From Corporate to Creative CEO: How Ann Lopez Built a Multi-Seven-Figure Design Business with Profit and Purpose
In this episode of Pivot to Profit, Pam Jordan sits down with Ann Lopez, founder of Studio 790, to explore how she transformed a childhood dream into a thriving, multi-seven-figure interior design business.
Ann Lopez’s journey is a powerful example of what happens when passion meets strategy. After a successful 20-year career in luxury hospitality—working with major brands like Starwood Hotels—she made a bold decision at age 39: leave corporate America and pursue interior design full-time, despite having no formal degree.
What followed was not instant clarity, but consistent action.
Starting her business from her dining room table, Lopez leaned on relationships she had built over the years. By openly sharing her dream long before launching, she created a network that eventually turned into her first major client referral. That project—despite her initial uncertainty—became the foundation for building confidence and momentum.
Today, Studio 790 is one of the fastest-growing women-owned design firms in the country, known for its diverse portfolio spanning residential, commercial, and large-scale event design projects like Formula One.
But what truly sets Lopez apart is her commitment to financial health.
A turning point in her business came when she implemented the Profit First method, a cash flow system that prioritizes profitability from day one. By separating income into designated accounts for profit, taxes, operating expenses, and owner pay, Lopez gained clarity and control over her finances.
This shift led to:
Consistent profitability year over year
The ability to pay herself and her team well
Business savings and long-term financial stability
Lopez emphasizes that financial success isn’t just about revenue—it’s about what you keep.
In addition to financial discipline, her background in digital marketing played a key role in scaling her business. Through strong SEO strategies, Pinterest visibility, and a consistent project “reveal” process, Studio 790 attracts high-quality leads without relying heavily on social media.
Looking ahead, Lopez is focused on sustainable growth and expanding her impact through coaching and an upcoming devotional for women in business.
Her story is a reminder that success doesn’t require a perfect start—just the courage to begin, the discipline to manage money well, and the willingness to grow along the way.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Pam Jordan (00:02.596) Hello and welcome to today's episode of Pivot to Profit. I am so excited to have Ann Lopez here with me. How are you doing?
Ann Lopez (00:11.575) I am so good, so amazing, and fired up to partake in this great conversation we're gonna have.
Pam Jordan (00:18.096) All right, awesome. Let me officially introduce you. Ann Lopez is a Miami-based interior designer, business coach, and founder of Studio 790, one of the fastest growing women-owned design firms in the country and recently named one of architectural design pros Miami's firms to watch. After a 20-year career in luxury hospitality, she left corporate to build her firm from her dining room table with no formal design degree. Today she leads a multi seven figure business with features in architectural digest and HGTV major brand partnerships and an impressive 80 % year over year growth while maintaining strong profitability. Let's go queen. I love it. This is so exciting.
Ann Lopez (01:03.278) That was a really nice introduction, so thank you so much for that.
Pam Jordan (01:11.216) Absolutely, I'm excited to dive into your story. first, hey, listener, if you're a business owner and need to better understand your finances, God surprise tax bill, have no idea what's going on behind the scenes in your business. We would love to help you at Pivot Business Group. Just go to pamjordan.com and schedule a call with my team. All right, Ann, are you ready for the first question? It's a really hard one. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Ann Lopez (01:33.518) I'm ready. Oh, you know the irony of this question is I wanted to be an interior designer. I also wanted to be a secretary. Like I wanted my nameplate and my mom was an accountant so she had her adding machine and I wanted to have, you know, like the thing of pens and have a desk and that. The whole world of being a secretary was really appealing to me for some reason. And like having an office, I think again, some of these sound bites for sure come from watching my mom go into an office every day. But my longing deep in my soul, and I didn't really know it until way later in life was to be an interior designer.
Pam Jordan (02:20.996) I love it. And here you are living your dream. So what did little Ann learn about money from her mom as an accountant? And what was money good? Was money bad? Should you want it? Should you not give us all the information?
Ann Lopez (02:23.468) Yeah.
Ann Lopez (02:35.022) I love this question and I'm sorry mom. My mom is amazing with money. My mom and dad. Grew up in a, like you don't pay anything unless, you don't pay for something unless you have the money to pay for it. So credit cards were not a thing for her. You took, you know, 50 % of what you earned and you saved it. All of the... good, healthy things that you should do. And I listened to almost none of those things growing up. I wanted to spend the money and I did not want to save it. But here's the beautiful thing about being a parent and just like those seeds were planted in me. And she was an accountant too. So I had a double whammy there, right? She probably was that way about her money because she was an accountant. I don't know if it was chicken or the egg. It doesn't matter. That's how I grew up. Money was...
