From Spreadsheets to Seahorses: Building a Business with Purpose and Passion

In this episode of Beyond Interior Design, host Marc Müskens sits down with Simon Powell, the visionary founder behind Luxe Aquatics, a company that designs breathtaking aquatic environments for high-end residential clients.

From luxury aquariums that transform entire spaces into living art, to deeply personal installations designed to engage and calm, Simon’s work demonstrates how purposeful design can profoundly impact both spaces and lives.

In this episode, Simon shares:

🐠 How to craft aquariums as immersive, emotional centerpieces

🌊 The journey from payroll spreadsheets to high-end aquatic design

📐 Why saying “no” strategically can elevate your brand

🎨 How meticulous attention to detail creates exceptional, unforgettable client experiences

📌 Connect with us:

Follow us for more interior design insights:

• Instagram: @beyondinteriordesign
• Website: www.beyondinteriordesign.club

🎧 Where to listen:

Find this episode on your favorite platforms:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Buzzsprout

Transcript

[00:00:00] Simon: I think in any business, I mean, I think we all know what run about, but other people don't. They just want something that looks cool. They don't know the acronyms and what you say and how this is gonna look, and that's our job to portray that to him in a layman's term way, not presuming everybody knows what you are run about.

[00:00:23] Marc: Welcome back to Beyond Interior Design, the clip where we explore how interior design is like you can elevate your studio, create more impact, and build a business on your own TURPs. And today we're diving quite literally, actually, into a world of, uh, fluidity form and features that live, that lift, that breathe, and sometimes blink at you into a world of.

[00:00:46] Marc: Fishes. I'm joined by Simon Powell, founder of Luke's Aquatics, a company that creates breathtaking aquatic environments for our high-end residential clients. And now we are not talking about a little tank in your dentist waiting room. These are living sculptures, design statements, emotional centerpieces that transform, and entire spaces.

[00:01:05] Marc: But what I love most, this episode isn't really about aqua, it's about freedom. The freedom to say no, the freedom to build differently. The freedom to design your business and your life on your terms. So let's get into it. Simon, welcome to the Beyond to Terrorism Podcast. Thanks, mark. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:24] Marc: Yeah, I'm thrilled to have you here. You once said, I do have the best job in the world. Why? What makes it the best job in the world for you? 

[00:01:32] Simon: For me, it's an easy question to answer. I, I think it's more just to do with the clients that we work with, the design, the freedom to be able to design what we want within the client's scope.

[00:01:42] Simon: Obviously, a lot of our clients know what they want, but that's about it. They know they're on a fish tank. They know sort of maybe what type of color scheme they like. For us, it's very much then being in involved day one. From an interior design perspective, it is a fish tank. It is a living aquatic display, but it is very much driven by an interior design element.

[00:02:00] Simon: So that comes down to the room, the features, the color scheme, the, the pallets, the renders, anything that sits that, that anything, that fish tank is gonna be sat. In a, a situ of location is, you know, we've got to design that to match seamlessly while still doing its, its full purpose. So, I mean, that, that gives us the full openness of being able to create what we want.

[00:02:21] Simon: Advise the client, you know, but ultimately they trust us to deliver. Yeah, something spectacular. 

[00:02:28] Marc: Yeah, of course we're going to talk about delivering spec something spectacular and beyond, because it's not just an aquarium, what you're creating. Hey, you talk about, you already mentioned the word purpose. We get back on that one.

[00:02:40] Marc: Let's kick off with the basics, because your journey wasn't exactly a straight line. You, you went from spreadsheets to seahorses, something like that. 

[00:02:49] Simon: Yeah, no, very much so. Yeah. So we started in, uh, so my background, I mean, personally, I've worked myself for the last 20 years, so I've always been involved in, in running my own companies from quite an early age just because, not that I didn't like being told what to do, but I always had that vision of I wanna be able to create a future for myself.

[00:03:06] Simon: I had goals and aspirations, and the only way to do that is to, for me, was to, to sort of go off a loan and work for myself. Um, quite rightly, we worked in sort of, for the previous 10 years prior to setting the aquarium business up, we worked in payroll. So both me, myself, and my business partner were, were very much heavily involved in payroll.

[00:03:25] Simon: Me more from a marketing perspective, so more from a strategy marketing role was my background, um, supporting the business to grow. And again, it was quite early days in terms of. Google Analytics, Google ads, social media was just sort of coming off, so it, it, it was quite easy to find our way of how to be creative, but it, it was still quite early days and the audience weren't.

