Shea and Syd McGee of Studio McGee and Netflix's Dream Home Makeover

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I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. This episode's guests, plural, are Sid and Shay Magee. They are the power couple behind Studio McGee. This is the first Wife Husband interview. While they are individually remarkable, together they are unstoppable. Their business includes a home design firm as well as a line of carefully curated products. They've also designed a line of merchandise sold at Target, co authored a new book called Make Life Beautiful, and if.

That'S not enough, they're starring in a.

New Netflix series called Dream Home Makeover. And all this started by growing their Instagram account. In this episode, you'll learn about rocking Instagram, working together as a married couple, the grit and determination that's necessary to make a business successful, and how I should redo the background in my home studio. There's even a marriage tip for Instagram couples. Spoiler alert. The tip is to hire a professional photographer.

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Guy I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. And now here's the dynamic duo of design, Sid and Shay Magee.

Studio McGee is a design firm and an e commerce brand. Our design firm really designs custom homes all over the country, and that was where we began and established a name for ourselves. But McGee & Co. Is the product side of the business, and that is focused on furniture, decor, lighting, rugs, and that's all online. Most recently, we started working with Target to do a more affordable line in all of their stores and.

Online. Since you're still doing designs for clients, how do you make that work? Because there must be just hundreds of people who would like the McGee's to design their.

House. We're grateful that we've gotten to the point where we can be selective, better clients. Sid. Early on, he said yes to everything. And I'm like, you're saying yes to everything and then I'm designing them. And now we've been able to grow to a place where we, yes, we're thinking about budget and we're thinking about the style of the home, but we're also making sure that this long term relationship that we're building with clients is going, going to be a good one, that it's a personality fit as well. So we are very selective. We take on a certain amount of projects at a time, and that allows me to still be involved in the design because I just can't let it.

Go. Sid, is that your version of the story.

Too? Yeah. I mean, Shay's super talented. I think that as we partnered and I looked at the business aspects, at first it was like, we're gonna die if we don't have enough projects, so let's take everything we can get and then we'll kind of sort it out later. And what we started to realize was Shea loved being involved in every single project to make sure that the, the standards and the quality of design were carried through everything. And so we realized that there was a capacity to that, a throughput capacity. And so we had to say, okay, well, what are going to be some of the factors that we start to qualify these projects with? And what I realized was it was budget and the type of project and the style, but also the people that we're working with. If we're going to invest so much time, we really want to make sure that it's a happy relationship. And, and so we could have someone that had so much money, but if we didn't feel like it was going to be a good relationship, we would pass on the project. And so I think that that's where we've finally gotten today. And it really makes our work an enjoyable thing to.

Do. Well, as the Japanese say, mazel tov that you're at that point where you can turn down rich people, basically. So, Shea, are you blessed and slash cursed with this superpower that you know, like a Marvel character where you have X ray vision. So you walk into a house, you walk into a restaurant, a store, and your mind is constantly thinking, oh, this is what they should do. We should move this here. Change the color of this wall. You know all that, or can you just turn it off? Or are you relentlessly trying to make the world more.

Beautiful? It's hard. It's really hard for me to turn it off. I am always thinking about my surroundings and especially when they're beautiful surroundings. I can't stop soaking in every detail. I want to enjoy all of the thought and intention that went into a space. If someone hasn't thought about their home very much, I can kind of turn it off until they start asking me questions and then you're not going to get me to stop talking about.

It. Sid, you're laughing. So I.

Yeah. Sid knows that.

Yeah. Believe it or not, design comes up a lot, even when we're just hanging out or go on vacation. It's a very design centered world with Shay. But it's. It's fun and it's really enjoyable. They don't want Sid and Shay to design their house. They want Shay to design their house. I would not be good at designing. I can sometimes pick. She's so nice when we're designing. She's designing our home. She'll say, of these three options, which ones do you like? You know, and I'll pick one. And if she goes with it. I feel like I've just designed our house like I did. I know, I know that it's been curated and presented to me in a way where I can't really go wrong. But it's interesting because Shay, Shay is really talented and I can just see that kind of come through. And it is her passion. She loves every aspect about it, loves to absorb it, loves to experience it and loves to do it for people and present it to their home and just make a place to live. So I think she's always constantly trying to get better and.

Learn. Sid, sounds like you're a trophy.

Husband. It's true. All my dreams are coming true. I was like, back to the beach. I can surf, I can be.

Bronzed. You know, that's one of the biggest misconceptions about our business. I think because I'm the face and I have. I do the pretty stuff. People think that that is. Sid's just kind of behind the scenes. Oh, does he kind of just like work with the numbers or something that there's so much more to it than that. And there's so much going on behind the scenes that he's running so that I can just focus on the design of pillows and furniture. But, yeah, he, like, he, he's good at playing the role of Instagram husband.

Sometimes. For sure. That's.

True. And, and do you think that this superpower, Were you born with this superpower, or did it become a skill that you had to acquire over.

Time? I've always loved style and design, but design is a lot more technical than it seems from the way we see it online or in television shows where it's just like fluffing pillows and then you snap your fingers and it magic, like a whole kitchen magically appear. There's a lot more that goes into it, and I have had to learn because I just took a few courses at night to get my feet wet in the design world. I had to learn with each project about how to really pay attention to the details. And you have to learn so much about the construction of a home that they don't teach you in design school. So, yeah, I think it's a combination of having a natural instinct for style and taste, but then the actual bringing. Bringing the projects to life is.

