Today we’d like to introduce you to Esther Franck.
Esther, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Raised in the ’70s and early ’80s in a Brady Bunch-style mixed family, I had a modest upbringing and learned early how to make the best of things with what we had. At times there were 5 or more kids living at home and we were always tight on cash. My mom worked through most of my childhood and my stepfather owned a little shop in Rochester,
Michigan where they sometimes worked on passenger cars (which they disliked) and mostly worked on race cars (which was less lucrative but a lot more fun). Although we didn’t have much, we had a lot of love and a lot of life in that household. We would often rearrange furniture and paint rooms ourselves to pretty things up a bit. My father was a self-taught chemical engineer who adored me and always tried to encourage me to reach for my dreams. My dad believed I could do anything – even when I didn’t – and he would teach me so many things about function and doing things the right way – he also taught me to be an excellent fisherman. My stepmother, an Aussie with a strong sense of fashion and style, served as a second mother to me and taught me so much about organization, aesthetics and beauty. The two of them would pick me up every other weekend and take me to nice restaurants but also to flea markets looking for hidden gems or a museum to see famous artworks. My father always encouraged me to go to college because he did not. Sadly, I didn’t take his advice and I started working right out of high school – I often took the difficult route. So, I embarked on a career which had me working at a telemarketing firm selling chimney cleanings, managing a Mobil Station before I turned 21, and then going from receptionist at one law firm to the Operations Manager for a multi-state law firm in my late 20s. I enjoyed the law and had a knack for understanding contracts and procedures. During all of this, I would find myself choosing materials and paint, furniture, and artwork for these workplaces just as an offshoot of my other work. It never occurred to me that this could be my calling. In fact, I was pretty sure I was one of those people who didn’t have a calling or a clear path. I thought I could be good at most things just by putting my head down and working hard and learning by trial and error like my father taught me. He would say, “If the floor needs to be swept, sweep the floor. You are never too good for any job that needs doing”. I lived by this creed and it served me so well. And that worked for me for a long time. In my 30s I grew weary of the legal world – especially the world of mortgage banking which was my speciality – and my brother started to hit it big in NASCAR (turns out the race cars were a pretty good idea). He called me in to help him sort out the business end and to look out for him as he started to become more well-known and more successful. For a few years, I commuted between
Michigan and North Carolina, and in 2012 we won the Cup Championship together and my brother surprised me by taking me with him to meet the President in D.C. – I got to meet Obama! I was so elated; I had worked on Obama’s campaign in
Michigan and had knocked on doors for the democracy that means so much to me. It was quite a time. I helped to create a winning team at a smaller level in racing and we worked on several businesses together including a very large shop for the race team which I helped design and several rental properties. I loved the weekly construction meetings and space planning. I made some mistakes along the way I’m sure, but it was very rewarding. Even so, the North Carolina life didn’t fit me so well and I longed for home. In 2016 I made my way back to the Great Lakes and was able to be there for my father in his last years. I went back to law firms and got my yoga teaching certificate on the side. Yoga had been a source of great comfort to me while I was living down south. My inner world started to change and I became a more peaceful person. I didn’t fit the relentless legal world anymore either and even though I started teaching yoga to co-workers at the firm, it still didn’t feel like a place for me. I tried managing a small interior design studio and even tried to teach yoga as a full-time gig. These didn’t quite fit either, but I was getting closer. During the pandemic, like so many, I was working from home and being pushed to come back to a law firm job in the office when I decided my life was more important to me than any job. My incredible partner of 2 years, Dave, was so supportive and amazing he encouraged me to follow my dreams too! With his support, I was able to take some time to really think about what I wanted to do. I took a part-time job managing a small engineering firm in Ann Arbor and it was just perfect. The partners of the firm were incredibly kind and supportive. They were scaling up from being a startup that a few college friends created to a professional engineering firm with a varied client list and much more on the horizon. The partners asked me to help with the design and decoration of their new 10,000-square-foot mixed-use space on the outskirts of A2 (what locals call Ann Arbor) and I was delighted to help. While I was quite comfortable working on their office procedures and accounting practices, this was my favorite part of the day. I called in my favorite painter and added some bright color to the beige space, I helped to choose the artwork and added some sound-dampening felt hexagons to give more life and design to the work areas, I added SO many plants. I was able to assist in choosing all the desks and chairs and cafe furniture and color scheme as well and the place turned out beautifully. My proudest moments are always watching the partners of the firm show people around the space and seeing that they are proud of what we created together. From this design, some of the firm’s clients visited and noted that they might need design help too! From there, iOi Design was born. One of these clients happened to be looking to move to a larger space in the area and asked me to sign on to help them through the process. I started my company, while still working at the engineering firm, and here I was helping to choose the layout and all of the finishes, working with architects and contractors and loving every minute of it. We recently held an Open House at the new space and a few new leads were cultivated that are looking pretty promising. I have taken the proceeds from this project and reached out to local friends to help create a consistent brand and a new website. I am also taking classes toward an Interior Design certificate from Rhode Island School of Design. The classes are incredibly helpful and I am really enjoying expanding my knowledge and exploring my creative side more fully. In addition to helping with interior design, I’m also still working with my client and the engineering firm and I’ve started to create wellness programs for them too – teaching yoga and holding meditation sessions. Somehow all of the things I love and enjoy are coming together to create this business that offers services that make life better – more visually beautiful sure – but also more functional and more balanced. So that’s my story. It’s just beginning in so many ways and there is a lot more to it, but those are the highlights of how I was able to start the business of my dreams and how I hope to continue to grow iOi in the years to come.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As a person with perfectionist tendencies and a strong inner critic, there have been many struggles along the way. From dealing with difficult people and seemingly impossible situations to making mistakes on the scale of an office compared to the furniture I chose for it – I’ve had my share of obstacles to overcome. Some of those were of my own making, as happens to so many of us. And some of them were the stuff of life – illness, and hardship and making the hard choice to remove oneself from harmful situations, even making a fool of myself now and then. Finding the time to do a great job for my business and for those I work for is not always easy, especially when there is homework to do and important relationships to tend. But, at the end of an exhausting day, it still feels worth it because I am forging my own path and it finally feels like it’s the path that’s meant for me.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about iOi Design aka intuitive Operations & interiors LLC? iOi came about from my experiences and a vision to create a company that specialized in creating spaces that feel good to be in and that are not always full of luxe but that are special and unique and comfortable. I want to help people bring out the best in their offices and homes and in themselves. I think it all fits together. When you’re at an office that is intentional and that takes into consideration how it will feel to work there, you want to be at that office. I walk into a room and listen to my intuition about what the room wants to be. Sometimes I am inspired by an existing piece of art or by some words the client shared with me, but I am always inspired by the space itself. I try to let it speak to me. I love to find deals and I love to create something that looks like it was designed by a professional but also that feels like home.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to? I think genuine care is the most important quality that leads to any success I might have. I was recently coaching someone who wants to become a leader in their industry and I shared that being a good leader to me has always been about caring for those I lead. I might not be best friends with every person I’ve ever managed or every client I’ve ever known, but I have a deep care for them and I cultivate that care and compassion to have it be the light that guides my decisions.
