The Secret to Building a Successful Design Business - Design By Them

Sarah Gibson & Nicholas Karlovasitis leave uni, cram a fledgling furniture brand into a Newtown flat, and decide they are going to export Australian design to the world. That is the starting point for DesignByThem. In this episode we unpack how fifteen years later, they're actually pulling it off.We talk about building a design brand from a tiny local market, backing Australian designers, and choosing factories around the world without losing the integrity of the work. The conversation gets into IP, copies, pricing, cashflow, and why treating business as a design problem changed everything for them.If you care about turning design from a side project into a viable brand, this one is worth your time.0:00 Intro1:22 Why design still hooks them after all these years3:00 Chasing ideas that make beautiful things accessible4:08 Childhood Lego, pulling things apart and thinking like designers5:11 Sarah’s path from obsessive floor plans to industrial design6:10 Education, UTS and putting Australian industrial design on the map7:34 Spotting the gap and founding DesignByThem as a collective9:39 Building a platform for Australian designers not just a personal studio11:02 Royalties, collaboration and why the best invoices go to other designers13:08 Designers as business people and treating business like a design problem15:09 Systems and spreadsheets16:29 How they find designers and why so many wait to be discovered19:29 Social media, saturation and why direct outreach still wins21:35 Young designers, polish, missing knowledge and the AI trap22:56 Why outsourcing the concept is a mistake and IP is everything24:16 Using AI for the boring bits so more time goes into design24:23 Sustainability, materials and designing for the full life cycle27:15 Greenwashing, regulation and how far Australia needs to go33:20 Working with architects and interiors and learning from clients34:50 Feedback loops, data and using colour and custom work smartly39:21 Australian craft as limitation and why they went global with manufacturing41:42 Balancing local pride, accessibly priced products and global factories43:52 Turning furniture design from a second job into a real career45:03 Educating the public and putting the designer behind the product50:03 How products, brands and spaces work together in the real world53:12 Their Smart Design Studio workspace and why the setting matters55:33 What they have learned, what they would change and why they still love coming to work