A whole different story with hindsight. If only I had gone to, you know, Rhode Island School of Design or if I had gone to whatever, what's that thing in Pasadena? So do you look back and say, if only I had done that, or you look back and say, I didn't need that after.

All? I think there was a time, especially in my early days, when I was going through the process of learning by trial and error, that I just wished that I had had that schooling. But the fact that I went to school for something else and I learned how to promote myself and market myself ended up proving to be a huge part of the growth of our business was that I knew how to design, but I also knew how to build a business by promoting myself. And so if I hadn't learned that, I might have been a designer that wasn't able to build a business. And so, yes, of course, there are things that I wish I would have learned in school, but I'm really glad that it worked out this.

Way. I interviewed Christy Yamaguchi for this podcast, and she said one of her regrets in life is that she never got a college degree, but clearly she did.

Okay. Things worked out for her. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I.

Don'T. I don't think her LinkedIn followers or her LinkedIn profile suffers because she doesn't have a college.

Degree. Right, right.

Right. Sid, I'd like to ask you this question. So from the outside, looking into the extent you can do that, do you think that this business is an example of pursue your passion and the money will.

Come? Yeah, I mean, I think that Shea epitomizes that at a time when she was just curious about pursuing her love for design even further, I encourage her just to, to explore that is that go, go, go back to community college and, and try some of these classes and see if you want to. To do that. You're not really finding joy in the work that you're doing at these ad agencies at this time. It's funny because the dynamic between Shay and I is very, like, Shay is very structured. Likes order, likes rules, likes, likes that. You have to. You have to have a degree and you follow the rules and then you. You work your way up and then you get to earn your way to having a business if you follow all the rules. And my family and the way I was raised, I don't know if it's because of the Southern California culture. It was a surfer kid or what it was, dude, you don't. You can do whatever you want. If you have a college degree, cool. If you don't, then you can be successful and do that. And so I was very much of the mindset of, you don't need someone's permission to do this. You just need to. To go, and if you', enough, the. The marketplace or the people will accept you. And so I encouraged Shay to do that and she, she did that. And then she started to use her Instagram to showcase the work that she was doing and kind of her passion. And people really responded to that. They. They were like, this is great. Can. Can you come over to my house in the neighborhood and tell me what to do? Can you come to my house? I remember helping her on a couple projects and just seeing that, like, people were loving what she was doing. I was like, this is great. And she didn't have the operational components of the business, but her business grew so quickly that she was like, hey, I need help. Can you help me with those things? Because she had pursued her passion and then the business aspects followed that. And I think that's where the partnership of Shay and I really formed. And her dream of pursuing design and building a design. We always joke and we call it a design empire. We're going to build a design empire together. We'll. We'll show everybody really forged together this relationship. And her dream became Our dream, we're going to do this together. You take care of the passion side that you're really good at with design, and I will make sure that we operate, hire people, and spend less money than we make every month from a very rudimentary point of view. But it was like, let's. Let's do this. And it was funny because, like, you couldn't deny the response people had to. To Shay, to Shay and her work. It was. It was really fun to see that. And so I just wanted to. To support Shay in that. And. And we've grown a lot, and we've grown each other. We've pushed each other to always do better. Hey, what can we do? She was always pushing herself on the design front, but from a business point of view, what can we do on a social platform? How are we figuring that out? And she'll push me as well to. To advance business things and go get deals done, because that's the direction we really want to go. And I think that makes. Makes it work. So her passion definitely preceded the.

Business. Now, you know, thousands of people are going to hear this and they're going to say, oh, sit. And Shay said, pursue your passion and the money will come. That's not always.

True.

Right. I have a passion for surfing. There's no way I can make money surfing. So do you have some really tactical tips about. Okay, so you love to cook. Does that mean you're a chef? You love to design homes. Does that mean you're a designer? You love to. Whatever. So how do people know whether their passion can be viable as a.

Business? Yeah, I'm sure Shea will have some great tips. I mean, I know that you recently had Gary Vaynerchuk on. Yeah, all right. And I love Gary. I mean, I think that's kind of early on. I followed him and back in some of his early books I read, and one of them was the thank you Economy and using. I think he was using Twitter at that time mostly, but then started to talk about Instagram. And that's why I was like, shit, you need to. You need to make this connection, and you use Instagram to do that. But. But one thing that's common that he says that I really believe in and wish would have done more of was having a side hustle or. Or exploring those things that you want to do that you think are a potential business opportunity for you or a passion that may into a source of income is you do your day job and then you carve out some extra time to start to pursue that. So whether that's. You're. You're starting a podcast on the side at night, you're. You're starting to list things online, you're. You're starting your social following and talking about what you're passionate about and seeing the different avenues that you can go to see what gets some traction and what will work that way. You're not like, I guess I kind of did it the stupid way. I quit my job, didn't know what I wanted to do. Good thing Jay was killing it at this design thing, because then that became what our business became like, that was it. It was like, hey, I know I'm trying to give you space to, like, find your way, find your, your meaning in life, but I have this business exploding. Can you help me with it and work together? And I look back in retrospect, I'm like, I should have just started to do some work on the side, even if that was with Shay or anything, and then decide, okay, this is, this is working. I'll quit now and go all in on this. And, yeah, I had taken the opposite approach. So I would definitely advise not to do that. I would advise, try to do it in the after hours, and then once you start to get a little traction, go. But what would you add to.