Pam Jordan (03:15.856) Mm-hmm.
Ann Lopez (03:28.942) I wouldn't say good or bad, but we lived a little bit of a scarcity mindset, even though we were an average family in a small town in Illinois. But I did have this sense of like it was gonna run out. Like that was a little bit of the mentality where now after many years of me managing my own money, starting and growing this business, being an adult, learning about investments, learning about healthy financial strategies, having the right people around me, the right circle, I am abundant mindset related to money. So you never know what's going to happen. And my mom is now very proud of me. I don't know when I was a teenager, if she would say the same thing. But that's okay. We all come around. Yeah. Yeah.
Pam Jordan (04:17.68) when you're making all those risks. I love it. Okay, so let's talk about early career. So 20 year career and luxury hospitality. What does that mean? What did that look like for you?
Ann Lopez (04:31.438) Yeah, it looked like a close friend of mine in college her sister worked in luxury hotels and they were hiring a marketing coordinator I went to school for marketing and my friend said to her sister I have the perfect person and I remember interviewing at this company. It's called preferred hotels and resorts. It still exists I remember interviewing this was when I was 21 22 years old going into this very fancy corporate office space in downtown Chicago like There's luxury hotels. never, we never really traveled growing up. And we certainly did not stay at luxury hotels. And I felt like, okay, this is interesting. I love hotels. I love to travel. Even though I didn't do a lot of it, it still was something, you know, that was very much appealing to me. And so I said yes to that job. forever grateful for that yes and for them, you know, bringing me in. Not that long after I got scooped up by Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which is now Marriott. Starwood was Westin, Sheraton, St. Regis, W Hotels, Four Points by Sheraton, et cetera. There was nine or 10 brands. And they scooped me up and moved me to New York when I was 23. And so I moved to New York City with like no money in the bank account, speaking
Pam Jordan (05:46.384) Amazing.
Ann Lopez (05:51.546) of money, no money in the bank account, very oblivious to how expensive New York City is and started my amazing career with Starwood Hotels there and I did digital marketing for them. So we launched When Google started, that's how old I am. We developed the program for search for SEO for the company. Years later, we rolled out social media. was in charge of the North America Rollout for social media back in the day when Facebook didn't exist. That was a thing. I'm sure a lot of listeners can't believe that that time existed, but it did. So I got a great, not only career experience, I loved it, loved my bosses.
Pam Jordan (06:23.866) amazing.
Ann Lopez (06:38.8) traveled the world, got to see beautiful hotels. I wouldn't trade a minute of that for the world, but I also got this really beautiful gift of learning about digital marketing, which I've since taken into the business that I have now, which we could talk about that as well, but I'll stop there.
Pam Jordan (06:54.97) Yeah. Okay. So what was the moment that made you transition from luxury hospitality to living the dream of interior design, which was young Ann's dream. like, tell us that arc story.
Ann Lopez (07:09.666) That arc story was everything in life, any big things that happened in life. that transform you often are the times that are hardest, right? When you think of the hardest seasons that you've been through, we've all had hard seasons. Hard is relative, but we've all been there. Be it, you know, I talk, I went through four miscarriages, I went through a divorce. You know, there was, COVID happened. Like there was a lot of things, right? And I had a moment, I was in my late thirties and realized like, I'm not getting any younger. I loved what I did, but I knew that I was meant to do something else. And after a pretty rough personal season, I had this like... I have to take action on this thing. Like I owe it to myself, I owe it to God, I owe it to people because I believe if you have a gift and you're not using it, it's disobedience to a degree, right? I'm here to serve others with the gifts that I've been given. And so it was in that series of a couple of years and 39 came when I was 39 years old and I'm like, okay, I'm quitting cold turkey. So I quit cold turkey in February of 2019, Studio 790. else before, but Studio 790 was formed.
Pam Jordan (08:27.298) it and so so you open shop and say Ann Lopez is now in business. deep breath scary, right? How did you go get clients? What did that look like? Were you designing homes, offices, commercial space? Like what is that? What did those first couple clients look like?
