Episode 116 - Creating Moments of Delight: The Oho Interiors Philosophy

#116 | Melissa Oholendt | Oho Interiors | Creating Moments of Delight: The Oho Interiors Philosophy

In this heartfelt episode, Mark sits down with longtime friend and collaborator Melissa Oholendt of Oho Interiors. From wedding photography to running a full-service interior design firm, Melissa shares how personal experiences, creative resilience, and an obsession with “moments of delight” shaped the mission behind Oho. Expect laughter, vulnerability, and real talk about what it takes to build a brand—and a home—that changes lives.

Listen to the full episode:

About Melissa Oholendt

Melissa Oholendt found her passion for interior design in her youth; buying shelter magazines with her allowance from picking strawberries in the backyard and painting her bedroom that perfect shade of navy blue.

However, after beginning her interior design college education in 2001, it took more than 15 years, a fast paced career for a distressed debt hedge fund in Minneapolis and a decade long entrepreneurial career in photography, for Melissa to step into her purpose in 2019, where Oho Interiors began.

Melissa has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Architectural Digest, LivingEtc, Domino Magazine, Rue Magazine, Business of Home, Homes & Gardens and more.

You can also find her on a few podcasts such as Consider the Wildflowers and Bus Bench Babes with more coming in 2025. In 2024, Melissa launched a shop in collaboration with the luxury brand, Perigold, was named a Top 40 Expert on the prestigious platform The Expert and was a keynote speaker at The Haven Workshop in Sonoma, California.

Resources:

Find Oho Interiors’ Website here

Follow Oho Interiors on Instagram here

See Oho Interiors on Pinterest

• Transcript

  Mark D. Williams  00:00

  If you haven't registered for the contractor coalition summit yet, please head to the curious builder podcast.com, under events or directly to the contractor coalition summit.com for event details. It's June 19 through the 23rd if you're looking to level up your business and take that next step, trust me. As someone who's gone four times, I can't tell you how valuable the information is that is shared, as well as the connections that you make with builders across the country, head to contractor coalition summit.com to learn more and sign up today.

  Melissa Oholendt  00:32

  I definitely am a self deprecating person, and so I bring that element of hopefully comedy. Comedy feels like a strong word, but hopefully a little bit of levity to a situation, to let people know that like I if I'm showing up in front of you, I'm probably not going to be the most polished person in the room, and that's okay, because I don't really want to be that person.

  Mark D. Williams  01:00

  Today, on the cursor podcast, we had Melissa ohland on from oho interiors, and just a delight. I've known Melissa for well over a decade, and her her history and her path into building and designing is incredible, filled with emotion and character and kindness, and she's just such a wonderful human being. And really, at the end, it gets very vulnerable. It's definitely worth tuning in for the full episode to hear that we'll have future episodes with Melissa as well regarding misah, who's in our collaboration. Without further ado, here is Melissa ohland with Ohio interiors. Welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today, I have a very special guest in studio. I have Melissa ohland, who I finally learned how to say your last name from ojo interiors. Welcome Melissa. Thank

  Melissa Oholendt  01:43

  you for having me. I'm just so pleased to be here. This is long overdue.

  Mark D. Williams  01:47

  We've known each other for well over a decade at this point, I would imagine. And I thought, you know, we'll talk later about we're working on a project together called miso Hoos, and I think we're going to do a series of interviews in the next year that'll dedicate just to Misa huse. I just would rather do your story on this particular one. So for those that were tuning in for only Misa Hoos, you're gonna have to wait. It's all about me today. Yeah, it's all about Melissa. Well, let's talk about how we started. Maybe I'll go first and just this like, I think it was roughly 10 years ago, I think I showed you my note in the phone the other day that you and your husband Matt reached out to me, and I actually don't remember why. Meaning, like, Why me? And you wanted to build a wedding venue. Your past life, you were a wedding photographer. Is that right? I was and you said, I want to build a wedding venue. Forget going to to do the photography work. Let's bring them to me. And so we designed this really cool lave house. Is that how you pronounce it? Love a house. Love a house. And so anyway, it's just really fun. We did that for a few years. You moved to Colorado. You became this amazing designer, maybe you always were, and now the world knows it. And here we are, a decade later, working together on homes. And anyway, that's that was kind of my history. But yeah, let's walk through your path of kind of where you started and how you got to be into oho interiors that that we know today. Yeah.

  Melissa Oholendt  03:02

  So I did not go to school for design, I but I've always loved design, so I actually, I guess I take that back. I did start college with the intention of being an interior designer, but had a very well meaning Professor understand that I was looking to be an entrepreneur. It was, excuse me, it was 2001 it was a very different industry than it is now. And they could tell I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And they were like, I think you might want to re evaluate, like, that's just not what the industry was back then. And so I ended up changing courses. Ended up going for a while. I worked in communications, and I moved to Minnesota with my husband to go to law he went to law school. I did not go to law school, and found my way into finance. Worked in finance for a few years, and then really needed a creative outlet, and so photography was a natural next move for me, and it gave me the opportunity to be an entrepreneur, which I had always wanted to be, and so I did that for a decade. That's how you and I met originally. And actually how we met originally is our realtor gave me your name when we had been thinking about starting or building a wedding venue, and so that's how you and I originally got connected and started down that path. We couldn't get financing for it all. All was for the best plan, because that was not the right path for me, but it brought us together, and I photographed her family, and I remember

  Mark D. Williams  04:22

  you took May's baby pictures, because that's why I know it was more than a decade, because May is nine, yeah. And I remember you taking some of our family photos, yeah, what was that? Kelly Bollinger, yeah, yeah, that's funny, yeah, I know. And I think I've gotten an Instagram text from her, just like, I'm so happy that you guys are working together on Mises and like, I think that was so neat about, I think the home space, but design builders, maybe, you know, just the relationships that we've been able to lucky enough to cultivate is just, it's so fun to see people be your cheerleaders, regardless of where you're at in life, because, like, you're just an amazing human being. And so it's like you at the end of the day, like you get to work with people that are very talented and a lot. Align with your business, but the idea that you, the primary reason, is that I just think you're a good person, and I like being around you, and I think we're very lucky in the space to have people like that. I have a lot of people on our team, people that we engage with, our cabinet shop, our trimmers, and on it goes. And I think that's what's sometimes we talk on the podcast about. I feel like, as builders, maybe designers too, but it's like therapy, like we all have had difficult clients, and sometimes that the dark side of a relationship is it can take from you, but we have way more people giving. And I think you surround yourself with really talented but really just good people that you enjoy being around. Yeah. And I feel someone just said this the other day, that they tell their homeowners, it can be my new favorite line is that the hardest thing that you're going to do is assemble your team, and you started with a good person, so, like, that's your intro line, regardless if it's you or me. And it's true, because I'm playing matchmaker. If I'm the first one in the door, I'm like, is Melissa and her team going to be a right fit for this client, right and in this architect, are they the right fit? And as a team, we now have really set the chance for the best success for everybody.

  Melissa Oholendt  06:04

  Yeah, well, and I think what a lot of people don't may not completely understand going into a renovation or new construction project as clients, is how intimate that process really is. You know, we as designers are asking our clients what their bathroom habits are on our literally our first meeting, and we are also, in addition to asking them about their bathroom habits and how they store things in their bathroom, we're also asking them their deepest hopes and dreams and things that probably their best friend best friends really don't know. And so there's that intimacy that really has to you have to hit the ground running with that and maintain that for two to three years like that, that that piece of the puzzle of having people that you really want to work with and people that you're okay being very vulnerable with, and I think on the same side of things, the Build Team has to experience that together, because there is, there are a lot of ups and downs for building in general, and a lot of ways where things can get contentious. So starting with a really good relationship is so foundational for us at Oho. But I think it, which is something that's beautiful with our relationship, is that we already had that. And so working on projects together art Misa, whose project is going to just be a delight, and has been a delight start to finish, so Well,