That? Babe, I think everything you said is true. And I think that you've always told me early on, like, when I was, even when I was designing, I'm like, let's go in on this. You were like, design's only scalable to a certain degree. So you got to have, what are we going to sell that's more scalable? And I think that any passion that you have, you got to kind of attach something. If you want to grow a large business, there's got to be some component of it that's scalable. And for us, that was products. But that could be courses or that could be. That could be anything. But I think that having an idea, maybe that your business can develop into selling something that's scalable is a huge, huge part of it as.

Well. And I think the other aspect is just with the prevalence of social and how many personalities and people are out there, you really kind of just have to identify, like, what is your unique take on something? What is your perspective? What is unique about you? And how do you present that in a business way so that you can start to have traction and not just be one of the many, but, you know, figuring out your unique angle. Maybe everyone does short form content, so you're going to Do a long form content podcast. You know, everyone's doing short videos of 2 minutes, 3 minutes. Well, do an hour and a half. You know, something that maybe I always love when people try to say, this is how you do it. This is how you do your, you know, everything. And it's like, well, I think that when people are pushing those norms and those boundaries that they really then produce something unique and people are attracted to that. So that's what I would also encourage as.

Well. Over your right shoulder shade. Is that the famous fig.

Leaf? This is a famous fig leaf.

Yes.

Really?

Yes. Yeah, that's.

It. Well, this isn't the one, but it is reminiscent of the one that we had in our first home. So especially we can just pretend.

Like we kept it alive, we didn't.

Let the other one.

Die. We.

Try. See, I really did read your book. I read your book, I read your book and I have a kind of weird question here. Now, when you type in studio mcgee.com, it goes to where it should go. But if you type in Studio McGee, no hyphen, it goes to Laurie McGee, photographer. So what happened.

There? Oh, man, you're bringing up old battles that were fought. I tried so hard to get that domain. Even very early days, I reached out to her. It had not been updated for many years. Same, like static images. And as we continue to grow, I'm sure Lori McGee was like, I am getting so much traffic now. This is amazing. I tried to, I offered her like a thousand, five thousand dollars, try to do it very early on. And she was just like, no, I just, I'm really personally attached to that domain. I can't let it go. And I was like, oh my gosh, she's not going to give it up. So we tried, but it, I mean, what a, what a good lesson, right? No matter what. I mean, we, we established Studio McGee. We loved the name, we felt like it resonated with who we were and it represented Shay and I equally. So you just, you just keep rolling with the punches. So we got studio hyphen. McGee was available and we went with it, but she still got that.

Page. And now she's really never going.

To give it up, never going to give it to.

Us. But, you know, I could make the case that you can name your company Studio McGee, but the name doesn't have to be identical with the domain. So you could call it, you could get The Domain Studio McGee design, no hyphen. And wouldn't it be better than making sure that people type in the hyphen Otherwise, they're going to get a.

Photographer. Now. Now, our name is so widely known that as soon as you type in our name into a search bar, like, people know where to go. So it's not been an issue. But it is funny that she will never. She'll never. She'll never give it up. And maybe lesson learned that maybe we should have approached her before we decided as our business.

Name. No way. No, I love it. We're not gonna. And I didn't want to do Studio McGee. I didn't want us to just be boxed into design only. I think that Shay and I knew early on that we wanted to do product. I think that we faced a lot of opposition to that as we started our business. We were these young kids coming into an established industry where everyone was typically a little bit older, 50s, and 60s, and they have been doing this and working with brick and mortar stores forever. That was their bread and butter, and that's what they knew, and that's what they were comfortable with. So here comes these two kids from. From California, and they want to sell our stuff on the Internet. Like, what? Like, no way. We don't trust the Internet. There's like. Like, literally, this is stuff we went.

Through. You know, we've come a long.

Way on that and all this stuff. And it was like, okay, okay, we'll work through it. So Shay and I came back after meeting with multiple brands, and we're like, hey, we're gonna. We're gonna focus so hard on building such a good name in the design industry that we go back and they can't sit. Like, they'll know who we are. They'll have to work with us. And we did that. We took a couple years. We built our social media following pretty substantial. And then they started to come around and understand, like, oh, we. We kept hearing we have to do Facebook, we have to do Instagram, but we don't. We don't know how to do that. And how did you guys do that? Can you just tell us how you guys did that? Tell us how you did that, and we'll let you sell our first. And we're like, okay, well, we can help you. We can put your products on our webpage and tag you on our social following so that you can start to grow and develop your social. And so they were, okay, yeah, let's do that. And that really opened the door for us to do.

That. So since we're on the topic of social, with hindsight, what do you think led to your great success on.

Instagram I think there are a couple of things and the first being the timing. I started posting to Instagram as an interior designer very early in that world. It was not. There were only a few of us interior designers posting and using that platform as a promotional tool. Just a, just a couple designers. There was no way to pattern ourselves after. And so I just had to figure it out. I had to listen to my audience. I had to figure out and constantly test like what type of photos worked and how, the cadence of how often to post. So I think being one of the earliest design Instagrammers and being willing to be consistent, I didn't take breaks and I was also willing to make mistakes. I'd try a photo, test it out and learn from it. That played a huge role in it. But also I think that a commitment to a high standard of visuals. We are never going to post a bad photo on our Instagram. It's only going to be beautiful photos that are well lit. We have a very distinct style that has played a part into it. And also we were willing to share information. The design industry has historically been very closed and designers are very secretive. And I have trade secrets that I keep for my clients, but I'm also willing to share what paint color is on the walls. I'm also willing to share tips and tricks that people can take from multimillion dollar homes that we're designing and share how they can apply them into a two bedroom apartment. And I think that that willingness to share has been a huge part of our.

