Strategy Was Key When Cheryl Luckett Launched Her Design Business

Most people don’t typically fly by the seat of their pants when starting a business, whether it’s launching a new app, opening a bakery or starting a design firm. But many people probably aren’t as organized as Cheryl Luckett was when she developed a plan to shift her profession to interior design.

 

Luckett, the principle designer who owns Charlotte, North Carolina-headquartered Dwell by Cheryl, studied family and consumer science, with a concentration in nutrition, at Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee. She says it was a dream job, but it just never felt right for her.

 

“After being at a company for 15 years, I just started to feel like I couldn’t keep up the charade any longer,” Luckett shares. “I was being tapped for opportunities and to climb the corporate ladder, and I just didn’t feel right about it.”

 

She took a career pivot, of sorts, taking a job that gave her a little more free time to do what she truly loves—interior design—and she ended up taking design classes at a junior college.

 

Luckett knew she wanted to jump into interior design full time, but she also knew she personally would need a successful plan to make that happen.

 

“I wanted to make sure I was well-prepared and positioned for success,” she says. “I had a 36-month exit strategy called Project 36. It gave me 36 months to get ready to make that leap, and I think that is what helped me make the leap with complete peace and to feel good about it and to not have that anxiety and nervousness about transitioning from my security’ to this wild world of entrepreneurship.”

 

Since then, Dwell by Cheryl has grown by leaps and bounds, and she’s even been successful at collaborating with top-name brands.

 

We had the pleasure of interviewing Luckett recently, learning about what makes her tick, her advice for transitioning careers and what’s it’s been like for her to collaborate with major brands in our industry.