Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brittanie Elms. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Brittanie, thanks for joining us today. Is your team able to work remotely? If so, how have you made it work? What, if any, have been the pitfalls? What have been the non-obvious benefits?
Our entire team is remote. Most of our team is in the united states and we have one team member in Europe. Communication and clear expectations are the most critical. There are so many communication nuances when you are working in person that are taken for granted. The ability to just lean over and ask when you need clarification on something, for example. Instead, working virtually requires you to be well documented and proactive with your communication and requests. Some challenges we still experience are know when someone is online or working on something. In an office you can see someone head down and know they are busy, but virtually, Unless someone sends out a blast saying “I’m busy” it’s harder to tell. Benefits are that people can work where they want. We do not have the cost of a brick and mortar, which is great. The downfall is that this also means that people are often at home which can have it’s own distractions like dirty laundry or kids at home. Our team logs their time when they are working, so they are able to carve out time in the day when things are quiet and get to work. We are not paying a blanket total for work.
Brittanie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I have always been that person who has struggled to settle and make a decision. I didn’t even date in high school because of the thought of ” what else could be out there?” When I got to college, I struggled to settle on a major. I changed my major at least five times. I job hopped even more. I worked somewhere until I felt like I got all I wanted out of it, and then I would move on. The first job I had that I loved was working in a non-profit that supported individuals with developmental disabilities. We helped them develop their personal and work skills and helped advocate for them to live lives they were excited about. The downside was that it paid beans. While I worked there I was nearing college graduation and the birth of our first child. I had perfectly planned my last term to happen right before I was due to give birth, but, as luck would have it, there was a clerical error that resulted in me having to take one more class. That class happened to be a career exploration class. The tests and projects we had to do led me to explore a career in interior design. It was the perfect timing because while I loved my job, the commute was an hour each way and I would be spending over half of my take home pay in child care and fuel to pay someone else to be with my baby. An assignment for the class to meet with someone in my field of interest led to me meeting with a local interior designer who just happened to be in need of an assistant. The commute was the same distance, but I got to name my hours and my rate and have the flexibility to work around my husbands schedule so one of us will always be with our kiddo. I wanted to prove to her that she had made a good decision, so I spent every spare minute trying to learn about the industry. I listened endlessly to podcasts about interior design and began to notice a trend. Everyone I heard on the podcast was needing someone to do the services that I was doing every day for this designer. In addition, since I had started working from home 1-2 days a week, I realized that I didn’t really need to be in the office to do them. I realized that the services I was providing could solve so many pain points for other designers, too. That’s how my business began: as a way to offer virtual support to interior designers who needed help behind the scenes. Originally, we focused on floorplans, design presentations, and sourcing, but as I listened to designers and understood their deeper struggles, I knew we could do more.
Today, we specialize in helping interior designers streamline their businesses so they can focus on the creative work they love. We offer procurement management, CAD and design services, HoneyBook onboarding, and systems strategy and setup. Essentially, we act as an “interior design business in a box,” providing the tools, processes, and support designers need to grow and thrive. Whether it’s managing complex orders, creating polished design documents, or building workflows to handle client onboarding and project management, we’re here to make their work seamless.
What sets us apart is our understanding of the industry and how to bridge the gap between creativity and operations. I’ve helped solo designers grow into teams, supported businesses through major transitions (like maternity leave), and even trained new team members to keep operations running smoothly. The systems we build aren’t cookie-cutter—they’re customized to the designer’s unique needs and scalable as their business grows.
I’m most proud of the relationships we’ve built with our clients. We’re not just a service provider—we’re an extension of their team. Seeing a designer reclaim their time, grow their client base, and achieve the work-life balance they’ve been craving is incredibly rewarding.
For anyone reading this, here’s what I want you to know: We’re passionate about making your interior design business easier to manage and more successful. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the logistics of running your business—client onboarding, sourcing, procurement, project management—we’re here to help. Our goal is to give you the tools, systems, and support to let your creativity shine and build the business you’ve always dreamed of.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Mindset continues to be my biggest challenge. I have to unlearn the limitations I have observed and adapted from other people, playing small, feeling guilty about money and needing others to give approval to what we are accomplishing. It’s a dangerous combination! The truth is that there will always be people happy to invest in your services and products and those what will never see value in it no matter how incredible it is. I am perfectly happy with a Target purse, an unless gifted it, I probably won’t be rocking Gucci any time soon. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a great product, but they aren’t waiting for my validation. The people who love them love them fiercely.
It is a constant practice to check myself and identify when these limiting beliefs come into play. It can be a challenge to be able to discern between what is a real fact and what is something I am falsely believing.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
My business began as a side hustle. I was still working at the design firm, but had chosen to work part time since that is what she needed and that allowed me to work around my husbands scheduled. However, going to a part time job but a big stress on our finances. I never imagined that I could turn this into a full time career. Originally, my goal was to make just a couple hundred dollars a month. We pivoted our services from just floorplans, presentations and sourcing because they were so project based and it resulted in us having to constantly seek and sign new clients. We started 3 month procurement and assistant packages. This helped create predictability in our income. I started my business in February 2017 and went full time in my business in October 2018. I remained solo until late 2019, and then 2020 created a big boom for our business. At our peak we had a team of 12. We are currently a team of 8 and right now that feels a lot better. A big part of scaling is realizing that you need to take yourself our of the central piece of it. Even if you are the face, it doesn’t mean you need to do everything.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mydesignassistant.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/my.design.assistant