  Mark D. Williams  07:17

  it's fun. It's funny. It reminds me of two things, like, you're right, because you walk into that first client meeting, you're asking pretty intimate things, like, are you gonna have more children? Are you gonna have any children? Or, like, whoa, this person's coming in pretty hot. Like, Mark, you know, we don't even we've met you for 10 minutes, and you're asking us what our childhood planning is like in the point is, like, you ultimately get through it really quick, because they realize I've been in the room before, where I'm like, the first person to know they're pregnant, yeah. And they're like, we actually are. The reason I'm in town is we're telling our parents this weekend, yeah? And they're like, Please don't tell anyone. I'm like, I actually don't know anyone you know. So Your secret is safe with me. That was before I had a podcast, and luckily, there's a two week delay, so you're good, yeah. But I do think it's important to establish really quickly. I don't think we go into these meetings trying to ask awkward questions, and obviously there's a delivery, but I think it's like a doctor coming in and saying, I think there's a lot of professions that do that. I What reminded me of this story was a titanic reference. Was I had heard that James Cameron, the first scene that they shot was the love scene between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. And I heard the context was, if that they couldn't pull off that scene, then the chemistry wouldn't be right for the whole movie. And because it was the whole movie was, at the time, the best selling movie of all time, and, and I just think that was interesting. He was testing the boundaries of the chemistry. And I think a lot of our first interviews, I was like, Is this someone I can work with? Yeah, I don't think we're doing any sex scenes. That's a little weird. But yeah, please not. But like, I think asking people to lower their guard and just be honest, because we can't be do we can't do our best work unless they allow us to be open. And I think that's true between our partners. Do it, it's not only to the client. We have to be vulnerable and authentic and all those things, yeah, because at the end of the day, the home is so intimate. I asked you, before we recorded, and I think it was really, I just really like it. You said that your core tenant, or the core thing around oho was you want people to experience the benefits of building a life changing moment in their home. Tell us a little bit more about how that came to be and what you mean by that.

  Melissa Oholendt  09:15

  Yeah. So I honestly, my experience with that really started with my own home, and that was really in the very early stages of Ohio. I had, we had bought a fixer upper early COVID. We sort of lost our minds, and we're like, let's move to the country and buy a fixer upper. And it truly fixer upper in every sense of the word. It needed a lot of work, but through the course of going through those renovations and doing we ended up taking on a lot of the work ourselves because of the rising costs of labor and materials during COVID But what we experienced on the back end of it, when the house was finished, was truly having a home that was for the first time in our lives, very custom and very meant exactly for our needs, and that was the first. Time we had ever experienced that. And so we had a home that on our bad days could truly kind of carry us and lift us up, and on our good days could help us celebrate with those who we love. And so that really became a core tenant for me in my life, is the belief that people really need to experience the life changing benefit of living in a home that really has been customized to fit their particular needs and functional needs and emotional needs and all of those things, and how, how good that is for our mental health, and how good that is for just experiencing life. Because if you can take, kind of some of the daily annoyances out of life that are being taken care of by your home, even even something as simple as like, where do I put my bag when I come in the door, if that mental load is lifted off of you, you have a lot more mental energy to spend elsewhere in your life, on things that actually need that time and that energy. So that really has become a core tenant for me, personally, and with Oho, with everyone that is part of our team now that has become really our why we do what we do. It's amazing

  Mark D. Williams  11:00

  that you discovered your Why so early. You know, really, in some ways, your career is fairly young, and you've had such this crazy rise. But I think it's you're so true to your why, it shows out in your work. Yeah, I think you have a very clear I think when people look at your work, and yes, our style is important, or your style is important, and people can grasp onto it. But I think what's interesting is that the why behind it. I think a lot of times, when people look at design, they might see the pretty things, which is fine, but like the why behind that, again, to me, it's another way of telling a story. How do you have any examples of maybe clients that sort of discovered that along the way? And we're kind of you use this, you I like how you use this little I don't know if you say no, you say this, but you often say, this is a little moment of delight. Or you'll say, Oh, this is going to be a little fun little moment of delight. And I really like that, because it's true. Sometimes I'm not a very subtle person, and so I appreciate the subtlety of a home. As you walk in, you didn't expect something. You're like, Ooh, that's a fun little moment of delight. Yeah, walk me through that. How does that come out in your design? And have you had clients sort of recognize that or sort of react to that? Yeah,

  Melissa Oholendt  12:09

  I very much. And May, I don't know that this is common, necessarily, but I approach most rooms that we design, I design we as a team, design really from the perspective that every room should have some sort of moment of delight, whether it can be just an unexpected moment, it can be like a side table that has horse hooves for feet, like it could be something as simple as that, but it could also just be something that is Construction wise, is architecturally built into the house, almost a conversation point of sorts, To just something that really feels unexpected. And so I really do approach design from that perspective, but we have had clients that have come to us, particularly for that saying there's something about your rooms that just feels different from what everything else I've seen or experienced. And especially when they get to experience something at one of our homes, they really say this just feels different, much like, you know, conversation you and I had yesterday that about when people experience your homes, they just something feels different. They

  Mark D. Williams  13:05

  can't articulate, but they can feel it. I think it's a little bit like, you know, Malcolm Gladwell had a well known book called Blink, yeah, and talking about your intuition. And we were always taught as kids, or at least my mom said, Don't judge a book by its outside cover. However, as a human, we're actually trained to do that? Yeah, and actually, humans are really good at doing that. Now I get like, where that comes from? Like, give people a chance. And I not saying my mom is wrong, Mom, you're right. Mom, you're right. But I think trusting your intuition, I had a client the other day I sometimes were wrong. Like, I set up a team that I thought was gonna be successful, and the client called me and said I was curious, why did you pitch this particular interior designer? It wasn't you and and it was And anyway, she just, I went through it, the different reasons, and she said I just didn't feel a connection. And I said, you know, maybe a younger mark or a less mature builder or business owner at that time would maybe have doubled down on that. But as I've gotten older, I realized that, no, you need to trust that. And I said to the client, I said, No, trust your instincts. I said, I work with a lot of talented designers, and by the way, the designer I pitched is very competent and very I brought them for a reason, but if you're not feeling a connection like that's important, and for this is my bias, I feel, personally, I'm not there's no shade at all on architecture builders with a statement. This is just my own personal belief. I feel that the connection between the interior designer and the client needs to be the one with the highest amount of chemistry. I don't know why I feel that way. I just feel that way about it because I feel like they spend you in your field, and your colleagues spend so much time with the client about how they feel and that the fabrics and the furniture and the color, and I'm not trained that way, and I'm not nearly as good in that. And architects are really talented in their own right, in different ways too, and they we all are sort of good in everyone's playground. A little bit. I feel like interior designers are really talented in that one. And. Feel they're just really I get calls from my good designers and that'll say, Hey, Mr. Mrs. Johnson, they could probably use a little phone call check in from you today. I can tell they're just their energy is a little off, and maybe that's because predominantly interior designers are women, and they're more empathetic than men. I don't know, but I'm thinking back right now of designers that have called me and said, I think your client could use a touch in today. They need a little pick me up, because the process is long. It could be a year, two years, and these projects go for a long time. You really get to know people's body language, I guess. How would you react to that statement?

  Melissa Oholendt  15:31

  Yeah, I feel like you articulated something that I don't know, that I've been able to articulate in the industry, but we as designers, and of course, every part of the process of a build process demands trust, but I think from a design perspective, especially because you can build a home without a designer, you can't build a home without a builder or an architect, and so oftentimes, we're being brought in to execute on a vision that a client has, that either they know that they can't execute on themselves, or they don't have time to, and so it demands a lot of trust, because it is, at the base, a luxury service. And I know what we all do is luxury, but what you know hiring a designer truly is the luxury, because you can do it without us, for sure. So I think there's this also, this element of clients feel like and oftentimes because they're engaging with us directly, financially, separate from the builder, at times that they are that we're their advocate in the process. And what we know as designers is that it we really are a team, like it really is best when we're all a team, but we can also help them, make them feel, make our clients feel like we truly are their advocates, and truly be their advocates, while still bringing that sense of partnership to an overall build team in general. So I can see why the chemistry piece of the puzzle needs to be and I agree it needs to be so strong between our clients, because there is that level of trust that we are demanding from them, financially, emotionally, all those things. And also they're handing us a lot of money, and similar to you, but they're handing us a lot of money before they know that we can do what we can do.

