Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Amy Chitwood. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Amy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?
Pele, one of the greatest Brazilian soccer players, said it best. “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” His words sum up my entire being when it comes to being a successful person. You do not have to be the best at what you do, as long as you love what you are doing and work hard to accomplish your goals and fulfill your ambitions. Success is working nights and weekends. Getting up early to set goals for your day, week, month. Staying up late to analyze and reevaluate your growth. Success is sometimes sacrificing precious time with your loved ones. This is one of the hardest parts to being a successful person but it only has to last for a short time. As a successful person, it is imperative to be and stay humble. There are points throughout a successful person’s life where failure is inevitable but these people are resilient and find a way to learn from their mistakes and press on. Success relies on constant learning and reevaluating the good and bad to every situation. No matter how difficult life can be, I know I am successful at what I am accomplishing because I am still in love with my work and passionate about helping all my clients.
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 had always loved the art of design and knew from a very young age that I wanted to be an Interior Designer. I did several internships in high school and went straight into college with the design bug. I knew I wanted to have my own company some day but it took many years after college and tons of different design jobs to figure out when I was ready to make the leap. I had a great mentor, one of my younger brothers Jon, help me start up the business as soon as I moved to the Denver area. Without his help and passion, I don’t think I could have gotten the company off the ground running so quickly.
Acute Designer started with the focus of design and collaborating with my brother on his spec homes he was building in the metro area. He introduced me to staging of homes and how that impacted the sale of all his builds. The first home we staged for him, I knew I was hooked and felt a new type of passion. It felt very rewarding to see so many people fall in love with a home that I had decorated and arranged beautifully to enhance the best parts of the house. Realtors loved what I did, buyers loved it even more. This was a start to a new beginning for sure.
After five years of being in the industry, we now focus more on staging homes with realtors and builders. We still do some smaller design jobs such as kitchen and bath remodels, furniture selections, etc. but 90% of our business is staging. We offer two types of staging: vacant staging or occupied staging. Vacant staging is when clients need to sell their home and they move out and remove all their furniture and items. We come in with our own inventory of furniture and accessories to feature the best parts of their home to help sell and increase their overall listing price. Occupied staging is when clients need to sell their home but still need to live there during the whole process. We help advise on what to remove in each space or how to rearrange the furniture to show off the home in the best way. We also provide suggestions on paint colors, updates on flooring, and what to improve in the home to help maximize the sale price for the clients.
Over the years, the business has grown so much and we have been very fortunate to have many cheerleaders on our side. The most thing I am incredibly proud of and humbled by is that our growth has been by word of mouth only. To me, this shows that our clients truly believe in our work and are 100% behind what we do. I feel what sets us apart from our competition is that we are more of a boutique company and try to give our clientele the most personal service possible. We have accessible pricing, are more flexible in squeezing in last minute stages, and will do our best to go above and beyond to achieve what are clients need and desire. We love what we do and it is evident in the work we bring to the table.
How’d you meet your business partner?
In the beginning of creating Acute Designer, I had the pleasure of working with a passionate woman, Grace, who knew how to get a business off the ground. She helped create our website and educate me on the in’s and out’s of social media. Her passion was mesmerizing and truly helped me get excited about where the business could go. It was fabulous working with her but she also had two other companies at the time she was focusing her attention towards. I know her heart was there but I knew I would need a long term partner to keep the momentum going and the business growing. I met Victoria at bible study and over the weeks, Victoria was very interested in what I did. We would talk after bible study and she asked if she could tag along one day to see the process. Her drive, enthusiasm, and experience pushed me to ask her to take over as partner. Best decision I made.
Victoria has been my voice of reasoning, my wing woman, my stress reliever. She has continued to help me reevaluate goals for our business and see things through. I am so thankful we were brought together to create the success that Acute Designer has seen over the years. Without her help and determination, I do not think this business would be where it is today.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
The creation of Acute Designer has a unique beginning. There was no capital to start the business. I just had my savings. My savings helped pay the bills in the beginning. I always joked that we were funded on passion and heart. When I started the business, I did not have to pay for many expenses except insurance and website fees. That helped greatly. Every job we did, helped increase our profit margin. We when began staging more homes than designing, we would ask for upfront costs in the contract so we could purchase the inventory in order to stage the home. Gradually, we were able to make a little more each job. In the beginning, we were the movers, the stagers, the schedulers, just so we could keep costs down. Since our credit was so high, we were able to get a credit card through our bank to help increase the inventory of furniture. It was imperative that we did not have debt so we decided to sacrifice a year of pay in order to pay down all the debt from the new inventory and create a cushion in our bank account to bring us back to black. This was a crucial step in the beginning because we now have continued to profit over the years and pay ourselves! It was very tough during that year of no pay. I ended up taking on a full time job for 10 months and worked 7 days a week and nights to help make this happen. I sacrificed a lot but had lots of help from family to support this decision. Victoria worked over time as well to cover the days I could not stage. I look back and feel good about the steps we took in the beginning to help impact where we are today. Many people thought we were crazy not having the capital to start but I look at it as a challenge that we creatively overcame. I even have shared our story to several people looking to get into the staging world. I love sharing our beginning because I am so proud of where we have come.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.acutedesigner.com
- Instagram: @acutedesigner
- Facebook: @amy.acutedesigner