A powerful quote about entrepreneurship inspired Linette Dai to turn her focus from managing project minutiae to growing her business and nurturing her employees.

When students ask what it’s like to start an interior design business, Linette Dai jokes that her immediate response is to rain on their parade. “I’m not the most uplifting about it,” the Los Angeles–based designer says with a laugh. “A lot of us go into it thinking it’s all going to be about the design, but that could not be further from the truth. The design itself is 10 to 15 percent, and the rest is marketing, HR, procurement, accounting, and endless problem solving. People don’t realize this is an advanced supply chain and logistics business.”

It’s a common predicament that most designers experience a few years into running their own business: the realization that what got them into the industry is often not what they spend their days doing. From that can come heavy soul-searching. If a love of fabric, color and light brought you here but you spend endless hours buried in spreadsheets, why keep going?