  Mark D. Williams  17:06

  It's all based on trust. The whole entire house is based on trust. And in some ways it's if it's not to be, not critical, it's just in some ways surprising. Think about what else in your life do you spend that much money on? And I'm not saying that people don't or shouldn't, do more or less diligence. That's not really I think, I think people trust their gut, going back to the blink thing. I mean, I'll interview somebody one time, and they'll be like, Yeah, you're a builder. Like, we might be building a five, $6 million house, yeah? And like, they don't really ask for references. And I think part of that reference game we often laugh, for all of us, is it's not like you can give people bad references, like they're all I used to have this line years ago that I would tell people I'd be like, Melissa, if you don't want to build for me, don't talk to my past clients like they're raving fans, like they it's got a funny thing to say. I think most people know that. Yeah. I think the one thing that social media has done a really good job of in video content in particular is, you know your people, they show up with who they are, assuming that you're authentic, which I hope you are, regardless of what kind of butterfly you are like, be your, be yourself, yeah, because you will attract the people that are sort of meant to you and vice versa. Yeah, yeah. This episode is brought to you by adaptive. If you're still chasing checks and juggling spreadsheets, it's time to upgrade. Adaptive is revolutionizing how builders get paid with AI powered bill pay, automated draws, one click payments and built in Lean waivers, Faster Payments, fewer headaches and total visibility. Adaptive takes care of the back end chaos so you can focus on what you do best building. We've used adaptive for two and a half years, and trust them to keep our projects moving and payments flowing. Learn more at Adaptive dot build and simplify the Pay Process today. For more information, you can also listen to episode 10 and episode 15. I do think a valuable team is one that talks because sometimes the client, I've had it where the client, whether they meant it intentionally or not, I don't know, but they pit the parties against each other, and that is not obviously, it's a family dynamic. Yeah, the brothers and sisters are fighting like you need to get in the same room and just air it out. It doesn't the family unit needs to stay strong, and I we need to reinforce each other. I've had clients before where they say, You know what, we're tired of paying the monthly architectural fees on construction, administration. Can we let the architect go? And I'll say, No, I said we you started with the architect. They had the whole vision. We're brought on. We're building it. The inter designer is doing this. No, you need to keep the tea together. It's like playing a football game, getting the fourth quarter and be like, oh, yeah, I think we should replace the quarterback. What? There's like, four minutes left in the game. Like that doesn't make any sense. Or the wide receiver, however you want this analogy to go, it just keep the team together. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes they just need to hear that,

  Melissa Oholendt  19:45

  yeah, well. And I think similarly, I think sometimes clients just need to feel like they have someone that is, that is their advocate on that, whether that in actuality, is, is is happening. Because I think oftentimes clients will be like, Oh my gosh. Can you believe that? Happened. And we can say, yep, but the challenge of that is XYZ and kind of help paint that picture and so and give them context for that. Because oftentimes, at least for our clients, this is, you know, the second, third, maybe time that they've done this, or maybe it's the first time they've engaged with a designer period and a full design team in this way. And so giving them context on the process and being each other honestly, like our each other's the build teams advocate too is the best way to have really a best collaborative result, but also have the best results for our clients at the end. Because you never, no one ever wants a client who by the end of it, they're like, oh gosh, if I ever see that builder again, I'm gonna, like, punch him in the face. What we we do not want that. We do not want that period, but we want to make sure that we are contributing and making sure that our clients feel seen and heard at every point of the process. I

  Mark D. Williams  20:48

  think. Shout out to Allison case Anderson from Integra builders. She had this line where she tells her clients that the project is going to fight us. How about we're all on the same team. Let's get the builder, the architect, the client and the designer, all on the same team. We collectively will fight the project, yeah, because the conflict will come. But let it be the project. Let's not let it be internal. I really, Allie, you're awesome. Yeah, Allie, you

  Melissa Oholendt  21:11

  are awesome. That's amazing. One thing I wanted to say about your point about social media, I just did a speaking engagement where I spoke on selling your work, and if you know me, or come to know me, you'll know that I'm the least salesy person you've ever met in your life. I would rather like give you something than sell you something, but it's a natural. I have to be a salesperson. I'm a business owner. I have eight people on payroll. I have to sell things. So I think one of the biggest things that we have to our advantage in this day and age is social media as a sale, sell. Sorry, selling strategy. And I think what I didn't, I couldn't have named it until it started happening for us, but it, what we were finding is that in these inquiry calls that I still take to this day, which I love, is that we would have clients, and at the end of the call, I would say, I know this is a large investment I like, I really respect, and I want you to know that we respect the amount of money that that you're thinking about investing in us, because that does, it communicates to our clients what we do feel at heart, which is that their money is our money, and we don't want to spend it unwisely. What I was finding is that these clients would say to me like, Oh, I know who you are. I've followed you on Instagram for years like I completely trust you. Don't worry about it, because these are only phone calls that I'm having. It's not even a video call. That's my first interaction with them, typically and usually, that's the only interaction I have before they're signing a contract. And so for them to be able to have one phone conversation with me, and not even often, their lead designer for their project, but be willing to say, Okay, I'll spend hundreds of 1000s of dollars with you, oho, without ever having met us in person or having interacted like that, that's such a powerful selling tool. Without selling like and all I'm doing on Instagram is sharing my silly life and sharing like all of the beautiful, hard, technical things that we're doing behind the scenes, from an interior design process, and us having a little bit of fun too, and that was enough of a trust building exercise for clients willing to come in and say, Here's hundreds of 1000s of dollars of my hard earned money like that. That is powerful.

  Mark D. Williams  23:16

  I agree. I mean, Katie Cath used to say the same thing that I asked her one time what our conversion rate was, and I don't know the exact number. Exact number, but it was super high. A, Katie, you're amazing, and B and B, but her point was is they're all most of her leads are coming through Instagram. They're already following their blogs. They're already following their story. They're already their people, because they're following them. And I do think that is not the untold story. We're certainly not the first people to talk about it, but I do think that is something, if you're out there and you're trying to build your brand or and I just am so obsessed with storytelling, that is another part of storytelling. It's your story. It's your life, and it's interesting, because you look at technically like pictures are usually really good at capturing a moment, but they're two dimensional. They're a one shot, you know, and it's beautiful, and it's great. And I'm not there's a lot of artistic nuance there that I want to appreciate. But like a video, like it has softer edges. It's it's painting the picture. And I thought of this analogy earlier that maybe it's fair to say that the builder and the architect are black and white drawings, but the designers add color. And you think about color popping off the page and the depth, and again, it's a collaboration. It's, this isn't meant to be a interior designer love fest, but it is. It's just, I just really love I also think, tell me if you think this is accurate. I was recently mentioning to somebody, to one of our sponsors, about, I think, and this is you do work all over the country. So I'd be curious to your perspective on this. In Minnesota, it has historically been the builders are one of the first because we have the oldest Parade of Homes in the country, 75 years old. The Artisan Home Tour, like people are trained, going to parade homes, and the builders owning land and building homes and coming to them. In other markets, it's architects or designers, but. In Minnesota, it's predominantly art builder first. But I think if you were to have a Venn diagram of these three groups, builders, designers, architects, I think collectively across the country, in terms of if you were getting market share, to how the client comes into building, remodeling or designing, I think the interior designers are fast, very fast, outpacing architects and builders in terms of market share of being the first person in and my my hypothesis on this is social media and photography and video, predominantly because you look at like the power of Pinterest and the power of all these videos, that people see things and they like it. They like it. They're looking at images and videos, but it's not about and that's my hypothesis. Do you think that's true? Have you seen a power shift, not only from before you got into the designer world, but even like now, you've had a meteoric rise? How have you sort of either harnessed that or noticed that?

