AI for Interior Designers™ Podcast

Your Software Was Not Built for You

Ep. 74 Solo Episode ✦ Jenna Gaidusek Tools Referenced Field Day Details

This blog was written using AI as a recap from the recording, then edited for accuracy and details.

Key Takeaways

The tools interior designers have been using were built by corporations and accountants — not by creative professionals who understand how design businesses actually operate.
A long list of subscriptions is not a sign of a sophisticated business. It is usually a sign of a business running on workarounds, paying for overlap, and never having had time to audit what is actually being used.
AI has changed the equation. Small businesses now have the same building power as large corporations — and a far better understanding of their own needs.
Raw data is all that is needed to start building: spreadsheets, documents, voice clips, text files. From that, custom dashboards, proposal tools, and branded apps are all possible right now.
If a design business does not adapt its tech and operations in the next couple of years to work the way the owner actually thinks and creates, it will look off-the-shelf — and clients who hired a designer specifically for a curated experience will notice.

The Tech You Use Was Someone Else's Plan

This episode has been in the queue for a while. Not because there was nothing to say — because there was too much, and it kept coming up in every conversation. The more visible the direction AI is heading becomes, the more important this particular conversation is.

The tools and technology that interior designers have been forced to use were not built by interior design professionals. In some cases they were — and a lot of respect is owed to the people who built design technology when nothing existed for this industry. They walked so that everyone else could run. But the reality is that most of what became standard came from tech companies and accounting software that got retrofitted into design workflows. And it shows.

There was a moment, about a year ago, where this snapped into focus: designers are operating every day inside systems that were built for someone else's version of the job. And for a long time, there was no alternative. Now there is.

The Subscription Problem Nobody Stops to Fix

A year or two ago, there was a list. A full rundown of the latest and greatest tools — for creating images, generating 3D models from 2D photos, producing client presentations, handling specific workflow tasks. It got shared at every session. There was a lot on it.

Over the past 18 months, things started getting removed from that list. And then eventually the whole list became irrelevant, because the large language models — Claude, Gemini, and others — absorbed almost everything those specialty apps were doing. The $20-a-month Gemini workspace can do what the separate $18-a-month AI image subscription was doing. The disconnect is real, and it is expensive.

Designers are not lazy. They are busy. When they find a technology that works, they stick with it until it breaks or betrays them. The result over years is a patchwork of tools — some overlapping, some forgotten, some charging every month for a service that stopped being useful six months ago.

The goal is two tools. Maybe three. That is the simplicity worth building toward. Not because having options is bad, but because every unnecessary subscription is money and mental load that belongs somewhere else in the business.

What Has Actually Changed

Here is what is different now. AI has given small businesses the same building power that used to require a full development team. And small businesses understand their own needs better than any corporation ever will — because they are in it every day, not managing it from the top floor of an org chart.

A large company can mandate that its team start using AI. But there is rarely any real understanding or leadership behind it, and half the employees are quietly wondering if they are training their own replacement. That is not the situation for a solo designer or a small firm. The choice to learn this comes from seeing what it can actually do — for a specific business, a specific workflow, a specific way of working.

What gets built now are interfaces that hide the ugly side of tech and streamline everything so the piecemealed tools can finally be canceled — replaced by one thing that is yours, that works the way your brain works.

What You Can Actually Build Right Now

Raw information is all that is needed. Spreadsheets, documents, text files, voice clips. Any of that can become the foundation of a custom tool. The interface can look however makes sense for the person using it — not however some software company decided it should.

A branded dashboard that pulls in calendar events, emails, and analytics — presented in a visual layout that actually makes sense to a creative, not an accountant

A proposal builder app that knows your brand voice, your format, and your process — so every new client proposal takes minutes instead of hours

A client communication tool that drafts replies in your tone from a quick voice clip, without ever having to open the inbox

Project management built around how designers actually think — not around how accounting software tracks billables

The data is the same regardless. The experience does not have to be. A designer who wants animated floating elements and visual energy gets that dashboard. A designer who wants a clean grid with their logo and stats gets that one. Both are pulling the same information. The difference is that one of them was built for the person using it.

Where to Start

The entry point is not the technology. It is the business plan — written the way the business would actually be run, not the way the available technology forced it to be built. Once that is clear, the tech question becomes much easier to answer.

