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

Tiffany, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today

I would do so many things differently if I could go back to day 1. I’d say the biggest thing I’d do differently is to start small. I tend to be overly ambitious and jump to step 5 before really mastering the first 4. It’s gotten me into trouble quite a few times over the years and I definitely paid the price. Growth happened at a much slower rate for me because I didn’t take the time to really develop my skills and understanding of how to run my business the correct way. I also would have held a second, part time job to really keep myself afloat financially, but at the time, I didn’t know how to do that and be a single mom running a business. I let my business consume me to the point of overflow and burnout. It’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned and I’m now putting that understanding into place. I’ve hit a growth spurt and decided to take it one step at a time to make sure I do things right and keep things balanced so that I’m not spread too thin. Entrepreneurship really is a journey filled with so many learning experiences.

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?

My name is Tiffany Gomez and I am owner of Gomez Design Studio, a women led sustainable design studio specializing in the fabrication of custom furniture and architectural surfaces using local construction waste lumber. I started my journey in a rather unconventional way 7 years ago, as a newly single mother to a 3 month old baby. I was in a very difficult place in my life, but decided to start my business anyway. I didn’t have any knowledge of business nor a solid plan in place, but I just went for it. I taught myself how to use tools and picked up any material I could find. Being in NYC, you have an endless supply of materials people are throwing away, so this made it easier on my pockets. I didn’t have any significant start up costs to worry about. I just knew I was on a mission to challenge the perception of what we consider waste and create a unique line of products that exemplifies this vision. That, paired with my design degree, just really provided me with all of the foundation I needed to just start. And after experimenting with different types of wood I found, I eventually stumbled upon a material that seemed to work best at executing my personal design direction: lath. I’ve been working with lath ever since and use it to create very pattern rich table tops. My furniture has become the trademark of my brand and I make sure that all of the work is original and one of a kind. One of the things I am most proud of is relationships I have built with my clients. There needs to be a great deal of communication and trust when creating for a person’s home. Understanding my clients’ needs is important to me and I am grateful that they give me the opportunity to design something they will keep in their home for many years. The relationships that I am building with people is just as important to me as the physical items I am making for them.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I do manufacture all of my products at the moment, though I am looking to grow my team and bring other artisans on board. My decision to have other people assist with executing the physical work comes from knowing just how difficult and time consuming it can be to be the only one fabricating work at this scale. Especially as a single mom. It’s no easy task! But the story of how this started is pretty unconventional, as is most of what I do in life lol. When I started, I initially wanted to have others make my designs for me and I actually found someone who I thought was capable of doing the work. I was very wrong. The table that I had designed did not come out the way that I wanted and instead of finding someone else to make it, I decided to do it myself. At that time, I didn’t have many connections or know anyone else in this industry, so I was very easily discouraged from this first time fail. So I went out and bought my first table saw at Home Depot, watched videos and learned how to use it. I worked in the alley between my apartment building and the neighboring building and hauled material up and down the stairs a few times a week. It was brutal, but I kept at it. I started with some small things like coasters, and quickly jumped into making table tops/ wall art. Thankfully, I understood how to make things given my design degree, but having lacked any real life experience in fabricating my own product made production a lot harder for me in terms of efficiency. From a business perspective, time was costing me a lot of money. Granted, it may not have been the best way to start, but I learned so much from the experience.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

To date, Etsy has been a great resource for me to build new client relationships. When I first started out, I didn’t have the bandwidth to market myself, but being on Etsy helped me get recognized by so many people. As a result, I’ve shipped work all over the country and have been featured in several campaigns for Etsy, including their most recent one this month entitled “Keeping Commerce Human”. It resulted in me having my own billboard in Soho as well as in Manchester, Birmingham, and London, as well as smaller ads featured throughout these cities. Shipping work all over the U.S wouldn’t have been possible without being on this platform. And maybe now, with the recent campaign release, I’ll be able to take my work international.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.gomezdesignstudio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gomezdesignstudio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gomezdesignstudiony
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-gomez-a37466263/
• Twitter: https://x.com/gomezdesignbx
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gomezdesignstudio