Success. Shay is Shay McGee. So if you ask her to do something, she just, she's. If she does it, it is engaged time. She's engaged to the fullest and she's going to do it the best that she can do it. So we talked and we learned about, she learned about algorithms and well, what does that mean and how does that work? And how do we test engagement? And what are people liking? And different angles. And do they like it with me in it? Do they like me not in it? Do they like me holding flowers? No, they don't like me. Only flowers. So all these were conversations that we would have. I have it. Going to sleep, babe. Are you asleep? Yeah. Okay, great. Let's talk. And so it was like always like, how are we going to. What are we seeing? Oh, okay. We're seeing right now. If we use this hashtag that's growing a lot or different locations or getting reposted by other bigger companies, people that had bigger followings than us, all things that worked and have since lost their effectiveness. So you have to constantly be evolving. What that looks like from the design aspect is that her designs are very pretty and elevated, but when you're in them, you feel like this is. This feels great. I'm just kicking back. And I think we did the same on social, was to make it feel like a place where you could come, you could learn, you could ask questions about design. And a lot of people have taken that and replicated it at their own homes, and we don't make anything from that. But what we decided to do was become, like, a source of a design leader that would help give information and distribute it so that people could do that in their own lives, and people really, really like.

That. But wasn't that somewhat of an epiphany that you started off thinking we shouldn't share our secrets, and then you did that, and you saw how it led to more followers, which kind of led to everything else.

Right? Yeah. Well, I think, as Sid mentioned, like, I follow the rules. And so I, as someone coming from the outside, I was like, this is what designers do, so I need to follow those rules. I need to keep it all. And then Sid wants to break all of them. He's like, oh, don't do what other designers are doing. You need to be your own person. And I'm watching these fitness instructors share their workout for free online, and they're growing businesses because they're giving away information for free. You need to do that with design. And once that clicked for me and I realized the type of relationship that I could develop with our audience, it became a very loyal.

One. In the spirit of giving away information, do you have, like, one or a couple? Just great tips. How do you. How do you master.

Instagram? Oh, master Instagram. Consistency is the number one. You cannot take breaks because people lose interest. Everyone's attention span is so quick, and people think, oh, my gosh, you had this really overnight success, success. And I'm like, well, I've been posting every single day for years and years and years, not nonstop. And so you have to be patient, but also be consistent. And I think the other thing is that you have to develop your own unique point of view visually, because it's a visual platform. And so if you go to your profile and it looks like 300 other profiles out there, why would someone hit follow? You need to create your own visual.

Identity. Sid, you got any advice as an Instagram.

Husband? I'm gonna go work on my unique visual identity. Gotta try to grow my Instagram a little bit. I mean, dude, she is so consistent. I mean, go back over the last seven years and try to find a day where there's not a photo posted. And it's just funny because I think social is an opportunity, social media, and you can use it. It reminds me of a, a Dave Ramsey quote that said a lot of times opportunity is dressed up in overalls and looks a lot like work. And so a lot of people miss it. And that's what it is. I mean, it is. As well as being creative and good at what you do, you have to be really hard working and consistent in posting that. And I've seen Shay do that firsthand sometimes. I didn't like.

It. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna chime in here and say that he is no longer an Instagram husband. Because that. And it's not disagreements about the business. We have had the most fights as a couple in this business from him taking photos of me. And I'm like, this is terrible. Why did you take that away? And so he has stepped away from that role and we have professional photographers come in because that was the source of a lot of.

Contention. Wait, so your marital advice is hire a professional photographer? Is that what I just.

Heard? Yes, I'm a hundred and ten percent happier. It's actually true. But I have gotten better at taking pictures too, because I know the angles and all the stuff that she wants. But it's, it's exhausting, man. It's one of the hardest things.

I have to do, isn't it? As simple as the, the light should be in front of you and put him in the intersection of the rule of thirds. Not that.

Simple. You would think so. It's not high standards here.

Man. So doesn't this mean you're just slaves to feeding the content.

Monster?

Yes. Where have you been this 2020? We all feed the beast. We all have to feed the.

Beast. Now are you, are you jumping on TikTok as the next thing or are you an Instagram company and that's.

It? Well, we do YouTube and we've. And Pinterest and we have our blog. We haven't done TikTok. Probably should, but I haven't, haven't branched out into that world yet. But Pinterest is huge for us. It's just more of a slow growth over time. But the longevity of the content that we put out on Pinterest is incredible. I mean, we. People are still pinning images that we put out there years ago. And so it's, it's not a social platform necessarily, but it is a great marketing tool for our business. And YouTube is just. YouTube is filled with users that in my mind are completely different that what they expect from us is very different than what our Instagram audience expects. So we have to differentiate the content quite a.

Bit. I think it's interesting that each social media is its own personality. Kind of like the way that there's Instagram and then Pinterest is much more full of people like really trying to collect ideas for an upcoming project that they have. YouTube feels like a lot of people window shopping. They just want to enjoy the visuals. And then you have Instagram, they're. They're very engaged. They just want to see the latest kind of some behind the scenes, more of a polished product though, and get some info there and try to connect with us. So it's just each platform expects and wants something a little bit different from us. I don't know why shade is a TikTok. She's a good dancer. I would love to see some.

TikTok. So Sid, do you have a Pinterest board of surfboard.

Porn? I do, yeah. It's like motorcycles, like surfboards and like classic.

Cars. Are you, are you longboard or short.

