We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Hargrave. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.

Sarah , appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

I think every entrepreneur feels, at some point, that starting a new venture is the riskiest decision of them all. Instead of taking the time up front to plan, analyze, and develop my strategy, I decided to jump right in and figure it out as I went. I simultaneously opened a retail storefront and art gallery, which immediately fed the interior design business, and the success of those two verticals supported my love for custom furniture design and manufacturing. The Collective became an umbrella for those three entities and that was not planned, however, each piece supports the other in many different ways. I am not an impulsive person, typically, and will analyze something until I’ve considered every angle, but things took off so quickly that I didn’t have that opportunity and I’m glad I didn’t. I think that if I had taken my normal over-analytical path, we wouldn’t have scaled as quickly and efficiently as we have.

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’m Sarah Hargrave, Owner and Principal Designer of The Collective which is a full-service interior design firm, a brick-and-mortar retail store and art gallery, and a custom furniture manufacturer based in Dallas. Our design firm works with architects, builders, and homeowners across Texas to provide beautiful, turnkey environments from concept to implementation. Our retail space supports artists from across the country alongside unique textiles, home accessories, rugs and our custom furniture line. The Collective Label Custom Furniture Program is manufactured in Dallas and supports our brick-and-mortar environment, numerous design firms throughout the US, and our full-service interiors clients. With supply chain issues that are plaguing the industry currently, we are able to offer faster lead times, higher quality, and bespoke services that are simply unmatched by larger vendors. The Collective operates on the premise that design should be approachable and attainable, not intimidating or stressful. We bring a calm, laid back approach to every project and every client that walks through our doors.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The pandemic provided us with a huge growth opportunity, although at the beginning of quarantine, I thought that all my hard work building my business was going to vanish before my eyes. Everyone was sent home, I moved everything from my design studio to my house, and after feeling sorry for myself for about 24 hours, I scheduled a Zoom meeting with my team. We were on that call for nearly 4 hours bouncing ideas off one another and trying to figure out the best way to carry on. The two biggest takeaways were to push our e-commerce as hard as possible and to throw money at the custom furniture business. Our e-commerce was consistant before but not a huge revenue stream. Once quarantine began, we pushed it as hard as we could on our social channels and it absolutely exploded. As supply chain issues started to become evident, our workroom purchased as much material as humanly possible. The lead times of the larger vendors continued to creep up, sometimes exceeding 8-10 months, we became the go-to source for casegoods and upholstery.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

We manufacture custom furniture, everything from dressers, coffee tables, and dining tables, to sofas, chairs, and sectionals. I had always loved designingn furniture but I knew it would be an expensive endeavor. One of my design clients had the need for a custom sized burlwood cocktail table that had no sharp edges and I couldn’t find what I wanted. I did my research and due dilligence and found a great partner who could see my vision and was willing to manufacture my first collection. Manufacturing product is not for the faint of heart, especially furnishings. We’ve had to tweak pieces over the years so that they are at their best from a durability and aesthetic standpoint. Sometimes that means adding an inch here or changing out the ferule on a dining table. It’s very tedious but so rewarding to see something come out of the workroom that I drew on a piece of paper. The other challenge is shipping. We have by no means figured out shipping 100% but it’s something that has improved every year. It’s a difficult conversation with a client on how much shipping costs in today’s environment especially in the age of amazon and wayfair.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thecollectivedallas.com
• Instagram: @thecollectivedallas
• Other: pinterest/thecollectivedallas

Image Credits
images 3,4,5 and my headshot are emery davis photography. i took the rest.