  Melissa Oholendt  25:56

  Yeah, I, you know, I believe in the power of niching down like, particularly for our business, it has been exceptionally powerful once we really, in a way, I say we, but I mean, I once, I really honed in on who Oh was and who I wanted oho to be. That was really when things started changing for us, and that was both in terms of, obviously, from a brand perspective, understanding, like, who we were, what our voice was, all of those things, but really understanding esthetically, how we were going to show up in the world. And once we niche down, and we're very cottage, traditional like that, that, that is who, oh is you look at all of our photos, and that is, we couldn't be more than more that. But don't give me 12 foot ceilings in house, please. I don't love that. It's not cozy. I won't make it cozy, but it's not cozy inherently. So what I'm saying is that we have a lot of people, especially nationwide projects, who come to us. I mean, all of our clients at this point are coming to us specifically for that esthetic. But we find nationwide, we have a lot of people seeking us out because they don't, they can't find that in their area, or they can, you know, they aren't, they weren't able to find that, but they found us on an Instagram rabbit hole. And so oftentimes we get brought in in that sense. And then I think the personality piece of the puzzle also has to play into that. The personality and the brand and all of those things plays into that. But I think it really does start with like, Oh, you're the first person that I've seen that is designing a house that I have in my head, or Instagram, or, sorry, not Instagram, Pinterest. Pinterest is such a powerful tool, like we talked about earlier today, of being a good driver of sales, because it is so visual, and so someone can see your image on there, have pinned it to a board, and be like, Oh, I see, oh, there's an oh ho image and there's an oh ho image and there's no ho image, like, maybe I need to call this person, because clearly I like their work, and so I think I completely agree with you. I think that there is definitely, from an influence perspective, we oftentimes, for nationwide projects are getting brought in outside of being referred by a builder or an architect, as it usually happens in Minnesota. That's that's typically how it still is happening in Minnesota, but nationwide, we find that we're being brought in alongside or at the same time that the Build Team is being built specifically for our esthetics,

  Mark D. Williams  28:11

  I think. And maybe this is my own ignorance, I think interior designers have gotten much more sophisticated in details from what they used to be. I mean, I think there's, I think builders, you have a huge you have chuck in a truck all the way up to big firms

  Melissa Oholendt  28:27

  I've never, never heard,

  Mark D. Williams  28:29

  oh yeah, there's all kinds of different ones like that. And then same with architecture, right? You have a drafting, you have home design, you have architecture. There's a wide spectrum of drawing. And so I think every field, there's interior designer, there's decorator, there's, I don't even know them all, but there's, there's a lot, and all of them have different levels of education and training, but everyone might be the right fit for the right client. There's a place for all of them. Yeah, and where was I going with this the team? I kind of lost my way when I

  Melissa Oholendt  29:00

  got the builders can, like, build in multiple styles, and architects can design in multiple styles, or no, no,

  Mark D. Williams  29:06

  yeah, I can't remember exactly where I was going with that one, I guess, just as a big range. And, yeah, I have no idea where I was. I got lost on chuck on a truck. No, it's not your fault. It must not have been worth repeating anyway. This, this interruption brought to you by ADHD brains. To combat that brain, sparkling water. They'll come back to me like the middle of the night. Yeah, be like, I'll add it in well as a segue. Since I got my brain is blank here. Where did you So you were in town this week, specifically, as we're recording, we just did a five hour miso Hoos reveal yesterday, which was really powerful. But you're also in town for the Midwest design retreat, and I've noticed that you've been on several speaking engagements here recently. You were at the Vegas market with Brad Levitt and a few other design and then this fall, we haven't announced it, but here, spoiler alert, we're going to be doing one with wink. This fall, I'll be interviewing you. Amy Hendel, Christine Anderson, and I just, I love how our community is really showing up. For each other, but really having the I love the panel approach, where people get to hear multiple points of view. Was that something that you sought out, they sought you out or talk us through. Where does I think? A lot of people often ask like, how does speaking on a panel help your business or your brand? Or is it just something that you enjoy doing? Or, as I noticed, would you say you're getting invited to more and more of these? What is the reason why, and what do you enjoy? Or what do you do with that as an opportunity? Yeah,

  Melissa Oholendt  30:29

  yeah. I think, how does this help me sell more of what I actually do perspective? I do think that there's an element of presenting yourself as an expert, that is definitely a part of our brand. And so speaking on panels and being invited to those things definitely is a part of that. And making sure that we're known as someone who is an expert in the space definitely brings a sense of reputability and reliability to our brand that we're we are a young brand. We five and a half years like we're a very young brand, and so those things, I didn't start out that way to think I want to do those things, but as we have grown and been given opportunities, that has become a part of our sales strategy, honestly. But what I do, think so another thing that we do, we are engaged with someone who does public relations for us. And so I think a lot of what is coming our way now is reflective of that. I was released on a podcast recently. I'm on your podcast like I I've been a part of multiple speaking engagements, and I think part of that is that engagement with that PR rep, and that is specifically to further our brand. One of my future goals is to be involved in brand partnerships and product development and things like that, and to think like a Jake Arnold release for a Crate and Barrel something like that. Part of being a part of those things is making sure that you have a name and a following behind you, to be able to go seek those things out. And I want, and part of that, for me, is diversifying the income of oha. We'll never leave design, design as our first love. I'll always be in design, in some shape or form, whether my team wants it or not. But that is something that for us, diversifying the income of oho feels very, very important, and one of the arms of the business that we can really pursue and capitalize on, for sure.

  Mark D. Williams  32:14

  No, I think, yeah, that's interesting. I'm just amazed. I've mentioned this a lot lately on the podcast, that time is not indicative of how far you've gone in in a business, obviously, time, if you're running, does usually relate that far you've gone if you're running, unless pace goes faster. But I look at around, and a lot of designers that have been around a long time would look at a younger company and like yourself and just be like, Wow, look at how they've grown. That's amazing. And as a fan of the industry, a fan of you personally, just seeing these brands explode and just see all this success is a mix. We're all entrepreneurs. We all understand that what is presented and what reality is, it's not that you're not being authentic. Because I know people say all the time, like for me, like, last year, someone was like, Oh, you're just killing You're doing awesome. And I was like, oh, last year was rough, man, it was I'm like, glad to know marketing is working. I think there's a mix between. For me personally, I think the website is professional, forward facing. It's marketing you're gathering. I think what's cool about social media, and I think also it speaks to your homeowners, like we are human beings. We're people. And you know, I think it's okay to say, like, Hey, you made a mistake. I failed. You know, it should have a series called Fail Fridays.

  Melissa Oholendt  33:28

  I tune in. It's, I think it's relatable.

  Mark D. Williams  33:30

  It is. I've done podcasts where, you know, in some ways, our media train, and it's just, you're just getting served vanilla, yeah, and that's fine. It's their story. They can share how they want. But honestly, I'm not that interested in that. Like, life is hard, business is hard. All the things are hard. I think it's telling it's giving people tools how to get through that, to level up. That. To me personally, that's what attracts me, to listen to your story or someone else's story. And I don't know, do you find that when you're like, listening like, how do you educate yourself on design or like, how have you thought about your brand, not only internally, but as you look around at other brands you either want to model or behave. What have you noticed and what have you tried to adopt?

  Melissa Oholendt  34:09

  Yeah, and I think just to hit on something that you said, that vulnerability, sorry, that word is very hard for me today, but I think that that is something that events like the Midwest design retreat or panel events or the curious collective things like that offer an opportunity for people to be vulnerable with each other, because inevitably, we're all facing similar challenges, and we're all business owners for the most part, so showing up and acting like you have it all together, like that benefits no one is you most of All. And so I what I've experienced is that those events tend to be most honestly, game changing for me personally, but I hope the same the people that are experiencing it as well is when there is an opportunity to be vulnerable and say, like, hey, I really messed this up. Like, hey, one of the first projects I did, I took. $9,000 is a design fee, and it went

  Speaker 1  35:01

  on for three years. Like, oh, no, that's that true story. Oh, it's totally true. And

  Melissa Oholendt  35:08

  it was a beautiful project with beautiful clients, but, you know, I thought those three years I hired employees, but

  Mark D. Williams  35:14

  it was sort of less than one cent an hour. Like, what did you What did you dial dilute that down

  Melissa Oholendt  35:18

  there? Couldn't, I couldn't bring myself to dilute it down. I could not I couldn't do the math because I knew it would make me mad. But I think sharing those things and sharing the failures like that's how we find camaraderie and community, and that's how we learn lessons and honestly recognize our own growth through those things. But the vulnerability of that, it allows someone else to be vulnerable, and allows someone else to have their own moment, whether it's in that room or happens after that event, like that's where the power of those things really is, in the vulnerability and in admitting our mistakes and in doing those things. And I'm happy to I'm probably a little less happy to admit those mistakes on Instagram, but all the time, but I definitely am a self deprecating person, and so I bring that element of, hopefully comedy. Comedy feels like a strong word, but hopefully a little bit of levity to a situation, to let people know that, like, I if I'm showing up in front of you, I'm probably not going to be the most polished person in the room, and that's okay, because I don't really want to be that person. I would much rather be a person that you can connect with on a real level, instead of someone who just shows up and it's like, oh, she's, she's, she has it all together. Like, no, no, she does not. I think