Board? I was trying to tell Shay, like maybe I. I like classics. I like classic boards a lot. So long boards, always fun because you can have fun any day, right. And then I love like fish, like old fish boards, like twin fins or single fins if you're a surfer, you get it. But I just, I like, I'm not, I'm not, not hot dogging as much. I just like the classic flow. I like, I really like just enjoying being in the ocean and then just really kind of flowing with the.

Waves. Well, a couple things. This is, we're going down a rat.

Hole. That's okay. Hang in.

There. Yeah, so hang in there. Just. So number one is I'm close friends with Bob Pearson, so if you ever want a Pearson arrow, just let me know. Number two, my shortest board is 9 11. Just to give you an indication I truly understand the love of board. I should shoot a little video of my surfboard shack rack storage, because you would. This is like. I have the McGee design of.

Surfboard.

Okay.

Shacks. I need. As for business, I need to.

See. Yeah, yeah, you really are there a lot of waves. You're in Utah.

Right? So you need a. I know. Well, what they, what they have done, which is cool, is at the. Everyone's gone to this wake surfing thing. So they make boats that put out a big wake. 3. Some of the waves are like 3 foot, but it's really cool. And so we've done some of that this year, but we can, we come back to California maybe every like six weeks or something like that. So I have a couple boards, I have, I say a couple boards. I have six boards out there that I just keep at my brother's house and then I'll, I'll pop to the beach. But I mean I think I, I just love surfing. I think that I've looked at that a lot of times in the, in what we're doing at, in our business and I think that Shane, I have talked a lot and it's, we would, I would go surf in the middle of winter down at like Trussells and it'd be so cold and I'd have a huge wetsuit on and it would be like two feet. There'd be no one there but, but I had a friend and we would always go, we would just say here we're just going to go. If it's, if it's, unless it's a lake, we're going to go. And we would have, we would have so much fun. There was no one there. Little two foot waves. And I just thought that's, that's how it is. Happiness is a state of mind. So even if we were in a rental or we hadn't made it yet with our business or things were struggling, no matter your situation, you can choose to enjoy it and choose to be happy or you can choose to not be happy. The things that you achieve, the money or success, they don't, they don't make you happy. You, you need to, to make a conscious decision to make you happy. And so I think we've, we've found that in our work and I think I really attribute that to, back to, to surfing and just choosing, I'm going to be happy no matter.

What. Well, but, but Sid, more money can buy more.

Boards. More boards. Yeah, but then more boards, more problems. Like more boards, more problems. What do you ride? And they have the, the problem with the paradox of choice, right? Then you look at those boards, the ones looking lonely. They look lonely and they're mad at.

You. As further proof that I really read the book, there's a couple paragraphs in there where you say, well, there are two kinds of surfers. One surfer is waiting for the perfect condition, perfect wave, perfect weather, no crowd. And the other surfer just goes out in anything and I'm the.

Second. Just go, man. You know, I've Been out on some crazy days, and we just look at my buddy and I look at it, we're like, what are we doing? This is. This is crazy. But, you know, it's. We just. We're having a good.

Time. Okay, enough. Enough about surfing. I'd like to know what you.

Learned from the incredible HGTV experience that you.

Had. Incredible. I don't know if it was incredible, but it was definitely a learning experience early on in our career. And by early, I mean they a production company. So it wasn't HGTV directly. So a production company reached out to us, and we were only about, you know, six months into starting Studio McGee, and they said, let's, you know, let's pitch. Pitch this show with you guys in it. And of course we said yes. We were, you know, so excited that someone even knew who we were. And the learning experience was that they tried to make us something that we weren't. And because of that, it didn't feel natural. I am so grateful that it didn't work out. I'm so glad that we got turned down. And that was really what gave us the idea to start our webisodes and this short form content and really get a sense for what do we value as a business. And part of that is being true to us. Sid is not a we are not the designer contractor relationship. And because of that, I think that it was easy to poo poo us because we didn't fit into that mold. But I also think that we saw it personally as a driving factor to continue to differentiate ourselves. And it took years. I think it's been, what, four or five years since that. That time. And then when we started talking to Netflix and they were, you know, of course, we get. The question is, well, what does Sid do? What would he do on the show? And we. We talked to them about that, and they were like, okay, well, let's give this. I think that we just really want you guys to be. Be you. And then we'll see. We'll see how this plays out. And everyone in that we had talked to previous couldn't figure out how to do a design show without a designer contractor husband and wife. And we just made one. And I'm really proud that we didn't pretend to be. We weren't acting. We didn't pretend to be something else, but it was a learning experience that we kind of lost ourselves. We let people push us into being something that we weren't, and eventually it worked.

Out. So.

With. With the Netflix series, are we gonna See, Sid, like cranking Excel and watch the rows.

Recalculate. I think that Sid is his greatest assets as CEO of our business is that he makes everyone really comfortable. He's super laid back, but he also pushes people to get things done in a positive way. And one of the biggest parts of design is when you meet with a client, you want them to be comfortable enough with you that they trust you. And I'm like, I'm always ready to get down to the design and to the business. Like, let's knock out some walls. And Sid can really just talk to people and work his magic to make them laugh and get them to be on board with all of my wild ideas. And so that dynamic is where he comes in, in the show, not cranking on Excel but being himself. And that usually means just working with.

People. I think a lot of people listening to this are going to say so, man, I would really like to know more about the tactics, so I have some tactical questions. Okay, so number one is I bet a lot of people want to know what's your favorite camera to.

