And the answer was, no. 

Life would stay hard for quite a while. But, I did not go back into lighting design.

Instead, I would meet Marci Marycz and begin developing what would become Dezignwall, Inc.

I discovered the startup ecosystem in Orange and Irvine. I would discover 1 Million Cups, the Cove, the Eureka Building and Tech Coast Angles.

It was through the startup ecosystem, that I would learn the true ins and outs of conceptualizing, pitching, recruiting and raising funding for a startup. And from 2013 to 2017, we founded and launched Dezignwall, Inc. - a social platform for the interior design industry.


Chapter 4
Let's call this next chapter "A Rant That Turned Into a Talk Show"

By late 2016, Dezignwall had a ton of site visitors, and manufacturers had the ability to "batch upload" products. But we were a "Marketplace". And with any marketplace, you need a constant stream of new content for your members to discover. The solution we had settled on was "Dezignwall Event Solutions" - The plan was to become the registration badge at interior design tradeshows.

And even though our inhouse team inclueded:
• The brand strategist from Adobe
• The director of marketing for the Honda Center
• The President of Tech Coast Angels
• The CFO of Oliclip
• The former CTO of Gateway Computers
• UI/UX from Auto Trader
• and Developers from Nortel Systems, Toyota, Google and Amazon

None of us had tradeshow exhibition experience.

So by the end of 2017, we simply ran out of runway.

But strangely enough, in October of 2017, after heading to the west coast for the WestEdge Design Show, after being in High Point, NC for the furniture market and a stop off in DC to pitch Dezignwall in front of a live studio audience...I was watching my interior design friends talking about Sherwin-Williams New "Color of the Year".

I was on a layover in Houston, and was in disbelief that my interior designer friends, who had just been at a "to the trades ONLY" event, seeing [literally] an entire cities worth of products that the rest of the world would not see until the next season...Instead of talking about the products they just saw with their own eyes...They were on social media talking about "The Trends (AKA: Sherwin-Williams "Color of the Year").

So, sitting in my hotel by LAX, I posted an event on Facebook, that at 8am the next day, I would be going LIVE.

I'll pause and say, that when you create an event on Facebook, you have to give it a name (or a title). So, I named my event, "Fuck the Trends".

Now mind you...I had never gone LIVE on Facebook prior to this.

So, at 8am I tied my smartphone to my luggage handle and hit the "Go LIVE" button, and proceeded to "rant" for awhile. That's about the time that Raad Ghantous requested to "join" my live video. Raad popped on and said right away, "I don't necessarily agree, but I like that we're having the conversation".

That day, seven other people joined the LIVE stream with me, and in the top left hand corner of the screen, 2.2K people were watching us LIVE on Facebook.

That show would go on to be called, "Design Talk LIVE", with my cohost, HGTV's, the "Queen of Bling" - Donna Moss.

And by the end of 2018, our weekly Facebook LIVE talk show would be viewed by over 3.2 Million people.


Let's call this a "side street"...
At the very beginning, I said I would circle back and tell you why Jaye was making that face...

So, Jaye is "Jaye Mize", the VP of Creative for a company called Fashion Snoops. Basically her job is to analyze and predict "trends". 🤭

And here I was with not only a shirt, or a wrist band, but a tattoo with the words permanently etched in my skin that says, "Fuck the Trends".

She's a good sport. And to be clear...It's not that I don't like "trends" (I did the pink for Barbie the Movie too). The point I am making is that as creatives, we should be leading the trends, not following them.


Chapter 5
Let's call this next chapter, "Fast Forward"

By the end of 2018, I moved into producing shows.

In December of 2018 we launched "A student's perspective", in partnership with Stephen Garrison of Marywood University. This was a student hosted talk show, with the concept of, "Design and architecture students, from universities throughout the country, interviewing: Designers, Manufacturers and influencers...from a Student's Perspective".

In January we would launch "Design Hot Seat" with Jennifer Farrell. And then "Let's Talk Breast Health" with Talia Maddock. And "LIVE with Angie Everhart. "Unapologetic" with Camille Kauer. And several others that we piloted in 2019.

I had grown from a rant on Facebook, into what became, "The Live Broadcast Network" - Leveraging social media as a distribution network, selling ads and breaking all the rules of network programming.

Ultimately, I would employ six full-time employees, selling advertising on shows that we streamed on Facebook. What I would come to learn was that companies LOVED what we were doing...but would include us in their budget for "next year..."

There are a few other details in there, but let's just say that I was spending more money than I was making to try and keep all of the shows running.

So that by the Summer of 2019, I returned back to tech, and started working on two platforms: Scan Unlock and Join inCrowd.

Like I said...This chapter is called, "Fast Forward"

Let's skip the details of a horrible partnership and lawyers (Thank you Habib...you were a life saver!)


Chapter 6
Let's call this chapter, "Covid"

2020 was an interesting time for what would turn into some big concepts and projects.

When Covid first broke out, I immediately saw the damage that would be done to the supply chain. Friends were calling me saying,