Today we’d like to introduce you to Mackenzie Collier.
Hi Mackenzie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I founded Mackenzie Collier Interiors in 2011, but the story really started long before that. I grew up in the Midwest with a mom who was incredibly creative and always working on interior design projects, so I developed a love for spaces and storytelling early on. I later studied psychology at Michigan State University before attending design school in Chicago, and that blend of psychology and design still heavily influences the way I approach interiors today. I’ve always been fascinated by how our environments affect the way we feel, function, connect, and move through life.
Like many small business owners, I started from scratch and learned by doing. In the beginning, I was wearing every hat imaginable: designer, salesperson, project manager, marketer, purchaser, bookkeeper. The business grew slowly and intentionally over time through a lot of hard lessons, persistence, and refining our systems and processes year after year. Today, Mackenzie Collier Interiors has grown into a multi-person studio working on residential and commercial projects both locally in Arizona and nationally.
What I’m most proud of, though, is the life I’ve built alongside the business. My wife and I are foster and adoptive parents, and over the years I realized I didn’t want to build a company that required sacrificing my health, creativity, or family to maintain it. A huge part of my evolution as an entrepreneur has been learning how to create stronger boundaries, better systems, and a business structure that allows me to still be deeply involved creatively while also being present in my real life.
That perspective really shapes our design philosophy too. We aren’t interested in creating spaces that just look beautiful in photos. We want homes and businesses to feel deeply personal, functional, supportive, and reflective of the people using them. After 15 years in business, I think that combination of creativity, psychology, resilience, and real-life experience is what defines both me and the company today.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not. I think one of the biggest misconceptions people have about entrepreneurship is that successful businesses were built through confidence from day one. For me, a lot of the journey was learning confidence through experience, mistakes, and necessity.
One of the hardest hurdles early on was learning how to charge appropriately for my work. For years, I undercharged because I was afraid people would say no, or that charging higher fees somehow made me greedy or inaccessible. Over time, I realized my clients were coming to me specifically because they wanted expertise, creativity, efficiency, and guidance. Most of them were not looking for the cheapest option. They were looking for someone they could trust to help them avoid expensive mistakes and create a result they couldn’t achieve on their own. Learning to value my own expertise was a huge turning point for both my business and my mindset.
Another major learning curve has been leadership and team management. As the business grew, I had to learn that hiring talented people is only one part of building a healthy company. Values alignment matters just as much, if not more. Earlier in my career, I often waited too long to let people go when I could already sense they weren’t the right fit culturally or ethically. I think a lot of founders internalize that as a personal failure. You want to believe you can coach someone through it or fix the situation if you just try harder. But I’ve learned that when you ignore red flags, a tremendous amount of damage can be done to team morale, client relationships, and company culture.
Now, I still believe strongly in mentorship, growth, and giving people opportunities to improve. But I also understand the importance of protecting the integrity of the team and the business. If I spot ethical issues or behavior that conflicts with our core values, I address it quickly. That lesson took me years to learn, but it has made me a much stronger leader.
I think entrepreneurship has humbled me in a lot of ways. Building a business for 15 years means surviving economic shifts, burnout, hiring mistakes, difficult projects, self-doubt, and constant reinvention. But it’s also taught me resilience, boundaries, and the importance of building a business that aligns with your actual values and life, not just external definitions of success.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At Mackenzie Collier Interiors, we work on both residential and commercial interior design projects, ranging from full remodels and renovations to furnishing and décor projects. Our work is very relationship-driven and highly detailed. We help clients with everything from space planning and construction materials to furnishings, styling, and project coordination. A lot of our projects involve helping clients make major decisions that impact not only how their space looks, but how it functions and supports their day-to-day life.
I think what we’re most known for is creating spaces that feel deeply personal and layered rather than overly trend-driven or one-size-fits-all. Because of my background in psychology, I’ve always approached design through the lens of how people actually live, feel, recharge, gather, work, parent, entertain, and move through their homes or businesses. We spend a lot of time getting to know our clients and understanding what they truly need from a space beyond just aesthetics.
We’re also known for being extremely thorough and process-oriented behind the scenes. I think there’s a misconception that creativity and structure are opposites, but in reality, strong systems are what allow creative projects to run smoothly. Over the last 15 years, we’ve built detailed workflows and processes that help keep projects organized, reduce stress for clients, and allow our team to manage a large amount of moving parts efficiently. Clients often tell us they feel genuinely cared for and guided throughout the process, which is something I’m incredibly proud of.
What sets us apart most, though, is probably the balance between creativity, emotional intelligence, and real-world practicality. We care deeply about beautiful design, but we also care about budgets, timelines, communication, family dynamics, functionality, sensory experience, and creating spaces that truly support people’s lives. I’m not interested in designing homes that feel staged or untouchable. I want people to walk into their spaces and feel more like themselves there.
On a personal level, what I’m most proud of is that I’ve built a business that has longevity while still evolving alongside my life. Over the years I’ve grown from a solo designer into the leader of a multi-person studio, while also becoming a wife, foster and adoptive parent, and mentor to other designers. Building a business that allows me to be present with my family while still doing meaningful, creative work is probably the accomplishment that means the most to me.
What are your plans for the future?
I’m actually entering a really exciting season creatively right now. For the last several years, my role within Mackenzie Collier Interiors shifted more heavily toward leadership, operations, mentoring the team, and overseeing projects rather than personally leading the design work day-to-day. This year, for the first time in about eight years, I’ve stepped back into leading a handful of projects myself, and I’ve genuinely loved it.
Part of that decision was creative. I missed being deeply immersed in the design process and wanted to challenge myself creatively again. But part of it was also intentional from a leadership perspective. I never want to become so removed from the actual client and design experience that I lose touch with what my team is navigating every day. Staying connected to the realities of design work helps me lead more effectively, mentor better, and continue refining our processes from firsthand experience rather than theory.
I’m also very excited about a new venture we’ll be launching soon called Damn The Man. It’s an ethical design concept that focuses on sourcing spaces with approximately 80% vintage and antique pieces alongside 20% ethically sourced new products. The idea grew out of my lifelong love of thrifting, collecting, sustainability, and storytelling through interiors, but also from a growing frustration with mass consumption, disposable furniture culture, and the environmental impact of the design industry. I’m really passionate about creating spaces that feel soulful, layered, personal, and more connected to community and history.
Beyond design, I’m also working on a book called A Woman’s Work Is Never Done, which explores the ways women build businesses, families, communities, support systems, and creative lives, often while carrying enormous invisible labor behind the scenes. A lot of my experiences as a founder, mother, foster parent, mentor, and creative entrepreneur have shaped that project, and I’m excited to continue developing it.
At this stage in my career, I think I’m most interested in building things that feel meaningful and aligned. Creativity, leadership, community, sustainability, mentorship, and storytelling all feel deeply connected to the direction I’m heading now, and I’m excited to see where that evolution leads over the next few years.
Contact Info:
- Website: mackenziecollierinteriors.com and mackenziecollier.com
- Instagram: mackenziecollierinteriors and itsmackenziecollier
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mackenzie-collier/?isSelfProfile=false
