We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katrina Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katrina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

We started with yardsales, facebook marketplace and flea market. Remodeling, refurbishing, and reupholstering used furniture was the perfect niche and quickly caught on and got us popular, as the demand increased and the inventory began to burst at the seams of our garages, storage units and flea market booths we quickly went on the hunt to find the perfect startup home to nest our growing business.

Katrina, 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?

Katrina has become a licensed residential and commercial contractor, which comes as no surprise because she has always had an eye for design and remodeling, as a result she has acquired AirBnB properties that include focal wall features that reflect her true eye for design. Monica specializes in interior design of both the residential and commercial spectrum. Her 20 plus years of experience has magnified her staging and special occasion decoration skills.
Combined they have developed their own superpower to turn the most underdeveloped, unappealing projects into jaw dropping masterpieces. Their journey began when the duo realized they had 6 storage units bursting at the seams full of unique pieces of furniture and décor. Eventually they were tired of paying the enormous storage fees and ready to introduce their talents and services to the world. In January of 2021 the journey gained some traction when they started to experiment with flea markets in the Benton, Arkansas area but their vision has always been greater, they dreamed of a brick-and-mortar store front. After eight amazing months in the flea market industry the owner decided to sell his building, forcing Monica and Katrina out of the nest and on to a new adventure. The only option was to go back into the cycle of finding storage units or to acquire a new home for their dreams to continue to flourish with only two weeks of time to do so. Needless to say, here we are at the first This N That location, the first brick and mortar, the start of a new journey.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

We met through Monica’s cousin and my best friend “Jaimie” in 1995 and have been friends ever since. We both had a mutual interest in design and opening a furniture storefront which we finally did in 2022.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Our business was funded by liquidation majority of our old inventory. We sold through flea markets, yard sales and from our day jobs.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thisnthathomedecor.com
• Instagram: this_n_thathomedecor
• Facebook: This N That Home Decor

Image Credits
These are my pictures