Kathy Kuo says there are simple steps designers can take to grow their business

As CEO of Kathy Kuo Home, interior designer Kathy Kuo heads up a New York-based design firm with projects that extend far beyond the city’s borders. Kuo and her team continue to expand the luxury furniture and interior design services business while remaining focused on the core values that first supported growth of the brand.

Kuo, one of the upcoming keynote speakers at Las Vegas Market (her presentation, “Trends That Sell: The Best-Selling Items for 2024 and Beyond” is slated for July 29), recently spoke with Designers Today about her business strategy as well as some of the key tactics that she feels interior designers can use to fuel growth. Described by her team as an “activist for female entrepreneurs,” Kuo is on a mission to “support women to intentionally grow and scale value-focused teams” and offers a few tips to help her fellow designers get the conversation started.

“I think a fundamental one (strategy) is to know your ‘why,’” Kuo said. “Do some deep thinking and writing work and write down your value to this world and what deeply resonates with you. For example, I recently met a woman and she was actually a Christmas tree designer, and I was just fascinated by this. I asked her, ‘Are you basically an elf? Tell me more.’ She had such a unique niche, and it was the thing that really just lit her up. I told her that she must be so successful in this space because she’s not trying to do everything and everybody knows she is just the best game in town for this. Everyone needs to find the thing that lights them up like this — where they’re just so excited to be doing this day in and day out.”

Kuo notes that her first tip might seem somewhat generic and obvious, but she uses it to launch into her second tip, one that is likely to leave many designers nodding in agreement.

“The second tip is to do the things you’re good at,” she said. “I’ll just say that I have so many things that I’m just really not great at, and I’m having these same conversations with my daughter as I reflect on all my blind spots and she’s thinking about what classes in school she wants to pursue. Recognizing what you’re not good at is almost as important as recognizing what you are really good at…you really just have to farm it out.”

Kuo explained that she and her team offer support services to fellow designers that allow them to “farm it out,” including logistic and accounting services.

“One of the things we realized is that our designers don’t want to deal with selling product,” she said. “They really don’t want to deal with procurement and logistics, and if somebody’s not happy with an item or it came in the wrong color, the last thing a designer wants to do is field that call. Most designers don’t want to deal with it — it’s such a taxing part of the job. So I say, ‘Farm it out.’”

Kuo also encouraged designers to embrace the technology that can help them become more efficient and effective.

“Everybody uses Photoshop,” she said. “And so AI (artificial intelligence) is honestly no different than Photoshop. If you think about where AI is going to be in about 12 to 18 months, you will not actually be able to tell the difference between something shot by a photographer that’s been lightly edited and Photoshopped versus something that’s AI generated. So I think that there’s kind of a mind shift change happening. My daughter, who’s 11, uses AI to create songs, to write stories and to create videos. She doesn’t’ see it as any different than any other app or technology that is out there.

“It’s how we look at it,” Kuo continued. “This is already using Google in marketing, in content. We use it in image manipulation…you get things done faster, but you’re still doing the work of editing and making sure that the voice and tone sounds right. By the way, I’m neither excited for it or not excited for it—it just is what it is. It’s like saying, ‘Are you scared about electric cars?’ It’s here.”

As for her own “musts” when it comes to her business growth and strategy, Kuo offers a surprisingly simple response.

“I would say it’s unfortunate that the world we live in today includes so much dissonance and discord based on beliefs and values,” said Kuo. “I think the ‘musts’ are really living your true self—define the things that you deeply believe in and live that truth.

“What it fundamentally comes down to is that outside of the five senses we understand—touch, taste, smell, auditory, and vision—I believe there is a sixth and seventh space. The sixth is one of how we inhabit a space, how we move in a space. And the seventh is balance and harmony … Creating more balance and more harmony in your space, in your family, in your community and hopefully in this world, that is a must.”

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