Ann Lopez (08:48.226) You know, as I'm listening to this question and thinking about myself, I think there is just this ignorance is bliss, right? I don't remember being scared. I remember being at peace. I remember like, okay, I'm finally stepping into what I'm called to do. Even though I loved my 20 years in corporate America, I was the corporate, like climb that ladder, make all the money, do all the things. But I knew that this is what I was supposed to do. And so the biggest thing that happened is for years prior, I would share with people my dream. I'm gonna be an interior designer. I do it on the side. Do want me to help you with your house? It was known. My boss, I had the same boss for I think almost a decade, at least seven or eight years. She knew that that was my dream. Okay, and when you speak out your dreams, people listen, seeds are planted. Fast forward, I start the business and I remember sharing with people it's official, I'm doing it. I had had some really small clients and again, a lot of pro bono, pro bono. work happening. so I remember of A guy I worked with on a project at Starwood, he called me up one day, he was based in New York and he said, hey, I know you started your firm, I have a referral for you. I met a woman, she wants to redesign her whole apartment in Hollywood, Florida. And I told her, you know, I have a perfect person for you. And I got hired for a, got renovation, two bathrooms, kitchen, the whole entire, every single thing was down to the studs. And I remember sitting there like, I have no idea what I'm doing, none. The GC's there and the client is there and we're standing literally on planks and there's no drywalls, studs, no walls. I'm looking around and they're asking me all these questions and I remember like...
Ann Lopez (10:39.296) I would answer some to the best of my knowledge and then everything that they, the other things that they were saying that for me felt like Japanese was like, you know what, let me get back to you. I'm gonna go do some homework and I'm gonna get back to him that question. And meanwhile, in my head I'm like, I don't even know.
Pam Jordan (10:54.542) What did he just say?
Ann Lopez (10:55.744) I don't know what they said. I don't know anything and how to do this. So you do it scared, you do it uncomfortable. And once you do it right, action builds confidence. You do it once and you realize like, that was a little bit of a disaster, but I made it through. Then you do it again and you do it again and you do it again. And then frankly, I sit here today, seven years later, we take on projects all the time scared. But I'm like, if I could do it back then, now I have a team of people. We have a lot more resources. I have a bigger network. We can do it now, but we still do it scared. So, yeah.
Pam Jordan (11:30.096) love it. love it. So tell me about early on a financial win where you were like, oh, I think this is going to work.
Ann Lopez (11:39.9) Mmm, this is a great question. Well, I'll tell you, I would say the biggest financial win I've had in the company, apart from having a mom who was an accountant, who I just, you always have it in the back of your head, like I gotta manage this money with health. But the biggest win was, I was on a women's retreat, we go every year in January, and it's mostly entrepreneurs, and this gal was there and she said, by the way, have you guys read the book, Profit First? And I'm like, no, what is it? And this is probably five years ago, four or five years ago. And no, what is it? Okay, here's what it is. She gave the verbal, you know, and I'm like catching it. Okay. It seems pretty easy. It's a little bit, I think like financial management for entrepreneurs for dummies. If that, if you followed me on that. So, read the book, listened to the podcast and like within that month completely ran my business with the profit first method. And.
Pam Jordan (12:25.892) Yeah, I got you.
Pam Jordan (12:36.089) Love it.
Ann Lopez (12:37.524) Once I started running it with that method, which I strongly encourage everybody, I still run it with that method. I remember like a few months in, well one thing always happens in that method. You realized you're spending too much money.
Pam Jordan (12:56.26) Yes.
Ann Lopez (12:56.29) Which is the point, right? It's not the point. You don't want to spend too much money, but you want to fix it sooner than later so that you can be profitable. You can pay yourself. You can pay a team one day. When I realized that there was equal parts panic, like, gosh, and equal parts, I could be free from this. so when, I, yeah, it's a solution. So once I stepped into that fast forward, like we're profitable every year. We give generous checks at the end of the year to different entities. My team gets.
Pam Jordan (13:14.276) Yeah, there's a solution.
Ann Lopez (13:26.224) bonuses I pay myself. have, I added into one of my buckets, my Profit First buckets, a savings account, because I learned businesses should have savings. I didn't know that. A couple of years ago, I think on the retreat, somebody was like, yeah, my savings in my business. And I'm like, I guess it makes complete sense. Why wouldn't I? And I added a bucket for savings. Now I have my savings exactly where it needs to be. It's Profit First all day long.
Pam Jordan (13:43.12) I should have one of those.
Pam Jordan (13:54.352) I love it. I love it. I'm a profit first professional. I've been a profit first teaching it since 2019. So I've helped hundreds of businesses with profit first. And it's not the tool for everyone, but there's pieces of it that everyone can benefit from. Because instead of, and I've done podcasts on this, but instead of just looking at one bank account and a lump of money and being like, oh no.