[00:03:48] Simon: I guess is familiar with social media. At the time, I was having the payroll business, both myself, my business partner, lived on the Ale of Man, which has, its, its sort of issues in terms of getting products and services on the island at a certain level or an expected level. Long story got short. Myself and my business partner set a pay furniture shop to provide high-end furniture or, or at least unique furniture to ourselves for our own houses.

[00:04:14] Simon: Um, but also we knew there was a demand there for clients and we thought, well, if we can service our own. Style and requirements. We can obviously do that to a bigger population on the island. I then had the idea of putting a fish tank in the middle of a room divider to basically separate the kitchen and the dining room to make it look a lot more distinguished and just to separate the two rooms.

[00:04:34] Simon: Yeah. We then started getting clients coming in saying, oh, do you sell fish tanks? That looks really pretty. It sort of breaks the room really well. From there, we started saying yes to people. Of course we can sell you a fish tank. Never sold a fish tank in our lives. This is probably six years ago, and, and things just sort of propel from there.

[00:04:49] Simon: Then in terms of obviously, you know, we found what client required where the fish tank could go in situ of the property and, and we started selling fish tanks across sort of the Isle of Man Jersey, Guernsey sort of small locations, but again, quite a niche. Fitment. Yeah. In the uk. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of people in the UK doing, at that time the type of fish tanks that we were doing.

[00:05:10] Simon: But because of the clientele that we were sort of receiving, getting inquiries from, we sort of adapted our business more towards a luxury high-end element rather than just sort of settling for the, for the standard one, because it was quite competitive at the time. 

[00:05:24] Marc: Yeah. Yeah. Let's be real. There are, there are hundreds of companies selling Aqua Lux, Socratic right now stands out big time.

[00:05:30] Marc: What makes your approach different? Why do clients come to you? 

[00:05:33] Simon: Yeah. Good question. And I think it's, I mean, it's, it's easy for us to answer because as a niche business, we obviously wanted to look. What everybody else was doing, and we didn't wanna try and compete with that. I mean, that's the, that's the easier part of a business, right?

[00:05:46] Simon: If you set up a business, you've got an idea. You either go with the flow and make it 10 times hard for yourself, or you sort of segment yourself away from everybody else and say, right, what's, what's the need? What's the requirement? And I think the high end luxury element to it was. Probably the hardest one because the demand wasn't as much.

[00:06:07] Simon: So where we would maybe get 10 inquiries a week for your small to medium sized tanks, we were maybe getting two or three a month for the bigger stuff. So obviously. You know, that's then where you sort of have to sort of stick to your ground and go out. We're willing to commit to this because we know we can add more value to it, and it's not, you know, building a fish tank, putting it into somebody's house, sticking it on a stand, you know, it's easy stuff.

[00:06:29] Simon: It's not rocket science. Yes, I'm not, I'm not being detrimental in terms of other people out there, but it, you know, it's not hard. Looking at big tanks where they need structural engineers, you need to advise the client. For example, they've got under floor heating and we can't put a tank on there until that's rerouted and reworked structurally, um, how we're actually gonna crane the tank in.

[00:06:49] Marc: Yeah, there's a lot of engineering involved. Yeah, 

[00:06:51] Simon: there is. So for us, focusing on that side of it became very critical. And we sort of had to put two hats on there. We became a structural engineering, stroke engineering type business where we engaged with partners to support us on that because that wasn't something we wanted to get involved in.

[00:07:05] Simon: And two, why should we get involved in it when there's great people out there doing that already? It's more the design element then of look, once it's in, you know, we're gonna make it pop. Yeah. So we very much focused our business on. What the client wanted, and that was an interior design led process, but ultimately for a structural.

[00:07:22] Simon: Engineering type product going into their house or location. So it was from experience for us sending an engineering or a structural company into a residential property. You know, it's all doom and gloom. It's all, oh, we can't do this. Or how are we gonna do this? How are we gonna achieve that? Not nothing that a client ever wants to hear, they just want the final is all.

[00:07:42] Simon: So we, I don't want to 

[00:07:43] Marc: know Er. 

[00:07:44] Simon: Yeah. Exactly. We, we basically made it so the client didn't need to think, worry, or concern themselves with that. We would deal with that whilst making everything else sound and look pretty, because that's all they were interested. In the end, 

[00:07:55] Marc: actually good lesson is never let the engineers do the communication.