  Mark D. Williams  36:29

  we're also in the home space, right? I mean, most people are. I mean, sure, use the word struggle. I'm thinking, you know, we're balancing life, business, children, you know, all the things that go with life and so being relatable to your clients as well, right? So, like, if you're working for a young mother with children, like, you know, you have a family, I have a family. It's like, it becomes relatable, yeah? Like, and you often tell personal stories. Like, you know, sometimes you'll get to a moment, and I probably share more than the average person with my clients, and they must humor me, but I'll be like, My son did this, and this is like, in a way that it relates to their home. Yeah, Hey, you. Maybe you want to put tile up a little higher, because little boys don't always hit what they're aiming at. Yeah, there's things that we can that will affect design, yeah, in the real life scenarios, especially if you work with people that haven't had children yet, or starting families, we can inject some of the humor without judgment. It's more just, hey, this is what I've experienced. Take it or leave it. But if you're interested, here's a something that might help you in design. Because I think what's really cool about design and building is we're there to solve problems. It's lifestyle, like, I love the word lifestyle. We're trying to or aspirational. I mean, with like misahuis, we are trying to create a home and a philosophy. When it comes down to building the home, the philosophy sort of dictates and helps us inform our decisions within that context. And we're trying to have a home based on wellness, yeah, and because we value that, and how that relates to people is really important, and it can look beautiful and also be healthy. And so how do you do that and that? I think it's the thoughtfulness that goes behind it. I think thoughtfulness doesn't always cost money. It's like, thought, yeah, like, what goes in? Like, when people know that you're thinking about them, and those unexpected moments of delight when you said, Hey, I remember something you said at our first interview, and that comes back, and they're like, Oh, wow. Like, that's special. Yeah, yeah,

  Melissa Oholendt  38:24

  and you and I have talked about this, but unreasonable hospitality, by will gadaris is period, one of my favorite books, and something that we have taken some of those principles to try and incorporate it, not only into our design, but also into our client experience, and making sure that clients at the end of the day. I think so much of trust building is making sure our clients feel seen and heard and known, and so much of that can be done by saying just very simply, like, Hey, you told us that you guys met at, you know, your college. I looked up your alma mater, and I saw what their colors were, and I thought, in your primary bathroom, it could be kind of cool if we did your primary bathroom tile and dark green and white. What are your Alma matters colors? Like having that experience of showing up to a design presentation and letting someone know that you took what they said and you are trying to translate in a way that is in a design led way, but in a way that is so custom to who they are. It brings up joy from their past. Like, how, like, how cool is something like that? Like that is that that just brings that reliability and that trust, that clients can't help but just be like, okay, cool. I can't make another decision without you, which you know really is ultimately our goal,

  Speaker 1  39:35

  whether we say it out like, I agree, yes, you're right.

  Melissa Oholendt  39:39

  Exactly, exactly. So it I think that those moments of delight are important, both in design and in our process. But I also think that experiencing that with the Build Team too is also an opportunity to say, hey, I'll bring your How many guys are on site this Friday, like, let me show up with some pizza and some sodas for Friday afternoon lunch kind of thing that like. You can really contribute and really form relationships in that way. So

  Mark D. Williams  40:02

  Right? Or on April 1, we can get Carl a donut, since we know he hates donuts and it's a joke. I think, I think when you get to know people on a really deep level, it's kind of fun to like, sort of, you know, poke sometimes, like, I mean, as a client. I mean, I think that's what a relationship is.

  Melissa Oholendt  40:16

  You mean, like, that text that you sent this morning about the shower curtain, I did, yeah,

  Mark D. Williams  40:20

  my team, yeah. Well, why don't you explain from your point of view, this episode is brought to you by Pella windows and doors. I've used Pella for 21 years as the exclusive window company on every one of my builds. When people ask me who I trust for windows and doors, it's Pella every time. Their craftsmanship, their innovation, the top tier service, make them a no brainer for any custom home builder or designer who demand the best, whether you're designing something bold or building something with timeless elegance, Pella has you covered. They're also the only window company that has a lifetime warranty on all of their windows. I've gotten to know all their people at Pella corporate, as well as locally. Here at Pella Northland, I'm proud to call them our partners and our friends. Visit pella.com to learn more and connect with your local reps today. Also for more information, you can listen to episode one, where I interview their founders, as well as episode 109 where we talk about the innovation at Pella.

  Melissa Oholendt  41:22

  Thankfully, I saw this on your social media before you sent me the text. But I you know Kate and myself, Kate is one of our lead designers, and myself are the two designers on misahuis, and we had this epically long, wonderful presentation yesterday with with Mark and Carl, and we had talked about a bunch of beautiful things, but I get a video, both Kate and I get a video this morning of Carl and and Mark together saying, like, hey, you know, we just wanted to say a design presentation. Went really well. It was really beautiful. We had this idea. You didn't really show us how what you were going to do in the Jack and Jill bathroom for the shower door. So we just, we have this idea, and all of a sudden this picture of this shower curtain with like a raccoon with like Uzis are is that what? Yeah, giant guns on top of a shark. Is that what it was? Yep, shows up in my text message, and I was in the middle of something, so I couldn't respond, but I in my head, I was like, over my dead body, but like that, those moments of poking and razzing like that, life is short. You

  Mark D. Williams  42:21

  gotta have some humor to your point. I think you I think humor is my number one. I like it when you can get with a client. Sometimes it helps diffuse a difficult situation. I've had a number of times where clients have been like that, quite like, too soon to joke and like, breaks the ice or something like that. And so any how to read the room, that's timing, obviously. And I don't always have it perfect. I've definitely tried to go in with a joke that landed flat. Comes with the territory we all have. I actually think it'd be really, actually, this is a great idea. It'd be really fun to do an open mic, to like your peers, to do like, rent out a comedy Hall and like, and like, just, I would

  Melissa Oholendt  42:52

  just be sweating. That would not, that's not my jam. No, I know. But think about it.

  Mark D. Williams  42:55

  Yeah, you could set a topic like, you know, fail, epic fail stories. Like, I actually have this idea in my head, like, I would love to do a podcast or a video. I don't know what how this looks, but like, all these well known brands, all these well known people, because we all fail all the time, and so like, I would love to do a series of just fail videos, or like fail stories, yeah, and like, but all of them, like, I have, I have, I am successful because I've failed. Yes, it's true. I 100% believe that. I don't quite know how I need a James Cameron to write the story of how to weave that together, but I think it'd be powerful. Yeah,

  Melissa Oholendt  43:27

  I and I agree, because I think there is, if anyone thinks that you know someone that they look at, someone that they admire, and they're like, oh gosh, they must have never failed. Like, that's a fallacy, right? We all, we fail every, every single day, and we just pivot and try something new, and that what's the percentage? Something like 80% of businesses fail within the first five years, or sounds? Sounds probably higher. Who knows? It's and I think it's because failure can be completely debilitating. But the power of a great business person is the the ability to take that, learn from it, and pivot and do something different and pick yourself up. Brad Robinson,

  Mark D. Williams  44:01

  a good friend of mine. He leads one of our curious builder collectives in Atlanta, with Bradford custom homes. He was on the podcast. He comes on quite a bit for 20 minute Thursdays, yeah, and but he said something in his interview last year that really struck with me. He said he goes, I've learned to fail if I fail or No, when I fail, I fail fast. And he tells his team he's a great team builder. He's got like five businesses. He just, he's so good at, he's so talented empowering other people. And he's like, failure is fine. In fact, failure is expected, but that means we can get through it quicker and then rebound. Like, if you have a fail that you just like, just keep just sit in it, like you're not doing anybody any good. Yeah. Moving past, I remember asking Brad Levitt one time in somewhat related is like, how do you manage so much? And his comment was, I never leave anything on the fire too long. Like, basically, I deal with it in the moment and I move on. And there's a principle actually called one touch. Have you ever heard of one touch? And I'm not. I wish I was better at this. But like you, you read an email, you only read it once. You read it, and you respond and you move on. Like you don't let sitting. Inbox. You don't delay, you don't take all the easy ones. I know it's a tough it's a hard one, but it's one touch. So the idea is, like, think of how much more efficient you are if you only touch something once. Like, if you're not going to do it, don't read it. It's, I think it's human nature to take all the easy ones. I mean, there's the book Eat That Frog. Oh, have you heard about the

  Melissa Oholendt  45:18

  concept? No, but I think, did you mention that on a podcast? I think so.

