Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Emily Strauss. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Emily, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

At 16 I was an independent artist (and high schooler). I went door to door painting murals at a very young age. In college is when the industry and my online presence exploded and I couldn’t keep up with the demand. I was studying fine art so finding assistants to help me was the easy part. Managing them and the quality control as if I painted everything myself was the challenge. However over time I was forced to delegate this due to severe health issues that kept me off the field work. The entreperural side of me took over stronger than the artist side of me. The idea of mural painting was always an independent art so I thought, why not have all independent artists under one platform and have us do the selling and logistics for them !
This is how the structure of the business was born and over the years, Technology has been inplimented more and more to be able to manage projects across the US !
As of 2024, We are officially rebranded as Murals of America with a very clear identity within the mural industry as a roster of talent servicing murals of all scales across the nation.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got into my industry completely organically. I was influenced to paint murals in my youth and painted on literally every surface in my childhood home. My mom who worked from home had clients see my work and commissioned me. At the time I charged nothing ! $500 for a full blown mural haha
But it taught me that this could be a business. So I put a website together, it sat online and within the next few years, murals became one of the hottest trends and the web presence exploded. We were ad still are ranked #1 on google listings so organically and almost overnight, my word to mouth business became a viable business.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I was diagnosed with Lyme disease which impacted my physical and cognitive abilities. My health is still wonky but back when I was 17, I could barley walk and was on IV drips 4 times a day for 2 years! Therefore, I could not finish high School and barley was able to finish college.
I do have insecurities from this feeling quote and quote slow and “stupid” not being able to form sentences half the time that I truly over compensated by becoming a work a colic and proving to myself what can be accomplished despite what people may have thought me back then. I just can’t shake that day the high school told me you will never pass your GED, you will never go to college, and drs saying your brain may be like this forever that I had to prove a point to myself. It is still to this day my driving force.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

Oh yes ! Let me tell you, Covid in the business world is a whole underground world of issues that only business owners see. The financial hit was difficult as we were shutdown for 7 months. Businesses got desperate to survive they took government offered loans which hopes to pay it back. 80% of businesses cannot pay it back. We had no idea what would come post covid; Sales dropping, inflation on goods and overhead, the WFH movement killing commercial construction plans. In basically every industry whether you are in food, hospitality or service business like us, people just stopped spending money from 2022-2024.
This is the first year in a while that we are seeing an economic balance on how sales were pre covid. Many businesses did not make it and the turn over of stores now for rent across America are the devastating aftermath coming from the impossible covid loans. I am here to tell the story and the business is thriving but I would be lying if I didnt say it was touch and go and I not afraid for people to know this about us. I am so protective and dedicated to this business I will do anything and everything to make sure we survived. and we did….Stronger then ever! But trust me I did not sleep for 3 years behind the scenes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.muralpainterinc.com
• Instagram: muralpainterinc
• Facebook: muralpainterinc

Image Credits

Murals Of America