Use for, like, video or.

Photo?

Both. So for video, we have a very, very small one person team. So it is not a whole production crew. We use a Canon 5, 5D. The Mark 3 is what we use for video for the photo shoots that we do in our interiors. That is different because we hire. It depends on the photographer that we're. We're using. We'll use the Manfrotto tripod. That's the tripod that we use.

And. Okay, good.

One. And then the, we use like this, the Canova slider. So that's how we get the, like wider shots of our, our interiors. So I mean like, we're like put it into a little bag and carry it like with us. It is not a big, it's not a big setup. And because we love natural light, we do not use artificial light when we shoot at all. No. Well, occasionally, if it's like a bathroom that has no windows, but if it has a window in it, we use only natural.

Light.

Okay. And like, we'll make that shutter speed like so slow so it just takes in, takes in the natural.

Light. That's why you need a Manfrotto.

Trackpod. Yeah.

Exactly. Only if you're.

Serious. And how about the phones you.

Use?

IPhone.

IPhone. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 or.

12. Which.

One? Always the latest. I don't even know what the latest is right now, but always the.

Latest. Okay, and when you take these photos and video, do you put them In Lightroom or do you put them in Apple photo or what. What's the. What's the workflow for.

Photo? We use Lightroom and we use. Oh my gosh. What's.

The. What's.

The. We use Premiere to edit the.

Video. By any chance, do you use.

Canva? I do. I was actually so excited to tell you that we use it a lot. I just was actually, we use it for presentations. Yes. But my other favorite way to use it is we do all of our groups mood boards on it. So we'll create these decks and let's say it's for holiday and we have an ornament board and then we can all be adding to it at the same time and then we can see it in real time and edit, make notes and it's just so quick and intuitive that it has. We completely switched over from other programs that we were.

Using.

Why? I couldn't pay for a better.

Endorsement. Yeah, there you.

Go. You.

Can. How about I send you a.

Board? Okay, I got.

It. Tell me what color because I don't want it to clash in the.

Room. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm really curious, for a design couple like you, what kind of cars do you.

Drive? I drive a BMW X7 and. But what you'll. You'll appreciate the color combination more than the car. It's white on the outside with a peanut butter leather interior. So for me, that is. That's all I cared about was the color combination and that it fit kids.

Nicely. Yeah, I know. I drive a Ford Raptor. It's really big inside, so kids. I bought it because the kids, when they're in their car seats, couldn't kick the front seat. And I was like, we're sold. Let's do it. Because it.

Has. And you can carry all your bikes in the.

Back. Bikes, surfboards and everything. I mean, I need a truck. I'm a truck.

Guy. I thought you were gonna say like a G class Mercedes or.

Something. That's so funny because I've been trying to get him to get one, but he won't get rid of his.

Truck.

Really? Yeah. Functional.

Man. Does it have a shotgun rack or.

Anything? Oh, that'd be.

Cool. But you gotta remember we live Utah. Utah. Trucks are.

Everywhere. Can you describe when you do.

A. A McGee design photo.

Shoot? How does it.

Work? Is.

It. You're up at dawn and it takes 12 hours? Well, now that I know you don't use. Use lights, you don't have to set up lights. So do you just show up, shoot and.

Go? I mean, make it sound so simple because we don't use the light.

Lights. But no, it makes it harder, in my.

Opinion. Yeah. So it depends on the type of photo shoot. So let's say for. It's a. If it's a project, we are usually installing the project for days. So the home has been. We've been working on the build of the home for like a year and a half to that point. And then we get the keys. And typically the contractors are still finishing up the home. And we are trying to move in all of the furniture, make all the beds, put all of the pillows in place, the trees, the artwork, put family photos and picture frames. And then after days of doing that, the photographer comes and we are just exhausted. But because no one has lived in the home, we get a fresh. Just a fresh home that's perfectly made to take the photos. And then we do that for a day or two. And then when we shoot catalogs, it's like truckloads of things, and we just cover the lawn with bins of props and accessories, and it's a total mess. It's a disaster to shoot catalogs. But the result looks so peaceful and.

Beautiful. From an outsider's perspective, it is crazy to watch. They're just bringing in so much stuff, moving things around, styling, placing things, placing little accessories, replacing them, replacing them again. Like, then getting the perfect shot, lighting. Then they have to come, like, check what. What's. Where's the sun direction? Okay. Like, you know, and I'm like, what the heck? Like, sun direction and shadows and everything to get, like, everything, like, just. Just.

Right. Well, if we're setting a dinner. Dinner scene, like, where do you think that food's coming from? We've got to. We. We have to, like, then make the food look good. And so then you have grocery bags of food and silverware and. And drinks. And that's not even considering the products that we're trying to now hop on.

Stuff. I'll come in and eat some of the food and help clean.

Up. This is often happening at your.

House. It does often happen at our house, especially now with COVID We don't go into as many houses. And so our home ends up being the photo shoot location. And also, just by nature of social media, a lot of the photo shoots end up at our house. And yes, it's a.

Mess.

Yes. So how do you balance this, Your house, your relationship, your kids? I mean, that's a lot of balls to juggle. How do you make that work? Do you have advice for working.

Couples? I Think that Sid and I really have found that in business, we have to separate all responsibilities and trust each other to run with those or else we will step on each other's toes and there's conflict. And so I think early on, we did have that because we didn't have clear boundaries of responsibilities. And once we decided that, really, we do not butt heads when it comes to business because we have a very strong trust in each other. But it's funny because at home, there's like no clear division of responsibilities. It's the total opposite because it's just like whoever is available to run the kids to tennis lessons or, oh, my gosh, they forgot their lunch. Can you run it to school? Do you have minute between meetings? We just. It's just a free for all. All hands on deck when it comes to home life. And over the years, we've grown our team to handle more things so that we can have a home life. It wasn't always that.