  Mark D. Williams  45:21

  Morgan and I were talking about talking about it recently, too, and she read it. But basically, it's a well known book. It's pretty thin. It's a great read, unless you're in France. Like, eating frogs. Doesn't sound really that appealing. And so the idea is, do the hardest thing first. And so basically, like on my calendar, I have four things I have to do each week that are, like, my four frogs, like the four, like, big mover things, and then I have all these little items, like tasks, and it's easy for me to do all the easy tasks. That's fine, to cross it off, cross it off, cross it off. And then I get to the end of the week, and I've got all the four frogs sitting at the top, and I haven't touched them because I've sort of delayed. I'm like, trying to do everything else, but the hard thing, and the whole concept is do the opposite, and you'll move way farther.

  Melissa Oholendt  45:59

  That is genius. I actually, I really love that. I feel like that. I love that. I'll get you that

  Mark D. Williams  46:04

  book and I'll write you a little inscription. Okay, please. All right. I like that's been my new thing lately. My buddy Tony conda gave me a book and just, it was just, he's a really thoughtful person, and we run three, four days a week together. And he gave me this book called Deep survival, and he wrote in the inscription, he basically just said to read this every year. It brings me a lot of joy. I hope that you find it is inspiring and it's re I love to read. Mostly I listen to stuff while I'm running and exercising. But now I'm trying to make more time to read physical books. And now my new thing is I love buying my favorite books, like I have four copies of unreasonable hospitality in my office next door, and again, to give away. I love that. And so my thing is, like, pick one or two books, write a description and give it to you. So it's kind of been my new favorite thing to sort of give people, you know, that's really meaningful. I like that a lot. Well, thanks, yo. I'll write something really meaningful in the cover of Eat That Frog, long as it's not a raccoon. Yeah, it won't be as good as my every time I call you, I always go speaking of humor. I'm always like, Oh ho, oh ho. Ho. Pirates. Life for me and your your husband, you said, now at this point, is like, mimicking,

  Melissa Oholendt  47:06

  yeah, yeah. He hears it in our he works right above me and our house. And so when you and I talk on the phone, you do that almost every time. And so now he's heard it, and he'll be like, Oh, talking with Mark Hunt. And then occasionally I'll just hear him go, just like, Matt, no, it's

  Mark D. Williams  47:22

  so perfect, so perfect. What are some things that you're really excited about for the rest of this year? Kind of, what's on Ohio's plate for expansion? I mean, you live in Colorado, for those that don't know, but you lived in Minnesota for a long time. You've all roots here. Yeah, a lot of your team is here. You've got kind of a split team, yeah, walk us a little bit through, how do you it's unique. How do you manage a lot of designers live in one place and then travel everywhere. You're this unique, modified thing. You live in Colorado, but Minnesota is also a hub. But then you also go other places too. It's like, you have two homes, yeah? How do you how do you balance that? How do you and how do you like, really, like, I don't know. Mark, thanks for asking me the unsolvable question. That's my frog question.

  Melissa Oholendt  47:58

  Yeah. Yeah, it is. It was not intended to be this way. Honestly, I thought when we moved to Colorado, I really thought that the business would move with me. We did that, and it'll be two years tomorrow, actually. So I thought the business would move with me, re establish in Colorado and grow from there. But what it really did, and part of that is under the leadership of who I left as the senior designer here, Kate. Shout out to Kate, is that it really rooted down and it really grew. And so I think that there's a lot to that. We had a really strong Minnesota referral base, and that was really beautiful. And now we've had, now we have two full design teams here, and then we have myself leading another design team in Colorado, with another designer with me in Colorado, and I spend about a week a month back here in Minnesota. And in fact, we're going to spend, we're coming back here for the month of June and half of July, to just spend some time as a family, and also so I can spend some quality time with the Minnesota office, because I have six of six of the eight employees here in Minnesota, and so it's important for me to still have a presence here. We ended up buying a condo so that I had a place to stay, instead of my friend's sofa, which was very, very nice and very blessed to be able to do that. But it brings with it a lot of challenges to have employees that are in a separate location. And obviously we all have adapted, and thank God for Google meets like we have the ability to still be together as a team, and we still do get together as a team, but it does bring with it some challenges and some interesting just employee relation pieces of the puzzle to make sure that everyone feels a part of the team too, so that it's been a it's wonderful and it's beautiful, but it has brought with it some personal challenges and Also some challenges just figuring out a good balance. Because in addition to traveling back here a week a month, I'm also traveling for our nationwide projects, because that's a team I manage. And the only way that this works in my life, honestly, is we have both sets of grandparents in Colorado with us and with to provide extra support, not specifically to provide extra support to my husband, but they do. Provide extra support to my husband, so he's while he's single parenting, he has people to lean on, otherwise that there's no world in which this would that I be able to do what I do and travel at the pace that I do, or have the ambitions that I've been able to have. So

  Mark D. Williams  50:14

  you see, I think that silver lining it I'm thinking about every adaptation yields something unique and positive that ends up being like an asset. I think what's probably really interesting, and I know Kate fairly well, we'll talk a little bit in a minute about builder, designer, architect row by where we live, but your team sort of gets a leadership crash course because they are obviously, you're together, you're very well connected, but the idea that the owner of the company is not always there sort of allows them to see themselves as an owner. I would imagine. I don't know. I'd love to hear your point of view on this. And I've talked recently. I've met a couple people that left the company that they were with because they couldn't see any future at the company they were at, because the people that were modeling the behavior above them didn't. They didn't see any place for them to go. And I would imagine that you have to sort of lean on the Kate's and the other members of your team to sort of be quasi owners. I mean, they're running your business too. They are your client facing, you know representatives. You think that's true? I

  Melissa Oholendt  51:22

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think that I feel very lucky in that I'm a terrible boss.

  Speaker 1  51:32

  I'm lucky that I'm a terrible

  Melissa Oholendt  51:35

  boss, so and so and all so are all of my employees. They're lucky, but they I offer a lot of autonomy, because being a boss is not my natural inclination. I am a natural leader, but I'm not necessarily someone who's going to say, like, I need you to do X, Y, Z, to someone who's, I'm not directly sorry this is coming out all wrong, but that if you're not my associate designer, and we're not project managing a specific project, I'm not going to show up and tell you how to run your project. Your project, and so I do offer a lot of autonomy to my lead designers. But I also, in addition to that, I came into the industry not knowing anything about basically anything. And so I was a sponge, and I still am a sponge, to people who come in and say, this process is okay, or, Hey, this process absolutely is terrible. We can improve it in XYZ ways. And that has offered my team a lot of ownership to be able to say, like, Hey, I you know, I was able to come in and we were able to change this thing on a dime and look at how efficient it is, or look at our profit margins, look at how those things have changed. And so I think that there's this element of offering my employees the ability at any point in time to come to me and say, like, this is broken. We need to fix it. And I have an idea about how to do that, and I leave that door open on purpose, because I really particularly believe that I hired, I thankfully hired people that are much smarter than me and are really capable of coming to me and saying that like this from a place of hopefully, I can come from a place of no ego, hopefully, but they can come to me and say those things, and I open the door for that. And we also have, you know, yearly strategy meetings, where we meet as a group to kind of talk about the challenges, review the numbers, making sure that everyone is aware on this project. Here's what our profit margin was, so that we can all really like rising tide lifts all boats within our own firm, which has been really special about about this kind of particular setup, of me not being there every day for sure.

