I ended up splitting after 7 years, and I started this current design business, Thoughtform, on my own. One by one all those varied business ideas we had come up with had been discarded for more realistic or practical endeavors and our focus had narrowed to a specific corner of the market. The business was stable, predictable and motoring like a well-oiled machine but felt like the creative soul or fire of the company that had burned so brightly and driven us beyond what we anticipated in the beginning, became so tamed and tended to that now it simply smoked in a pile of grey ashes for me creatively.

I wanted that fire back and I had innovative ideas I needed to share with the World regarding offering an international level of design, executed to the highest degree of detail and bespoke tailoring as well as extending a human-centric thoughtfulness in interior space design.
This new company had a much smoother rollout, although still risky financially in the beginning, but now I felt like an entrepreneurial warrior. All those triumphs and downfalls along the way had crystallized in experience and made me a more thoughtful and educated designer with actual business experience and skill.
It was also a new World in 2016, as technology had moved fast, so we started with a social media campaign; websites seemed secondary. I went through two phases of branding: the first to get it off the ground, the second once we knew who we really were.
We performed personal outreaches to connections we had garnered over the years and promotional events tailored to specific groups we knew.
I also sat on boards, created charity events, played parts in design panels, and integrated our company into the fabric of the city.
In 2023, we pivoted and expanded our services across North America and we have hired an in-house business development manager and are approaching industry partnerships on a whole new level with outreach to targeted prospective clients and collaborators which is really exciting because its potential is huge.
I would say I am still learning, evolving, and dealing with all the challenges a post-pandemic world has thrown at small business and entrepreneurs: the building and construction industry, supply chains, the real estate market, social media influencing clients and now AI.
It is ever-evolving, as am I.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I knew I wanted to be an interior designer ever since I was gifted a dollhouse at a very young age, and deemed the rooms and furniture that the dollhouse came with needed a major overhaul. I spent many years redecorating, fashioning furniture in my father’s workshop and sewing textiles for this little house. Along the way it became clear to me, I needed to be Daryl Hannah in, ‘Wall Street’.

I now own 2 companies in 2 countries where we work to offer a boutique luxury interior design experience to our clientele, with a thoughtful, human-centric angle. Not only are the hybrid spaces we design incredibly beautiful and bespoke to the owners, but we bake in a new way of designing spaces which is health and wellness driven, and works to enhance the happiness and productivity of humans and families within. We consider environmental psychology, biophilia and research-based design principles in our work to promote thriving humans.

Interior design isn’t just about paint colors and toss cushions, we are the drivers of the main values of the project from its inception to its final execution. Whether it is a hotel, vacation home or restaurant, we want the experience of the space we design to be completely unique, and better the lives of the people it touches on a psychological and physical level.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Currently, I am striving to bring about the incorporation of a high thought and functionality to the interior design industry and to the world through interior design. We as humans, in North America spend about 90% of our time indoors, and yet the focus of these spaces has largely been on aesthetics. Functionality plays part in well-designed spaces for sure, but what if there was a way to have superior interior design that actually enhances the quality of your life? Indoor air is said to be 70% more polluted than outdoor air and given our extensive time indoors you would think we would focus on better air filtration. Same with water filtration. We can also look at including superior acoustics to reduce stress caused by agitating noise levels, which can cause hypertension. Our team also works with lighting technicians to create smart lighting schemes to help lower lighting where relaxation needs to occur and brighten where energy or focus levels are desired. We can also program lighting systems set to our circadian rhythms to promote better, more restful sleep. Also, did you know a pinhead of light on your body can disrupt your sleep value, so we design perfectly dark sleeping caves for optimal REM. These are just a few of the upgraded ideas we have for homes and every kind of space to elevate our expectation of what interior design can do to improve our lives.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Previously, our business was completely referral based and it’s a service. The service lasts about 2 years or more while a project is being constructed. Our onboarding of a client is always a massive achievement for us as our fees are not small, given the amount of work and co-ordination we do and overall project budgets, so when we are awarded a new job we know it’s because we’ve gained the trust of our client and that is ultimately the hardest part of any business relationship. So, if you are not out there making it happen, proving your value and worth, it probably won’t happen on its own. You are the Architect of your own future.

Contact Info:

• Website: thoughtformdb.com
• Instagram: @thoughtform_db, @jessica_neilas

Image Credits
Jules Lee