Nick Olsen’s design career began when he penned a fateful letter. After graduating from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in architecture, he was at a crossroads—working as an editorial assistant at a magazine, struggling with not feeling called to go into architecture after studying it for four years. Then, enthralled by a profile on Miles Redd in W magazine, he decided to test his luck and write the celebrated designer a letter. “It just kept me up at night—the photos, the text, the story about him—and I thought, ‘He’s got it figured out. This is who I want to model myself after in my post-college life,’” Olsen tells host Dennis Scully on the latest episode of The Business of Home Podcast. “And I thought, ‘Well, what have you got to lose?’”

Two weeks later, he received a letter back and met with Redd. Within weeks, he was his new assistant. “I thought, ‘I’m going down the path that I’m supposed to be on finally. I don’t know where it’s going to lead, but this is the arc,” recalls Olsen. His time with Redd yielded abundant returns, including his own apartment landing the cover of Domino in 2006 when he was just 24. He also learned the ins and outs of how to run a design business, which set him up to go out on his own in 2010, on the heels of the economic crisis. “When is there a good time to leave a comfortable, enriching, well-paying, full-time job with benefits? Is there ever a good time to do that?” he says. “You don’t want to leave at the height of the boom times, and I didn’t want to leave Miles in the lurch. It was a difficult conversation, but I thought it was my time to go.”

Fifteen years later, Olsen continues to run a thriving firm known for mixing antiques with contemporary art and employing bold colors and patterns with a whimsical touch. Despite his success, and amid the omnipresent designer-versus-decorator debate, he continues to proudly identify as a decorator. “I was told decades ago that to be an interior designer, you have to have a license and a degree. I don’t, [so] I’m not an interior designer. I’m an interior decorator. I take the box and I decorate it,” he says. “By and large, I’m taking a set of given conditions and decorating them and decorating around them, and filling these spaces with things that make a home. … We’re all working toward the same end. Semantics don’t keep me up at night.”

Crucial insight: Olsen not only got a design education working for his mentor, but a business one as well: He watched how Redd kept his overhead low, not overinvesting in office space; didn’t often pay for marketing, and instead prioritized nurturing his own relationships with members of the press; and brought efficiency to client presentations, rarely paying to digitally render the whole house. At one point, Olsen made the mistake of taking his time doing curtain sketches for the curtain maker they used—a process he felt was an important creative outlet—until Redd recommended he move faster. “He was right: If you’re not billing on an hourly structure, which he wasn’t, and the whole point is to get from A to B to C, then don’t waste your time on the curtain sketches. Let’s get approval from the clients. Let’s get the curtains made. Let’s be on to the next thing,” he says. “The momentum that he kept as a businessperson was incredible, and it still inspires me, because there’s no guarantee that that next job is going to come along, so you need to work quickly enough to finish what you’ve got, so you have time to take on more.”

Key quote: “I’m all for decorating criticism. It’s not all good out there, including my own work. I know mediocre rooms that I’ve done that could be tweaked—like the proportions are a little off, or the styling’s off. I think criticism moves the needle. I think it advances our profession.”

This episode is sponsored by Ernesta and Crypton. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The Thursday Show

Host Dennis Scully and BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus discuss the biggest news in the design world, including a check-in on tariffs, how contractors are finding success on TikTok, and why designers are turning to Etsy. Later, Presti co-founder Hamza Bennis joins the show to talk about his AI startup.

This episode is sponsored by Jaipur Living. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.