Way. Yeah. I think one of the fortunate, you know, effects of working with Netflix to do the show was that we had to commit so much time to doing the show that our team had to really get used to life without us being there every moment of the day. And so our leaders of the company started really stepping up and really getting used to working without us and to manage their teams in a way that we would just check in with them and really give them responsibility and the autonomy to make decisions without us. And then that has been really beneficial to us. And then just. It's funny. We are like a modern family in the sense that it's not like you. You're. You're the guy, so you should do that. And you're the. You're the, you know, you're the woman. You should do that. It's whatever. I'm doing dishes, making lunch. Like, I try to pick the kids clothes out. That's horrible. I do it. I'm like, one, one in a hundred one. She's good job. I'm like, okay, I'll change. Wait, did you just say good job? Oh, my gosh. I did it. I did it. I did it. So there's things I'm bad at, but I still try to do it. But we just. It's funny because I think that we're very fortunate to have what we have. It is chaotic and crazy at times. Yes. But I think that we've also really come together close as a family in what we do. We support each other. I think Shay and I show our kids that. That you can have a different relationship. It doesn't have to be so standard that we support each other, that we encourage each other to pursue our dreams and to make it happen, and that we are available to be around for our kids, as opposed to me maybe following a more traditional lifestyle where I have to work all the time, travel a ton and be away and not get to see them as much, and maybe Shay would be here more. We found that we can work a lot and we can also support each other and be with our kids a lot. And really a couple other things. We carve out family vacations and we plan them. We put them on the books, like, every year, like this is gonna happen. Because if we don't, you got photo shoot, photoshoot, install, install, project, then the year's over, and you're like, what? What? We just started. So we put those on the books, and when we go, we check out and we just focus with our family and kids at that time to really connect with them and be together. So we have high concentrated amount of.

Time. Question about your book. First of all, I love the title. All right, so tell us about your book. And in particular, tell us about the process of two people writing a book. Those of you listening to the podcast, when you buy this book, you'll see that there's a. There's like a section by Sid and a section by Shay, and it's kind of he said, she said in some places. So tell us about the book and the process of writing the.

Book. So our book is Make Life Beautiful. And as a design firm, I think that people expected us to come out with a coffee table book, a book filled with beautiful imagery. And we felt like people get beautiful imagery from us every day, but they don't always get the real messy behind the scenes. And we really wanted to do something different. And so that is how this came about. And make life beautiful has been our mantra from the very beginning. And it was about, yes, creating beautiful moments in homes, but it was also about making a challenging situation, choosing to see the good in that situation. And that's where that came from for us. And so when we were writing the book, we realized, like, this is two different perspectives. We can't just have this be one voice. There's two people here, and people are used to hearing my voice. But Sid is just as much a part of this as I am, and his perspective is different than mine. And so what we did was we really outlined kind of each big event that we felt was a turning point or a pivotal moment throughout this process. And we would kind of walk through it and then divide. Divide. I'd write, I'd write down what I was writing and then he would kind of chime in and be like, oh, okay. Well, from my perspective, it was this way. And so I would kind of start and then he would fill in his, like, his spot on to the story. And it became a really nice back and forth with a little bit of banter. And that is very much a representation of our relationship as well. And so I think that it was a good fit that way to do it. But it, it also, I think, is, it's fun because we are so different. I think we're so different personality wise too. So you get to see that we have created a business together. But it has been from two very different.

Perspectives. Well, Sid, now you get to.

Say. What do you want me to say? I mean, she's got.

It. Something about the.

Book. I.

Mean. Sorry.

Sid. No, it's fine. I'm just. It's fun because I think it's fun to recount those things. And I think at times it seems like our journey was taking so long and we are like, like painfully crawling through the sand and over broken glass and that we were just, is this going to work? Is this actually going to work? And. And it was really hard at times to continue to pursue this, this dream and this thing that we ever had found ourselves engaged in. So I think that dynamic of going back and forth and what's, what's her perspective and what's her take and what's mine getting gives color to that story. True to form, we don't feel like we've made it. We haven't accomplished everything and we're done and we're going to retire. It's like maybe halfway through. And so I think we wanted to just share, we wanted to share our story to this point to provide encouragement to other people to say, like, hey, I mean, even Sid did this. Like, I could do this probably. Like I, I need to pursue my journey. But I think that we wanted to show people, like, hey, there are things and it's crazy and it's messy, but it's fun and you can do it. So you, you should give it a go. And I think that's where we've, we've come to and hopefully our book kind of illustrates some of those things of what's required and the amount that you do have to sacrifice and you do have to choose what things you do focus on and what you think is important to you. Because when you choose to go down on some of these endeavors that you're just not going to have time to do everything. It's not always going to be fun and it's not going to have the time to do all the fun things. You're going to have to focus and work relentlessly to run down the dream, chase down that dream that you want to come to.

You. What should people expect when they watch your Netflix series Dream Home.