[00:07:58] Marc: Definitely not, 

[00:07:59] Simon: we, we not hard to keep them away from all of our clients. Not because of anything else, but nobody wants to hear negativity or we're not sure whether this can be done. And that's, that's for us to deal with and that's for us to, you know, sort of explore ourselves. 

[00:08:13] Marc: I think every creative, every designer can relate to that.

[00:08:16] Marc: You build a very good team to create your well awesome ideas and, uh, to, uh, fulfill the wishes of your, of your clients, of your request. Yeah. Let's talk clients. You told me last time, most people don't even think about putting a fish tank into the home. That's, that's another challenge you have with the business.

[00:08:34] Simon: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, you know, most of our clients on the end client, a lot of our clients are the interior designer, the architect, the developer themselves, where the client usually, and a lot of our projects now are either high net worth. Private offices, celebrities, premiership, you know, sports people, personalities.

[00:08:56] Simon: So they're not the type of people that will pick up the phone to us to speak to us direct. They have people who speak to our people, and it's, it's just, it's, it's that, you know, circle. But for us, we're geared up for that. You know, privacy is a massive thing for us. You know, we deal and have a lot of conversations where most of them start with an NDA and we can't mention certain things, and there's a lot of privacy around that, which we fully respect.

[00:09:16] Simon: It's that communication of how we process that. Because you know, when you're trying to build, let's say a 200,000 Euro fish tank, you know you need that in, you need that communication between the client, you know, it gets very diluted very quickly when you speak to an interior designer who's purely focused on this, needs to look amazing.

[00:09:35] Simon: You know, we need to factor, we as a business need to factor in the livestock, what's going in that tank. And then there's so many variations of, you know, these are living creatures. Some of them need hand feeding, some of them need, you know, specific feeding. Habits to be able to thrive in that, that environment.

[00:09:53] Simon: We also need specific access to the tank so we can get in it and clean it. We need to be able to get in and dive in the tank once or twice a year. So trying to portray that back to somebody who's just on a timeframe to match the color scheme in their pallets is quite difficult to then obviously try and get in contact with the client.

[00:10:08] Simon: Direct, say, look what fish do you like? 'cause the biggest problem we have is, is the end client. Knows what they want from a fish tank and what type of fish us trying to get that across, you know? So again, we came up with all these different ideas of, you know, we have very creative bespoke brochures for each client, which gives them sort of an over an overarching ideas of what type of fish they can have, and then we work it backwards.

[00:10:32] Simon: So 

[00:10:32] Marc: that's a, that's a, that's what the first conversation is. Like you show them all the possibilities or inspire them. Yes. 

[00:10:37] Simon: It depends where the client's at in terms of a build stage and a requirement stage. So. I mean, very first stage is we do, we do render, so we do 3D, four D render, so we can, if we've got room plans, if we've got actually been to location ourselves, we invest heavily in AI and tech now, which allows us to create a lot of these renders for us.

[00:10:56] Simon: And then definitely the brochures after that, which we, we, we make, based on what type of tank it's gonna be, it's marine, freshwater, tropical. By the time we get to. The fish choice. Even things like the interior design, the decor, which is all, you know, made bespokely. It's, it's, it's very, 

[00:11:13] Marc: yeah, it can be, can be teamed, right?

[00:11:14] Simon: Yeah. What are popular teams with the marine world? It's very much underwater, marine type, you know, like a, a boat wheel or a bit of a sail or some sort of. Treasure hidden. You know, it, it all depends on the room, but yeah, I mean, if you're going for a marine tank, a salt water marine tank, which is your, everybody would know that as having clownfish in there.

[00:11:35] Simon: Like your Nemos, your Doris, you know, the sort of the beautiful corals. And the theme is very much a coral based theme. You, you know, you want to be able to immerse yourself underwater as you as if you were snorkeling with freshwater, uh, tropical fish. We can be a bit more creative with that in terms of one of our clients wanted a sort of a, yeah.

[00:11:54] Simon: Uh, rainforest type theme. Jungle types or, yeah. Rainforest water. So we've had some bespoke. Wooden tree trunks made, um, for the tank. Um, and then the little touches that we do above and beyond fence is this client have five children, and we sort of engraved all the kids' names into the tree trunks as if you walk.