Ann Lopez (13:56.078) Yay!
Ann Lopez (14:03.314) my goodness.
Ann Lopez (14:11.404) Agree.
Pam Jordan (14:20.176) What do I do? You have multiple bank accounts and each one has its own purpose and there's money set aside for profit. There's money set aside for taxes. There's money set aside to pay yourself. And then there's another account that's operating, OpEx. That's what you run your money on. Cause far too often business owners look at their bank account and they're like $50,000, woo! Or $50,000 they're stressed. But with profit first, you look and you say, all the bank accounts, you've got $20,000 in OpEx. Okay, can I make it or can I not?
Ann Lopez (14:37.439) Woo!
Pam Jordan (14:47.056) And so, and the rest of the 30,000 is in other buckets and it's such a better way to manage your cash flow. So it warms my soul to know that you do profit first. I love it.
Ann Lopez (14:47.118) Mmm.
Ann Lopez (14:57.036) Yeah, but I... It has changed, because when you think about it, changed my business. But if my business changes, my life changes. Right? So I have such financial freedom in my business now because of Profit First. I will like walk around the streets with like a Profit First sign holding it. Like everybody needs to do this. I agree. It isn't for everybody. And I do think at a certain point, probably a lot of entities outgrow it. Right. But I'm still doing it. And I've tweaked a little bit of my strategies, but by and large, and then we're
Pam Jordan (15:05.328) Absolutely.
Ann Lopez (15:29.102) doing it and then the best part is now I do it for personal. I'm like this is transferable to my personal life and man my mom is proud. Exactly, exactly.
Pam Jordan (15:32.1) Yes.
Pam Jordan (15:37.452) Your accountant mom is just beaming and she's like, I did so good. Look at her, money in the bank.
Pam Jordan (15:45.648) Yeah, I love it. And it goes along with your childhood of like, don't spend money you don't have and manage your cashflow and don't go into debt. Because with Profit First, I use it in my own business. We use it with our clients. But I've seen so many people be free of debt because of their cashflow management.
Ann Lopez (16:00.866) Yeah. That's it. That's it. And it's we talk about, you know, how do how do the wealthy get wealthy? Right. And there's a simple answer. The wealthy get wealthy because they spend less. That's really what it comes down to. They're not overspending. But if you don't have transparency in line of sight into your spending and into especially in a business, you're going to you know, you'll have a good year, another good year. And then there's a reason that 85 percent of small businesses close after five years. And I would say Mike McAlewitz and Profit First could literally change that statistic based on the success every business has doing Profit First.
Pam Jordan (16:42.288) Absolutely. And that's why the mission of ProfitFirst is to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. So I love it. All right. So let's talk about the interior design work that you do now. What kind of fun things, what environments do you create now for people using ProfitFirst, knowing that it's profitable and you have money in the bank? I love it.
Ann Lopez (16:47.469) Yeah. Exactly.
Ann Lopez (17:01.28) Yeah, we are working on so many fun things. the one thing that I learned about my business is diversification is an asset in a strategy I think every company should have. I'm not a every company expert. I only can talk about interior design. What I have found was we started in residential and then we would get one small commercial job in one office space in a kids dentist. And then we signed Formula One, which is an event. It's a luxury hospitality event. event and then we got more events as a result of that and there's there's just been this this broadening of different types of of projects that we get to do and they're all uniquely creative and they're all uniquely challenging and it fuels me sometimes my team's like can we just do the same thing one more time like do we need another challenge I'm like yes we need another challenge but I think so much of what we do because of our diversity is creative and fun and unique. I don't know if that answers the question, but it is. It is.
Pam Jordan (18:03.194) So it's a little bit of everything. And so you're also doing coaching for other people. Now, are you coaching people that want to be interior designers or that are already interior designers and want to scale?
Ann Lopez (18:17.164) Both. Yeah, in fact, I just got off of a coaching call from somebody who wants to be a designer and she's like, you did it and didn't have a degree. I'm really encouraged by that. So I just finished a call with her and then I also help. the one to three, maybe four year entrepreneur in scaling, like profit first. I could talk all day to them about that. But one of the big things that I focus on is the marketing our projects. have a what we call a project reveal process because in our industry, our biggest asset is the work that we do. objectively, if somebody is going to hire a designer, what's the first thing that they're going to look at? They're gonna look at your work. Then they're gonna look at your team and they're gonna see, you know, they're gonna go a layer deeper and to see, okay, I do wanna engage and have a discovery call with this design firm. But the first thing they're gonna look on Instagram or Howes or, you know, maybe find you on Pinterest. They're gonna find you somewhere in visually. And so the strength to which we market our projects, so we reveal our projects.