  Mark D. Williams  53:30

  No, I mean, that's really neat. I what I alluded to before is it's pretty unique story, and we'll bring this up in our future podcast with Mizu, who so the idea that Carl is my neighbor, and so he's leading all the architectural design, and then Kate is your right hand senior designer. She is Carl's neighbor, and I'm the builder. So what a funny story, and we'll capture this, I'm sure, in some written article at some point, because it's just too good of a story that you have builder, architect, designer, three homes in a row working on a problem that's just wild. How could you could never make something like that happen 1000

  Melissa Oholendt  54:02

  years, yeah, it's like a, not a romantic comedy. That's not what I mean. But what's

  Mark D. Williams  54:06

  a comedy? What's a comedy? Got that part, right? I think, if you I

  Melissa Oholendt  54:09

  mean, certainly, Kate, we've had these discussions about, you know, like, was my husband in a robe when he saw you like that. It, you know, it brings a little bit of levity to, you know, a relationship that already has levity

  Mark D. Williams  54:21

  well, and that was a big reason why I work with Carl a lot. But also, one of the reasons I got into Ultra running was because, when I moved to, you know, that part of Minneapolis, Carl was my neighbor. He's been doing it Iron Man's and ultra running for decades, and I'm someone that, okay, let's do it. And so now it made, not only was a very talented Home Designer, but also in because the MISA, whose home is all about wellness, the idea that he sort of embodies that as well, really does, and that was something that's been a big part of my life. I mean, and again, we'll say this for a future episode, specifically with Carl and you and I together. But like that informs a lot of you. The the thought process and sort of the storyline behind this home that we are collaborating on. And so anyway, it's just fun to have this really deep personal connection, and it's just really unique, yeah, and so I think that's just another reason that I get excited about it.

  Melissa Oholendt  55:15

  Yeah, I learned it's brought definitely for that project, specifically, just as we're talking about respect house. We don't we have your family in mind as our archetype for the house, but we don't necessarily have a family specifically with which we're designing for. And I think that has allowed the three of us, or the four of us with Kate, to really take on that family mentality, and like with the razzing and with all of those kind of fun things that come into play too, but also be able to challenge each other in a way that is really interesting and really does make for a better end product. And I think that is, gosh, that is something that have not experienced before in a project. I mean, it's

  Mark D. Williams  55:51

  pretty unique. I mean, I actually have told us many times, but, like, I think designing a home on a blank piece of paper is incredibly hard because it could be anything, yeah, and I think I needed to touch stone. The reason we developed the brand was to have a philosophy to lean on. You know, my favorite quote last year that I've said 10,000 times at this point is boundaries create freedom. You know, sometimes budgets, the boundaries, sometimes the land, the client, the architect, the designer, the builder. There's number of boundaries we can find, but I think designing for a homeowner is not easy, but like, maybe we're so trained at doing it, is that we're really listening to what they say, and we're already limiting things that won't be a fit. Yep, they're saying warm. There's think cozy. All. I love traditional. I love timeless. All these things that you know you're crooning at would be like, Okay, well, we're not showing them contemporary or modern. I mean, you from the first time you meet them, whether you meet them in their home, how they dress, what they drive like, it's already starting to inform what, how you're going to design with them. Yeah. And I just think that's what's really cool. It's, it's a creation. I think this industry is so full of creatives, it's just really fun to be a part of it. Yeah,

  Melissa Oholendt  56:58

  absolutely, yeah. In a world where design can be anything it is. You know, the design of a home, even the architecture of a home, can be anything it really is. You know, it's fun. Have

  Mark D. Williams  57:06

  you found that the design community is very welcoming to you in particular, just because you're a young brand? Do you feel that you look around and say, like, people are like, yes, come on. Or do you feel that some people are like, oh, man, they've had so much success the New Kids on the Block, or have you had both? If

  Melissa Oholendt  57:22

  they're thinking negative things, they have kept it to themselves. Thankfully, it being at these speaking engagement engagements, it has been very interesting because I am typically one of the younger people. And I don't mean younger as an age, I just mean younger firms in general, and that has been very interesting to be on that side and be honest. Speaking have having been asked to speak, because I find people come up to me afterwards and say, I just find your story so inspiring. You've done so much in five years, and you're going places. I obviously our story will there in. Their story will be unique to them, and our story is unique to us. And but I think that if we can come in and say, like, listen, I didn't I didn't have any education, I literally asked a builder, what is a spec sheet on one of my first projects with a big builder, and I'm sure I burned that bridge real hard, but I didn't know anything, and I didn't know what I was doing. All I knew is that I needed to build a business that I could scale after coming off of photography for 10 years, I needed to build something that was bigger than me, and wanted to build something that was I don't I joke, and I'm not joking when I say this, but I do want to build an empire. I want oho to be so much bigger than me in efforts to really further our mentality behind a house, but all to say, having that piece of the puzzle where people come to and say, your story is so inspiring. You've done so much in five years. And yeah, we have done so much in five years. But we came from, I came from a place where I was crying every single day just out of pure lack of knowledge and frustration. And for myself to be able to look back at that journey and say, like, look at how far we've come and and especially for someone like me, who's like, Okay, we did this really cool thing, check mark onto the next thing. Sometimes just being able to sit and kind of recognize that that success by via someone coming and saying, Gosh, you're so inspiring. Like, helps me kind of take a look and sit back and say, like, okay, yeah, what we have done is something really special, and really helps me, helps further me on to the next thing too. Do

  Mark D. Williams  59:24

  you I was going to ask you earlier about photography. What do you think it is about photography that has helped you sort of shape your business? Now, I think you alluded to a little bit that you were the photographer. And certainly there are some businesses that you can scale a photography, but it's scaling is hard, yeah, that was that a driving force that you wanted work to be happening. That wasn't only you, like, walk me

  Melissa Oholendt  59:48

  through that thought process, like, why I wanted a business I could scale, yeah? But also, like,

  Mark D. Williams  59:53

  do you ever think now? Of like, because sometimes we're driven by what sort of inspires us or encourage us, and sometimes we're not running from. But we're running away from the thing we don't want and correct me if I'm wrong. But it feels like, Hey, if you're a point and shoot photographer and but it's like, Hey, I there's only so many hours in the day. There's a limit to what I can do. Was that kind of the thought, the thought process between the ying and the yang, or am I misreading it? No,

  Melissa Oholendt  1:00:16

  no, I that is part of it, I will say, from a very vulnerable place, I had a and this was honestly one of the impetuses for for lovay house, was that we had a very personally kind of tragic year, like we found out we couldn't have kids biologically, and my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and my grandfather, who I had a very close relationship with, passed away very unexpectedly. And so I had to still show up to those wedding days and still act like it was the best day of my life for my clients and and that. And I wanted to do that because I loved them so much, and I did do that, but it was devastating. Personally, I, you know, there were often cocktail hours where I would be crying in a bathroom. It's just like I I'm far enough away from it at this point to be able to admit that, but I knew that I needed a business where I didn't have to be the person who was contractually obligated to show up. And so I needed a business that could be bigger than me, where I didn't, you know, if I had a personally tragic moment, I didn't have

  Mark D. Williams  1:01:12

  to, like, show up and be like, I bet there's a lot of undrive eyes right now listening to that story, I think, yeah, I can only, I can't even imagine what that would be like, just be faced with all that emotion every single time you're asked to show up on someone's best day of their life and present and be what you needed to be, right?

  Melissa Oholendt  1:01:30

  But I also, in that process, and I think this was where I came from as a photographer anyway, knew that photography could capture emotion, and honestly, those years, the you know, the kind of that, that year specifically, and those kind of subsequent years, were truly some of the best work that I ever did, because it came from a place of such emotion, of making sure I'm capturing that bride and her grandfather. Because, like, I just lost mine, and I understand how important that is. And so the ironically, the silver lining piece of the puzzle is that it truly made me better, but it also kind of showed me that I needed to find something else. And it took me, gosh, it took me almost four it took me four years, I think, to figure out how to kind of transition out of the industry and into something else. But once I came out of it. But, you know, I knowing photography could capture so much emotion and hold so much emotion, really was a driving force for us in capturing our work too, because I do know the power of photography. Now, I don't do any of our Ian, I haven't done any. Well, that's not true. I did photograph one project that has never seen the light of day, but I don't capture any of our photography. Now we bring in people who do that, who are very, very good at architectural photography, particularly in interiors photography, but it it shows me what it's possible. And oftentimes, I mean, I, I'll be the first person to tell you, I think our photos, at times, sometimes, like a mud room, looks better in a photo than it is. Experiencing it in person, not that it's bad experiencing in a person, it just is styled in a way that's like, oh, a kid could have just walked out of the scene of this photo, and it just feels like there's so much life to it, versus having images that feel really static, which is, which is a business choice that, and that's great, and some people do that, and that's fine, but we want our photos to have a lot of Life in them, and coming from a photography background that gave me the context to know that that was very, very possible. That's