[00:12:14] Simon: Oh, wow. If you go into a forest and you were, you know, you and you, I used to it, my granddad, you know, you'd go in and use, carve your name into a tree and you'd come back years later and it'd be there. So it's, you know, it's a simple thing, but it's so bespoke to that client. 

[00:12:26] Marc: It adds a lot of meaning. It does, 

[00:12:28] Simon: yeah.

[00:12:28] Marc: Wonderful. Well, and honestly, I can imagine most people don't give a, well, whatever you can, it's about fish. They just love the visual or the feel or the presence. How do, how do you handle those requests? Yeah, 

[00:12:41] Simon: it's, I mean, it's, it's a frustration on one hand from us because obviously myself and all of our teams, we live and breathe fish.

[00:12:49] Simon: When we're trying to sort of say to a client, you know, we wanna put these fish in, these fish would go really well, you know, we do understand and appreciate that the client is looking at this as a, as a feature. It's very much a themed feature in a property rather than. We love Phish, we wanna be able to do this.

[00:13:04] Simon: But you know, I think we just ask the right questions and we have a very clear process of trying to understand what that client is trying to achieve from that. 

[00:13:11] Marc: So it is literally the questions, literally What kind of impact do you want to make? Or how, how can we add value or how do you describe this, this beyond question?

[00:13:20] Simon: Yeah. I mean it's, it's, it's a process of elimination and it comes down to do you have kids, you know, are your kids gonna be involved in that? Because again, we can be, if they've got kids and the kids want to be involved, you know. We will sort of tear fish at different levels, but we'll also be mindful that if you've got a 4-year-old child that's gonna be running up to the tank and knocking on the window often.

[00:13:40] Simon: Mm-hmm. Yes. You know, we as a business need to make sure we're putting the right fish in there. That one, the fish are gonna be interacted with the kids, but they're not gonna be terrified out of the skin because you've got little fingers and little hands banging on the on, on the, you know, on the acrylic or the glass all the time.

[00:13:55] Simon: You know, if it's a sort of a snog or some sort of relaxation room where they do maybe yoga or they go there to relax or they've got a gym in there, then again we can sort of, we want some nice slow moving fish rather than some sort of really scatty shoulder fish that will add a different feel to it.

[00:14:12] Simon: So it's, you can definitely determine the ambiance and vibe in a room based on the, the fish that you put in there. But again, it just comes to that process of elimination of what the client's trying to achieve in that. 

[00:14:22] Marc: Yeah. Wonderful. That ties it so well into our vision, like form follows, meaning, as you know, head design is decoration.

[00:14:29] Marc: It's a little bit transformation, and that reminds me of the story of this. Can you share it with listeners about this HDHD uh, kit? 

[00:14:36] Simon: Yeah, so we had a client who is in central London. It was a, a, a high net worth client, quite a prominent person. Um, their child had a DHD, uh, hypersensitivity, A DHD. But this child was transfixed by sort of movement color.

[00:14:52] Simon: It calmed them down type stuff. So we, we worked through with the client in terms of how that tank would look, how it needed to feel. It didn't need to be a big tank. It certainly didn't need to be overpowering. It was more very focused on what was inside the tank, the elements within the tank. Different colors.

[00:15:07] Simon: So this was a lot of a smaller fish that was slow moving but weren't scared if anybody went to the tank. So we could, you know, sort of maximize the potential of the size of the tank by the colors and the mooding that went in to the point where this, this, um, tank was in. A bedroom or sort of in a corridor that led into the child's bedroom and we could adapt the lighting at nighttime.

[00:15:28] Simon: So then the lighting could dim at night and add more of a sort of a nighttime effect and a constellation star projector type stuff that came out of the tank onto the, onto the roof, onto the ceiling of the bedroom. Wow. So again, it wasn't about the scale or the size, it was about the detail. It was about what was inside that and how it would be able to work.

[00:15:45] Simon: So, you know, things like that are the great, 

[00:15:47] Marc: so you added, you added this piff of fish, specifically this. Fish into the tank, right? Yeah. What, what does this fish do 

[00:15:55] Simon: when you, and when you, when you entering the room? Yeah. I mean, most fish, when you walk into most fish tanks, they're not bothered. You or another person that's passing, they just want some food and fish spend all their life looking for food.

[00:16:05] Simon: Where things like puffer fish, cowfish are, they're a lot more interactive. They playful, so they will come to the glass knowing you're gonna feed them like a dog. These fish, if somebody's walking up to a tank, especially a puffer fish, it's a lot more interactive. 