Makeover? Well, expect some really good before and afters. You're not. We're not going to disappoint on that. We're delivering before and afters. But I think there's a couple of things that make our show different than other home shows and that is that we're showing a really wide range of types of projects. We have huge multimillion dollar homes and then we'll do a one room makeover. And I really wanted to show that it's possible to apply design principles in a wide range of settings and for different types of family and people. So you see diversity there. And then you're also getting more that we lift the curtain a little bit more on our relationship and our family dynamic while running a business. And it's not a one person design crew. You see that we have a team that is working on these projects. And so I think that that's what you're getting yourself into is at the end of the day, you're getting a little bit more of the people behind the scenes, but then you're also getting some killer before and.

After. So speaking of makeovers, I sent you a picture of what's behind.

Me.

Yes. So, you know, what would you do differently? Now I have to tell you that I know you're not big into black. I don't think anyway, looking at your Instagram feed, but these acoustic tiles, they only come in black. I can't order them in sand or whatever or chalk. So what would you tell me about my.

Background? I like black. Sid's office is really dark, so I'm not opposed to doing a dark space. I like it. My advice would be to add a little bit of greenery I think that you can see. I love a little fiddle leaf, fig poking in or some sort of plant. You want it to make sure that it doesn't look like it's coming out of the back of your head, of course, but a little bit poking into the image I think goes a long way. But it looks.

Good. Now are you just saying that and being nice? Are you.

Gonna. I'm being.

Nice.

Yeah, you look good against.

Black. Okay, well, I'm relieved. I was, like, worried the whole time. You're just gonna tell me, oh, you need a complete and.

Utter. You should have started there so you could.

Relax. Yeah, that's why I didn't press the record button. I was so.

Worried. I love that you have your books back there. It's.

Great. All right. Have you read. Have you actually read those.

Books? Some of them I wrote. So yeah. Okay, now truly my last question, because, you know, I know you have to post one picture a day at the very least. So I think of all people.

This, I feel like right.

Now. Yeah, let's. Let's both do that. You can post this on.

Instagram. Oh, sorry, I was falling out of the.

Chair. Okay, look at the.

Camera. There we go. Love.

It. Okay, so my last question, because probably you are two of the best people in the world to address this question. How do you find a good.

Contractor? Oh, I would. First question, first answer is always ask your neighbors. I feel like I usually don't recommend contractors to my clients unless it's a contractor that I've worked with many, many times, because some contractors will have, like, a good project, and then they'll have kind of a rough experience. So I would start with the neighbor, and then I would ask that contractor to give you a few references and really follow up and ask those references questions about the process, because it's very telling. And then I have one other tip is if you know the architect or the designer that has worked with that contractor on other projects, I would ask them about the working relationship as well. He's like, you.

Really. You really just want to get an insight to the character of the contractor, because that can make a huge difference. Are they really thorough in doing their work? Are they really good at communicating issues to you, like, in a prompt way? Because you want to know as soon as possible when something's going wrong so that you can address it. Because usually it's going to have budget. Budget implications, and it's going to have project timeline implications. And you just want to know if they're. If they're a good guy or if they're going to be like, this project's crazy. And then they take off, and you're like, I don't even know how to find the guy anymore. And then realize he had a burner cell phone and doesn't call people back. You got to watch it, because sometimes you hear these things and it happens so much. So people that have worked with them. So any clients and then contractors working with architects and designers. They can give you really good insight to that.

Relationship. All right, well, thank you very.

Much. That was.

Fun. Oh, by the way, do you know about the Remarkable Tablet? Have you ever heard about this.

Thing?

Yeah. It's a tablet that it feels just like writing with a pencil. So I've been taking notes and stuff as we go along. It would be great for you guys to do sketches and stuff. So anyway, the Remarkable People podcast is sponsored by the Remarkable Tablet Company, so you're each gonna get one of these, so we'll be sending them to.

You. Thank.

You. I almost went and bought one today because I heard you talking about it on your last podcast. That sounds so cool. You only have to charge it, like, every two weeks or.

Something. Two weeks?

Yeah. And you know what? You never have to charge the pencil. And the pencil. This is the pencil. Unlike an ipod pencil, you just. Well, a never have to charge you, but you flip it around and you just erase. And it erases whatever you wrote on the pad, which is just magic to.

Me.

Yeah. And another advantage of it is, let's say you sketch a design or something or you take notes from a client meeting. Well, immediately thereafter, it's going to sync to the cloud. So then you have a second copy of all your notes and all your sketches, and you can go to your desktop and look at your sketches and stuff. You're not stuck in this tablet.

World, so it's very.

Useful. That's really cool. Thank.

You. So thank you very much. We'll certainly help you try to get some book sales and on.

Netflix. Thank.

You. All right. So thank you very much, and it's been a pleasure. Truly a pleasure. Thank.

You. You're wonderful. Thank you so much for having.

Me.

Us. I just want you to know that because of Shay's comment, I went out and got a fig plant. So if you see me in a virtual keynote or some kind of conference or a call, you'll see that there's a fig plant over my left shoulder. That's because of Shea McGee. I hope you enjoyed this episode. There's so much to learn from them about grit, determination, division of labor, working together as a couple. I really enjoyed this episode. I hope you can tell. Be sure to read their upcoming book, Make Life Beautiful and watch their new Netflix series, Dream Home Makeover. I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is remarkable people. My thanks to the dynamic duo podcasting Jeff C. And Pig Fitzpatrick. Until next time, wash your hands, wear a mask, and stay, let's say, 10ft away from others. Don't go into crowded bars, restaurants and gardens and listen to scientists and doctors. Mahalo and.

Aloha. This episode of Remarkable People is brought to you by Remarkable the Paper Tablet.

Company. This is remarkable people.