Adam Scougall: Choosing Your Interior Design Business as a Side Hustle

Episode 963 of A Well-Designed Business®

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963: Adam Scougall: Choosing Your Interior Design Business as a Side Hustle

Today With Adam Scougall

Today on A Well-Designed Business, I am happy to welcome back Adam Scougall, of Adam Scougall Design. If you have ever considered pivoting from your full-time job to interior design, this episode is for you. It’s always valuable to hear two sides to every story. A lot of my guests have pivoted successfully into starting a design firm. Adam does have a successful design firm, but he pivoted right back into his full-time job while keeping design as a side hustle — and that couldn’t have been a better choice for him.

Pick It Apart:

[5:00] No matter your level of expertise, always be open to new AHA moments.

[9:33] Adam explains why he preferred to stay in his corporate job while managing his firm as a side hustle.

[17:55] How Adam sourced out, so he could also work his corporate job.

[33:30] Adams advises how to make connections with other designers.

[37:37] Adam shares the types of AHA moments he provides during his podcast and with his one-on-one clients.

LuAnn Nigara and Adam Scougall’s Ah-Ha Moments

“I learned that design was a way to express myself as a creative outlet, but I didn’t need it to be full financial support,” – Adam Scougall

“We don’t have to have someone else’s aspirational expectations on how to run a successful business, it’s what personal boundaries work for us,” – LuAnn Nigara

More About Adam Scougall

Adam’s story is one that is a little out of the box. We hear a lot about interior designers aspiring for luxury clients and an office full of staff. But Adam couldn’t imagine anything worse. After 18 years of leadership in his corporate life, he ventured out in 2018 to running his solo design biz full time. This lasted for 3.5 years before he returned to where he started. Corporate [with a buzzing design side hustle]

After working with a broad range of clients, some great and some a nightmare, Adam became tired of having to accept jobs that could make ends meet, as opposed to fulfilling his creative juices. Covid didn’t help financially, nor an always ‘pending’ recession, and after those years, Adam realized he did not wish to pursue a ‘be all and end all’ approach to his design career. He wanted stability, steadier finances and the ability to only take on design work that fulfilled both his own and client vision.

Adam now enjoys what we call a lifestyle business, balancing projects he only wants to take on whilst [now happily] holding down a full-time gig at his corporate firm of choice. He has also developed his own signature design implementation system that employs other designers to assist day to day, with Adam coming in only at key points in the project.

Adam recently launched his Podcast and YouTube show ‘So You Want to be an Interior Designer’ where he shares his experiences.

His aim for the show is to teach the thrills, reveal the spills and share how you can also create an Interior Design career that suits your lifestyle.