[00:16:18] Marc: So, but, but those are the most curious.

[00:16:20] Marc: Fish. I can imagine. 

[00:16:22] Simon: Yeah. They, they just wanna see, and you can get to, you can get a put fish to the point where you can hand feed it and it knows when you're gonna feed it. It'll follow your finger on the glass, you know, it's interactive. It's so this, 

[00:16:32] Marc: this, this became his new best friend I can imagine.

[00:16:34] Simon: Yeah. Yeah. But we did surely down to work in that back of, going back to my, you know, sort of conversation before was. What does the client want? What are they trying to achieve? Do they just wanna walk past the fish? Do they just wanna show their fres it's a big, fancy FaceTime? Or do they want to get the benefit from it?

[00:16:50] Simon: Which allows us to, to dictate what goes in that tank, but also then understand how it's fed. 

[00:16:55] Marc: Yeah. What, what is the craziest re request you ever had? Did someone actually want a shark, for example? A 

[00:17:02] Simon: hundred percent. So we, we, we've had sharks on a, on a quite regular basis, um, which you just, yeah. I mean, you can get reef shark, you can get sort of black tip re sharks, which, you know, will go in providing the size of the tank.

[00:17:16] Simon: But again, it needs to be a big, big tank in terms of depth. You know, it's, it's not about the heights, it's, it's always about the depth because a, you know, certainly a shark, it's gotta have that maneuverability to be able to move around the tank. So height, yeah. Is the, you know, the least of your concerns.

[00:17:31] Simon: It's always the depth, 

[00:17:32] Marc: so, so I can imagine the answer is most of the time, no, you don't do shark. We don't do sharks. 

[00:17:37] Simon: No, I mean, the two reason we would say no, two, not many people can have the space to accommodate a shark and I think two. It's down to human, you know, being humane and actually not putting a shark in a tank.

[00:17:49] Simon: You know, a lot of these fish that we put into a tank, they have a great home because a lot of these fish are tank bread. You know, they used to, but you know, we don't, this is a living environment, so we've gotta build something that's gonna be sustainable for those fish in that. 'cause otherwise they won't thrive and it'll, it just won't be a very nice habitat for them to live anyway.

[00:18:07] Simon: But two, no. I mean, it doesn't matter how much money you've got, you, it's, it's whether that fish will survive in there. I mean, we had another request not so long ago from a client who wanted an octopus, which again. We can put an octopus in no problem. But again, octopus don't live very long. The Great Escape artists, so they escape tanks on a regular basis.

[00:18:28] Simon: So you've gotta Oh, really? Yeah. You've gotta build. Yeah. Very clever. Very clever. So you've got to have the way an octopus tank is built in terms of the. Um, the lids, the seals on the top, you know, they, you've gotta make it escape proof and you can't really put anything else in with octopus, they are quite sort of aggressive creatures, so, you know, it's, they will eat other things in the tank.

[00:18:47] Simon: So again, it limits what you can have an octopus tank, but you probably can't have anything else in with it. 

[00:18:52] Marc: So not everything that's possible is right, right? No. That's where boundaries matter. I got to know you with a very strong principle set you admire. You have your clear boundaries, strong principles, and you once told me, if I can't take pictures of the results, I'm out.

[00:19:06] Marc: This is a very strong principle for an entrepreneur. It's like you tell an interior design like, Hey, design my whole house. It's gonna be the biggest fancy house you've ever designed, but you cannot take pictures. In the end. What will be your or your answer? 

[00:19:20] Simon: Don't get me wrong, we've learned this, the hard way of agreeing to this at the beginning and then not having the pro, you know, somebody saying, oh, have you done a tank like this?

[00:19:28] Simon: For example, the London Townhouse. With the, the child, you know, we didn't take pictures of that. We couldn't. So, you know, a lot of our stuff starts with NDAs. We can't share who this is from a profile point of view, but we've got to the stage now where if we can't showcase what we've created, which is in our eyes, a masterpiece, a 12 months long of, you know, design and input, it really goes against what we're gonna do.

[00:19:49] Simon: It's not about the money. It, it's whether you can showcase what you've achieved, which is the reason we're in business, right? I'm a bad entrepreneur when it comes to money, and I don't want to yacht, I don't wanna play, and I don't want to. It. That's not the lifestyle I want. And we wanna be the best at what we do because of how we deliver and how we deal with clients.

