The night Bryan Yates met his now-husband Mike Yates in New York more than a decade ago, he knew it was the start of something big—but what exactly, he wasn’t quite sure.

“I remember talking to Mike for two seconds, just saying hi, and leaving that bar saying, ‘I don’t know how or what, but I know I will know him for the rest of my life,’” Bryan tells host Kaitlin Petersen on the latest episode of the Trade Tales podcast.

The romantic connection came quickly (the two would marry several years later), but even more surprising was that the pair found common ground in the professional realm as well: Bryan had studied landscape and interior design and worked at global design studioYabu Pushleberg, while Mike had worked in lighting design at a lauded dance company. By 2016, the couple decided to leave the city and capitalize on the growing market for design services in Dallas, where their firm, Yates Desygn, was born.

It took the pair about a year to find their footing, but after mapping out their respective roles—with Bryan leading creative design efforts, and Mike handling back-end logistics—they soon settled into a steady rhythm, rolling out successful projects and expanding their firm’s headcount to accommodate the growing demand.

Yet, building that same sense of cohesion among the employees wasn’t as easy. The duo was startled to discover that at the height of their firm’s success, team morale was at its lowest. In response, they brought in the big guns: a business consultant who could see the firm’s blind spots. Together, they built a new infrastructure to better support their team—not only through new perks and benefits, but by shifting responsibilities and daily tasks to amplify each employee’s strengths, while also providing clear pathways for internal advancement.

Elsewhere in the episode, they share the low-overhead approach that got their business off the ground, and how they’ve strategically created curricula that outline pathways to growth for the members of their team.

Crucial insight: After exercising frugality during the firm’s early years, the co-founders have been careful about expanding their overhead. One crucial area of investment has been in furniture and fixtures that turn their design studio into a living laboratory, ultimately helping the team sell their vision to clients. “It’s a good way for our clients to see little bits and pieces of things that might be really important to us, like lighting: We have a Lutron system in our conference room and half of the office, and we can sit down and show that [the lights can be programmed to align with your] circadian rhythm, or that we can push a button to bring the shade down and the drapery slides out,” says Bryan. “We’re here to have them be hyperfocused on what we’re trying to present, instead of meandering through a showroom that might change the trajectory of what we’re trying to achieve.”

Key quote: “Being ready is a myth,” says Mike. “You start, you suck, you figure it out, you get better.”

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