An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Josiah: The number one thing you need to thrive as a power couple is to understand and support each other’s strengths and weaknesses. By doing so, you’ll not only succeed in business, but also strengthen your relationship with one another.
As a part of our series about lessons from Thriving Power Couples, I had the pleasure of interviewing Josiah and Meg Mothershed of Mothershed Design Co. As a husband-wife team, Meg and Josiah are partners in love, life, and business. Having been together for nearly a decade and running a business for six of those years, this dynamic duo has expanded to an international client base and achieved recurring six-figure yearly sales, all while maintaining freedom over their time and a relentless passion for the design field. Josiah and Meg use their unique talents and skills to help small businesses succeed by building brands and websites that stand out, attract the right customers, and drive growth.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you two to your respective career paths?
Josiah: After years spent working as a graphic designer for agencies and in-house teams, I was feeling frustrated and unfulfilled. Having been involved in every step of the design process, I knew what it took to run a project from start to finish and felt I could do it better. So, in 2016 I struck out on my own and formed Mothershed Design Co. shortly after Meg and I got married.
Meg: At the time Josiah started the studio, I was working as an in-house graphic designer at a nonprofit. While it was a great job as a recent graduate, it left me craving more. Having always wanted to own my own business since I was six years old, joining Josiah at MDCo. was a no-brainer! I quit my job and joined him in the business full time in 2016 and we’ve never looked back.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you two got married?
Meg: One of the biggest and most exciting things to have happened to us since getting married is definitely having a baby! Our daughter was born in August 2022 and has already brought such joy into our lives.
Josiah: Now, not only do we share the titles of husband and wife and business partners, but “mom” and “dad” too! It’s been an incredible journey so far and we’re only just beginning the big adventure that is parenthood.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Josiah: When we first started working together, we were used to working pretty independently and didn’t always communicate about what we were working on, leading to us sometimes working on the same thing at the same time!
Meg: We quickly learned the importance of clear communication and began to define our roles within the business. I focus on running the operations of the business, managing projects, and handling strategy and copywriting for clients, while Josiah (our creative genius), does the heavy lifting on design and web development.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Meg: Mothershed Design Co. isn’t your typical design studio. We’re not a big agency and we’re not flaky freelancers. We’re the best of both worlds: we’ve got the multi-faceted skills of an agency and the flexibility of freelancers, without the expensive overhead or unreliability.
Josiah: We’re a tiny but mighty team that believes in the power of staying small. With too many cooks in the kitchen, your message can get lost in translation. We keep our operations small to ensure clear communication. That’s why we only take on projects that we can do using our own skills to provide the best service possible.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Josiah: We’re currently working on several rebranding projects for new clients! Rebrands are our bread and butter. We love taking an existing brand that feels outdated or poorly designed and transforming it into one that reflects the value the business provides and stands out from the competition!
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
Meg: When working with your team, remember to put yourself in their shoes. What will motivate them? What are they passionate about? It’s easy to fall into “the boss” role and forget what it’s like to be an employee. By understanding their perspective, you can better meet their needs and build a strong team.
How do you define “Leadership”?
Josiah: Leadership means always putting others first. Whether that be your children, spouse, close friends, or clients, a true leader puts others’ needs before their own and strives to serve as an excellent example of humanity.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Meg: We’re definitely each other’s biggest support system. One of the biggest strengths in our relationship is our ability to work as a united team in everything we do.
Josiah: Everything we take on is to benefit us as a family. Running a business isn’t always easy, but there’s no one else in the world I’d rather be doing it with.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
Meg: While there’s plenty of big companies doing great things, we’re most passionate about helping small businesses succeed. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy. It’s our goal to support them by building brands and websites that stand out, attract the right customers, and drive growth.
What are the “5 Things You Need To Thrive As A Couple”? Please share a story or example for each.
Josiah: The number one thing you need to thrive as a power couple is to understand and support each other’s strengths and weaknesses. By doing so, you’ll not only succeed in business, but also strengthen your relationship with one another.
Having defined roles and responsibilities is also incredibly important. Use what you each are passionate about (and not so passionate about), to determine who does what to find the most fulfillment in your work.
Meg: Don’t forget to ask for help. Josiah and I are both major “do-it-yourself-ers” who like to take on everything ourselves. That can sometimes translate to not wanting to ask for help when we need it. Over the years, we’ve learned that asking for help is not only necessary but also gives the other person the opportunity to show their support.
Josiah: On that note, don’t forget to take a break! As both partners in life and in business, it’s easy to allow work to take over. We often have to remind ourselves to take a step back and rest once in a while.
Meg: Lastly, remember that at the end of the day, it’s still just work. Projects come and go, but ultimately it’s the love you have for one another that matters most.
You are people of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Josiah: At Mothershed Design Co., we believe in small, sustainable growth. We have found that’s the key to our success, both professionally and personally. Constantly doing creative work can be both incredibly rewarding and challenging. It’s easy to quickly become burned out doing something you love.
Meg: Our goal as a business is to support other small businesses through branding and web design while maintaining the motivation that made us want to start a business in the first place — freedom over our time and spending that time doing something meaningful.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Meg: Something we constantly remind ourselves is to “be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
Josiah: As both entrepreneurs and creatives, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is crucial to achieving your dreams. If you only pursued what you were familiar with, you’d never experience anything new. You would stay in the same place with the same people in the same situations.
Meg: It can be downright scary to go after what you truly want, but life is too short to be left wondering, “what if?”
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Meg: Hands down it would be Marcus Lemonis! I’ve been a huge fan of his for years. From watching every episode of The Profit (several times over), to following his journey online, I find him to be an amazing source of inspiration as a small business owner. He offers practical, realistic advice on running a business that anyone can learn from and I love his focus on “people, process, and product” to achieve success.
How can our readers follow your work online?
Josiah: You can learn more about our story at MothershedDesign.com or follow along with us on Instagram at @mothershed_design.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Lessons from a Thriving Power Couple, With Josiah & Meg Mothershed of Mothershed Design Co was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.