  Mark D. Williams  1:03:25

  really interesting. I love the perspective and the mindset of sort of while that that pain allowed you to really do your best work, because you could empathize and sort of relate to just how dear and how precious that moment was. I think it's, yeah, it's really neat, and thank you for sharing that story number one. But I think about like, as a creator in a home, like, sometimes, if there's something that that we have, a loss or a gain, or really, whatever it is, like a home building process is so emotional. And I think when our team members see us put some of our emotion, and I think that's why they get our best work when they show up the most authentic and also the most real, because I think we all relate to that. How do you so, just because we're on this photography thing, I want to know a little bit more about it. I've often wondered about that. Like, photography, so like, obviously, you're talented with like, we have lifestyle photographers and we have architectural photographers and like, they're both great at but then they would both say, just like you did, that they're different talents. Can you put that in layman's terms? Like, what is different? Like, is it just an eyes that is it hard to actually articulate what makes one person really good at capturing people and not good at capturing things and vice versa, because both of them stay very in their lanes. Like, I have some architects that are like, you know, I'm not gonna shoot a person over my dead body. And then the other person's like, I'm not shooting anything without people in it. Yeah. Is it interest? Is it creativity? Like, what is it? Why is it so polarizing? Because it seems to be like, that's fairly common, yeah,

  Melissa Oholendt  1:04:58

  yeah. And I think there are. Reality is that, in Gosh, this relates, actually, very much to the interior design field. But any photographer really could do either. Could do the lifestyle, could do capturing people. Could do weddings, could do interiors like, really, like, from a technical standpoint, definitely could. But I think there's a there's such different philosophies. When you're capturing the lifestyle content of a family, you're moving a lot like your your camera is not on a tripod. You're moving, you're capturing. You're pulling things out of people on a wedding day. You're fading behind the scenes. You're very documentary. You're also pulling things out of people when you need to. But from an interiors perspective, it's the same thing. It's like I could, if someone asked me to design a modern house, I technically I could. I don't think I would enjoy it very much, though, and it would take me a lot longer to do it. And I think the same is true with photography. You can, you can operate within multiple lanes, but what you're very good at and where your skill set is, and what you're most efficient at and where your passion is can be very specific to one thing. So I think that's well said.

  Mark D. Williams  1:06:04

  I was just thinking about some architects. Some Architects like to do a variety of style. Yeah, I know one architect in particular, he's just known for like, one style. I actually really want to bring him on the podcast, yeah? Charles Stinson, yeah. So he's just like, I just feel like his stuff is so iconic, and so, like, I could pick it out anywhere it is, it's just boom and but I'd really like to know, like, at what point in his career did he know that, like, that was the style, because I'm sure he can design anything, yeah, but like, that's his passion that somebody likes to do, and there's a lot of power. You know, we were talking about brands, like you said, once you niche down and really understood who you were and what your brand is, I would say, my mind, I just took me a lot longer to figure it out. You know, I've been really for 21 years, and some years. In some ways, I'm not discouraged by it, because everyone's journey is their own. But like, I sure wish I was a lot farther than I am, not with regret, but like, it took me a long time to figure out who I was, and because I always joke, men are way more immature than women are, so maybe women just figure it out faster than guys do. And so, but like, when we went through this whole brand we've done like three brand refreshes in my career, and we did one, probably two, three years ago. And I like what somebody said, Actually, my wife said it very well. And she said, you know, the company that you are, or your your brand is no longer the company that you are like. You need your brand to sort of be aspirational, or to be the company you want to be a little bit like. What you put on your website you want? You want to put on there? What the work that you want to do? And it's not always the work you've done, and it's no shade on the work you've done. Like we couldn't, you couldn't get to mile 90 if you didn't run, you know, miles one through 80, right? You got to get there. I understand there's a 10 Mile gap there, people, yeah, man, he's bad at math, true, but I got that one and where, I guess, like everyone is journeys their own, like we it's we're all kind of discovering what this means to us, but to your point, like, once you know your why, your passion, I think it relates to not only our craft, but like our life, like our children, like people. I love interviewing multi generational families that have, you know, building companies or class companies or whatever. And I like to ask, like, do you do? Would you like your children to be in the business? And I just want to hear what their thought process is, but over and over it comes, I want them to be passionate about what they do, because, like, this is hard, like, being an owner is hard. It's not for everyone, and that's not a dare or a challenge or anything like that. It's just, it's just hard, and certain personalities are probably more suited to it than others. But you just mentioned you don't feel like you're a boss, but you're a good leader. I think what's the buzz? Called the buzzword, I think right now in the corporate world, is a servant leader, which I totally respect and love. That I'm not making fun of that, because I think it's a it is a beautiful thing. You know? I think you can lead in front, you know, you can lead from behind, encourage. And no one style is right or than the other. It really speaks to your business, your brand. But I love the fact that you discovered your why as quickly as you did. And obviously what people don't know and you shared today on the podcast is, you know, there's a decade or two of struggle and pain and failure and emotion that really led up to kind of this met your brand refresh was a new company and a business 100 Yeah,

  Melissa Oholendt  1:09:03

  yeah. And I think for you too, being able to have having been your friend for so many years, whether Mark can build a beautiful home, but watching you step into I think what truly I feel like your purpose is in this industry, with the curious builder podcast and the curious collectives and now the builder coalition, right? Like watching you bring this educational and community to eat to an industry that has can be very can feel said From experience, that can feel very individual and very competitive and very you're bringing a sense of community and a sense of vulnerability and that I maybe the world wasn't ready for it until you stepped into that. And I think that there is something to be said about, like, all of the hustle that brought you to that, to that time. Like, who knows what's gonna what it's gonna look like in five years, and I think it's gonna look spectacular. Yeah,

  Mark D. Williams  1:09:56

  no, I appreciate that. I feel I've said that before. Like, I've been, I was burned. Doubt it you're 19 or 20, like I was ready to be done. I even mentioned to a build the other day, I had contemplated reaching out to them, saying there's not many people I'd go work for, but I'm like, I would have gone to work for you. But really the for me, the curious builder brand and other relationships and all the community. Because for me, owning a business can be really lonely. And so I think what's so powerful about the community of the curious builder collectives or design collectives or architect collectives or the contractor coalition. You're like, I think it's just fostering this community of like minded people that are sort of sharing. It's like training for a race like this morning, I ran with 12 people, and I could do those miles alone. It's way more enjoyable to run it with other people. And on the days you don't feel like running, there's other people kind of holding you accountable. And I think, you know, that's the power of community. And we're certainly not the first business that has discovered community. But I feel like the build world is sort of having its day of like, Hey, we're people too. We need to talk to each other. And I feel like the next wave, it's really enjoyable and empowering to see so many people, sort of like, hop onto the boat of collaboration and over competition and just be like, we're here for it. Let's grow together. And it's powerful. It's so

  Melissa Oholendt  1:11:08

  much better when we do that and when we share in that way and not hoard our resources like we don't have to come at anything with a scarcity mindset, because abundance is just so promotes community. It is honestly so much happier. So it's

  Mark D. Williams  1:11:21

  just, frankly, more fun. Yeah, I was working with some of their data. Just, I feel like we are all part of the same team, like, you know, so it becomes just kind of this, I think again, we're in the family space, but the business space. How does this familial feel? Yeah, and so it's, it's very relatable, yeah, yeah, I love that. Well, we could talk for five hours, but we want to respect the audience's time as well as your flight schedule back to Denver and your family and your wonderful in laws and Matt, thank you for singing. Oh, ho, oh ho. I We will have a future collab. Maybe we can sign a record song deal. Oh, gosh, if you ever start a podcast, I want to throw my name out there that Matt and I can do a duet for your intro music. Oh, okay, noted. Just putting it out there. Yeah, thanks again for tuning the curious. The curious builder podcast. You can find us on Mondays for episodes of builders, designers, architects all across the country. Thursday, Thursday, our 20 minute Q and A's. Thanks again for coming on the podcast. Melissa, it was a delight. Mark. We've had the podcast now for two and a half, almost three years now, and we have a consulting page, one to one consulting you can book my time for one hour. Perhaps you've heard a guest where you like one of the topics. Maybe you want an introduction to some of the guests that I've had on. Perhaps you want to talk about branding or marketing, or anything that we've covered on the podcast over the last two and a half years. You can book a time at curious builder podcast.com. Thanks for tuning in to curious builder podcast. If you liked this episode, do us a favor. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.

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