What the IMAGE Magazine interview made me realise about building a business

When IMAGE magazine invited me to share my start-up story, I assumed I'd simply be answering questions about how Designs for Growth came to be. Instead, the interview prompted something I hadn't expected. It made me look back.

Like many business owners, I'm usually focused on what's next: the next client, the next project, the next idea, the next stage of growth. I rarely stop to think about how far I've already travelled. Sitting down to answer those questions forced me to retrace the path, and in doing so I realised that the story made far more sense in hindsight than it ever did at the time.

People often imagine there was a defining moment when I decided to become an entrepreneur. The truth is much less dramatic. There wasn't a single leap of faith or a perfectly formed business plan. There was simply a series of experiences that gradually built on one another, even though I couldn't see the connection at the time.

Living in Paris sparked my interest in design and different ways of thinking. Returning to college in my forties gave me the technical skills I needed to work in digital design and marketing. Along the way I found myself volunteering to build websites for organisations that needed help, discovering Squarespace, and realising how much I enjoyed translating complex ideas into something clear and engaging.

When my marriage ended, those experiences suddenly took on a different significance. What had been a collection of skills became the foundation of a business. I wasn't starting from scratch nearly as much as I believed I was. I was drawing on years of education, life experience and professional curiosity that had quietly been preparing me for this chapter.

That reflection also reminded me how much Designs for Growth has evolved. In the early days, people came to me because they needed a website. Today, they still think that's why they're getting in touch, but the conversations almost always go somewhere else.

More often than not, the website isn't the real issue. The business has grown, the founder has grown, their ambitions have grown, but the brand is still telling the story of who they were a few years ago. Their offers have multiplied, their positioning has become blurred, or they've simply reached the point where the business they have built no longer reflects the business they want to build next.

Over time, I realised that this wasn't a design problem at all. It was a strategic one. The visual identity, the messaging and the website all matter enormously, but only after you've answered the bigger questions: Where is this business going? What do you want to become known for? What needs to change if the next chapter is going to look different from the last?

Those questions became the foundation of the way I work today. They weren't invented in a brainstorming session or borrowed from a textbook. They emerged naturally after years of noticing the same patterns in conversations with founders who had outgrown the businesses, and the brands, that first got them started.

Perhaps that's what I appreciated most about the IMAGE interview. It wasn't simply an opportunity to tell my story. It reminded me that growth rarely happens in a straight line, and that the experiences we dismiss as unrelated often become the very things that make us different.

If you're building something of your own, whether you're just starting out or several years in, it's worth looking back from time to time. You might discover, as I did, that the thread connecting it all has been there all along.

And if you'd like to read the full interview, you can find it here.