01Write the plan the way you actually want it. Not around what was available when the business started. What would the perfect operation look like if technology were not the constraint?

02Audit every subscription. List them. Ask who uses each one, whether it overlaps with anything else, whether a core AI tool already handles it. Be honest about what earns its place.

03Find the single biggest workflow frustration. The thing that wastes the most time or feels the most misaligned with how the business actually works. That is the first build.

04Talk to the right people. Chances are what is wanted can be built now. If not, give it six months. The technology is moving fast enough that the answer is almost always yes.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

Clients hire a designer because they do not want off-the-shelf. They want something curated, specific, considered. If the backend operations, the website, the client touchpoints — all look like they were assembled from the same generic stack every other designer is using — there is a disconnect between what is being sold and what is being delivered.

The designers who are going to win in the next few years are the ones using AI as a creative outlet to expand their business and their process, not just as a productivity shortcut. The ones using what everyone else is using off the shelf are going to look like it. And in a referral-driven, relationship-based industry where differentiation is everything, that matters.

If you started your business 10 or 20 years ago, your business today is probably not what you would build now, knowing everything you know. This is actually a good moment to reinvent what that looks like — because now you can.

The ones embracing this as small business owners — adapting, building, using AI as a creative and operational advantage — those are the businesses that will still be standing and thriving when the dust settles. That is the direction everything is pointed.

Starting June 2nd

Field Day — 9 Weeks of AI This Summer

Field Day runs every Tuesday, June 2nd through July 28th. 10am–12:20pm Eastern. Nine weeks, beginning at square one and building every week. Sessions are recorded and available after.

The format: 20-minute live sessions cycling 3–4 times per class, with open chat time in between to try things in real time. Week one starts with Claude from scratch. By the end of that first session the tool is set up, the interface is understood, and there is at least one real business task identified that Claude can handle. Every week builds from there.

After each session, two study halls run — 16 seats each, live only, open forum. Not a replay of the lesson. Targeted help on where things actually got stuck after trying the material.

9 Weeks Only

$249

All nine weekly live sessions. Full livestream access with chat Q&A. Recordings available after.

Best Value Bundle

$397

All nine weekly sessions plus three study hall seats to drop into any week.

Single Study Hall

$99

Drop into one post-class study hall. 16 seats per session. Live only, not recorded.

Team Pass (Up to 5)

$999

Full Summer Pass for up to 5 team members, including 5 Study Hall passes.

All Field Day enrollees get access to the AI App Studio. Registration is per person — it is interactive and tied to individual login.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. Raw information and a clear sense of what the tool needs to do is all that is required. Claude and Gemini handle the building. The job is knowing the workflow well enough to describe the problem. That part is already there.

Start by listing every tool and asking two questions: does a core AI tool already do this, and is anyone on the team actually using it regularly? If the answer to both is no or unclear, it is a candidate for cancellation. The goal is not to cancel everything — it is to be intentional about what earns its place in the stack.

It can look like anything. A visual, energetic layout with movement and color. A clean structured grid with a logo and analytics. The information being pulled is the same — what changes is the interface. That is the whole point. No longer locked into whatever design someone else decided was good enough for everyone.

No — and that is the point. There is no tech degree here. Everything was self-taught over two years by learning, applying, breaking, and filtering what actually worked before teaching it. The barrier is not technical skill. It is knowing a business well enough to describe what is needed. That part every designer already has.

Claude and Gemini are the primary engines. Claude for building, writing, and most day-to-day AI work. Gemini for images, video, and Google integrations. Canva layers on top for design work. Base44 is worth exploring as a vibe-coding starting point for anyone curious about building. Claude Code is in use for more advanced work. ChatGPT is no longer in the stack.

Mostly working is not the same as working well. The question is not whether the current tools function — it is whether the current setup reflects how the business should run now, with everything that is known today. A tool that fit well five years ago may be quietly limiting growth in ways that have been adapted around so many times they stopped being visible.

Yes — it was built with beginners in mind. Week one, session one starts with how to find Claude and sign up. No prior experience is assumed. If this has been on the to-do list for months and has not happened yet, Field Day is the structure that finally gets it moving. All that is needed is a device and the willingness to try things in real time.

Join Field Day

Start Building Tech That Works the Way You Do

Nine weeks. Every Tuesday starting June 2nd. From square one to real implementation, with Jenna live in the room the whole way through.