Pam Jordan (19:01.904) Absolutely.
Ann Lopez (19:27.4) is the strength of our business. I believe it because I've done it. It was the first thing that I created when I first started seven years ago. I needed project reveal process. So we established that. have a gal on my team who helps, a marketing gal on my team who helps me, and we deploy it through all sorts of marketing channels. It helps your SEO, it helps visibility, it helps cohesion, it helps consistency, it helps get your brand out there. So that is something I'm really, really passionate about because we've seen success from it. Everyone's like, how did you get Formula One as a client? And like, they searched on Google and they and our my website came up. That's it.
Pam Jordan (20:05.646) Right. And then you had beautiful reveals and your work was amazing and your team is powerful. There you go.
Ann Lopez (20:11.466) Exactly. And all of that, if you have a website, all of that can be beautiful and so forth. But if there's no eyeballs on the website, doesn't matter. I mean, you still need a website and you have to start somewhere, but getting the eyeballs and the traffic really matters. And the more content you're putting out in the right channels, I'll say that with a lot of energy, because I think a lot of people, especially in the design world, it's like Instagram first and I'm Instagram last.
Pam Jordan (20:40.42) Mm, okay.
Ann Lopez (20:40.954) If I never did Instagram again, I'd still have a very successful business because almost none of our leads come from Instagram. Now, do clients look at our Instagram maybe after exploring in other areas? Yes, they do that. But it's not an Instagram first approach that we have.
Pam Jordan (20:58.256) So where do you use, is it YouTube first or is it?
Ann Lopez (21:01.102) No, in fact, we just started our YouTube channel and we're not really even doing a whole lot there. My biggest thing, and I learned this from like, nothing's wasted in your past, by the way. So I hope that encourages somebody. The SEO strategies that we have on our website and then leveraging channels that boost your SEO. So Pinterest, for example, is not a social media channel. Pinterest is a search engine. And so we have a Pinterest strategy because if more people are on Pinterest clicking and finding us, to our website there, Google's like, that's great. There's some traffic happening over here from another avenue. They like that. Then our organic presence increases on Google. House is another, that's an interior design specific platform, but House is another one. It's free. Pinterest is free. Running your website is low cost. You don't have to be, you know, a technical designer, especially now with AI. They can do all of your SEO for you. they, it, she, whoever it is. Yeah. Yeah.
Pam Jordan (21:57.782) It, them, whatever. Yeah. I love it. I love it. So, so exciting. And what's on the horizon for you? What's coming next?
Ann Lopez (22:01.048) So yeah. Yeah.
Ann Lopez (22:09.57) This is a great question. We have big goals at Studio 790. So I would just say as a business, this is not the sexiest of answers, but... My biggest goal for the company is that we would grow with strength and with health. And so I have big revenue goals, but not fast ones. I'm okay playing the long game. That's a consistent thing. So every year we surpassed our financial goal this past year. And now it's, you know, it's going to be a stretch to get us to the next, to the next financial goal. But we're doing it with, with, like I said, with health, the right people on the team, et cetera. Another big thing for me personally, I'm writing a devotional for women in business, which is really, yeah, which is really. reading devotionals and spending quiet time in the morning has fueled me as a person, but also really helped me in my business. And I'm realizing there's a gap in the marketplace for devotionals written specifically for women in business that sort of speaks our language a little bit more and, you know, talks about money open, like all of the things and really helping women step into their dream life as business owners, as entrepreneurs, et cetera. So that's a big thing. It's about halfway done. It'll be done this summer. and we'll get it published and yeah, so those are the two things really.
Pam Jordan (23:34.136) Awesome, I love it, I love it. And thank you so much for sharing your profit story with us. Where can people connect with you?
Ann Lopez (23:41.038) They can connect with me. I always have to lead with the company because that's my second baby. Studio790.com is our website and you can find us on Instagram and Pinterest, etc. at Studio790interiordesign. Me personally, you can find me on Instagram at Ann Lopez Living. And that's it. You can email me, Ann at Studio790.com. I'm a kind person who responds to my emails. and I'd love to connect in any way I can help anybody. It would be an honor.
Pam Jordan (24:16.4) Awesome. And thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. That's all for today's episode of Pivot to Profit. If you want to better understand your numbers, increase your profit and understand how to implement profit first, just go to pamjordan.com. My team would love to help you. And remember, it's not what you make that matters. It's what you keep.