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

Shamika, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

It was 2017, my partner and I were living in a one-bedroom apartment with one closet in the entire apartment and I found out that I was going to become a mother. It was about 3 months before our lease was up and our landlord requires 3 months notice, so we had to make the decision to either immediately give notice to move or renew our lease. We weren’t ready to move, so we decided to stay for another year. That meant that we had to figure out how to prepare our one bedroom, one closet apartment to support a family of 3. I’m a researcher by nature, so I immediately hit the internet for inspiration. There was none! I found about 3 blog sites that spoke about having a baby in a one bedroom apartment, but i knew there had to be more people actually experiencing a similar situation. That’s what sparked the idea of me becoming a resource to fill the gap in the market.

I had started blogs before– I had a natural hair blog back in 2009 and a makeup blog in 2014/15 (?), but nothing ever stuck. I had a passion for interior design and toyed with the idea of going back to school for a degree in interior design, but by the time I realized that you could even have a degree in interior design, I already had 2 degrees and a 6 figure student loan debt, so that wasn’t an option for me. I toyed with the idea of creating a blog about small space design, began to document my journey, and then got swept up in first time motherhood.

By 2019, I was exhausted of working for other people’s passions. I hadn’t made any real progress in my business idea and I had worked through my entire pregnancy with no maternity leave (because I was an independent contractor). I was wiped out to say the least. When 2019 rolled around, I made a commitment to myself to pour the same work ethic I share with others into my own passion. On January 11, 2019, I registered my domain maximizingtiny.com. Then, on February 7, 2019, my first born’s first birthday, I found out I was expecting my second child and tabled all progress on building the business.

It wasn’t until January 11, 2020 after working another year for someone else’s passion through another pregnancy with no maternity leave that I actually recommitted to my own passion and began to build Maximizing Tiny Interiors.

Shamika, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a mom of 2 young kids and I live in Jersey City, NJ . I have a Bachelor’s degree in English and a Masters in Business Administration with a specialization in Project Management.

My business focuses on designing small spaces because I noticed the lack of focus in that area in the interior design industry. I personally knew so many people struggling to make their small homes function optimally and I had solutions. I decided to craft my business to cater to smaller homes — not just the aesthetic aspect, but also the function of small spaces. Many times in design, small spaces are overlooked because massive homes are glorified in the interior design space, but so many of us live in smaller homes and I firmly believe that we deserve to have homes that function beautifully, too!

My superpower is optimizing small spaces to maximize function while maintaining a cohesive aesthetic. I want the world to know that you can live small and still have a big life and big style and big joy.

We offer a variety of services including full service interior design for renovations and new construction projects, as well as furnishing selection and styling to clients worldwide. The foundation of our work is our time-tested principles and strategies crafted specifically for small spaces to maximize function and optimize every detail of our clients’ home life.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I started my page in 2019 sharing photos of my own home and stories of projects I was working on. I tried to build relationships with other accounts within my niche and engaged with accounts authentically. It took me a full year to build 1000 followers. In 2020, Apartment Therapy reached out to me to be featured on a house tour. After my feature was launched I grew 2000 followers over night. Since then, the algorithm has changed quite a bit so organic growth is hard to come by, but my advice would be to continue to share what you love, be your authentic self, and develop a strong voice because you never know who’s watching.

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

I’m not sure if the gurus would recommend this, but I started my business with $0 with no solid business plan. Actually, I know that business gurus would recommend against that, but I had to give myself a push to get out of my own way. Maximizing Tiny Interiors is not the first business idea I ever had, I had written business plans before, got logos made, met with mentors, attended business lectures and conferences before, etc, and never ended up starting the business.

With Maximizing Tiny Interiors, I started with the backend of my business first. I outlined my process, service offerings and contract on Google Docs and reached out to folks on Facebook groups who I thought might be interested in the services I was offering. That is how I booked my first client. Through the funds earned from my first client, I built my website and I’ve been building capital for my business like that ever since.

Having a healthy initial capital to start my business wasn’t an option for me, but I figured it out my way.

Contact Info:

• Website: maximizingtiny.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/maximizingtiny

Image Credits
Melissa Cacioppo