[00:20:05] Simon: A part of that is we need to be able to show what we've done and, and what we can do for the next client. We can say, look, we built this. How amazing was it? You know, the detail that went into it. This is what we can achieve for you, I think, and it hinders your sale pro, you know, process. If you can't show somebody what you've done and how you did it, and the journey that you did from the renders, from the brochures, from the, from the, you know, a lot of pictures that showcase what we've done so.

[00:20:27] Simon: They are our testimonials. They are our sort of work in progress. So for now, very much, unless it's a case by case basis, we will not engage with a client if we cannot showcase what we've done. 

[00:20:38] Marc: Another, um, strong principle, if the project is too small, I don't take it. And that's a very good lesson for everybody here.

[00:20:45] Marc: It's some people, some designers, we, well, we, we had some years that we were afraid to say no to a client. What, uh, what's your vision on that? 

[00:20:56] Simon: I always look at a job and if a client phones us today and says, I have a tank, this needs to go in my house, can you help? We generally say to the client, full transparency of if we can't add value to it, and you can find somebody else that if you can find 10 people in the UK that can do this, it's probably not for us.

[00:21:12] Simon: Not because we can't add value, but because the, the time and effort of the other jobs that we have to put into it, it's not worth our while. Plus, doing 10 tanks a month or 10 jobs a month is not where we're best suited. Our, our staff, we haven't got all the maintenance staff, we haven't got all the engineers to go out for that.

[00:21:29] Simon: A lot of our jobs are six to to 12 months. Timelines because they're already either just about to be Bill. We're the design stage. You know, we've got some jobs that have been going on for 18 months, so it's very much if we can't add value, and that's not down to monetary and it's not down to size, it's down to can we do something that above and beyond that other people can't do?

[00:21:49] Simon: I definitely don't think we're in a position to say no to stuff. It's just we can't add value to it. 

[00:21:54] Marc: Very, very clear principle. Yeah, I, I totally agree. Once we had an, uh, a request of, uh, designing a penthouse for the father called us and for his son, the son was in, uh, was very busy, he told us, and he j he bought a 300 plus square meter penthouse, and he saw something.

[00:22:12] Marc: He said, I like your portfolio. I like your portfolio. Can you fully design it and create it? And our question was like, okay, yes. Why, what's the impact we need to create? So, hey, same as you told us, what's the the value we need to add? But if you don't do it otherwise, he ends up with a, with a couch and a television and I was almost like, okay.

[00:22:31] Marc: Then he ends up with a couch and a television. I don't care. Yeah. If this is his lifestyle or this is how he wants to live, what do we have to do with all the other space there? And why did he bought his pantos in the first place? Investment or, so we had so many questions, so we told them. We cannot do it.

[00:22:46] Marc: We are not doing it. We have no clue how to start with this kind of assignment. And you had, you had another principle. Uh, if it's not cool, if it's not unique or different or captivating, then you also say no. 

[00:22:58] Simon: Yeah. And I think, and that comes back to the same sort of, we had a client literally four or five weeks ago, it was a not one we worked before a developer.

[00:23:06] Simon: They had a big house, four or 5 million pound property for their individual. They sent us the drawings for the proposed tank that the, uh, the interior designer had done. And it was two small tanks, either side of a staircase and, and we just looked at it and went, it's. It's quite a, not, not, not basic, without being detrimental to the design, everything else.

[00:23:27] Simon: But there was, so, they had so much more space they could do something with to make it really impactful. And this was quite a sort of a it again, not something we would get involved in purely because they could go somewhere else. Get somebody to do that same job, do it cheaper probably than we would be able to do.

[00:23:43] Simon: We will do small stuff, we will do smooth, small, you know, we did one in a, um. In a restaurant last year, which was lots of different sort of portal, uh, portholes, like ship port holes and they had jellyfish in them. Um. And it wasn't a, it wasn't an expensive job. It wasn't expensive to create these portholes, but it just looked cool, you know?

[00:24:02] Simon: And that, that was, you could see the vision, the, the, the interior designer was so passionate about it. The owner was, and it's, you know, we sort of said to them, instead of doing this, why don't you do this with the jellyfish in these portholes? Because it, you're creating a sort of a, a sort of a runway, and I guarantee everyone will stop and take pictures of it.

[00:24:19] Simon: Yeah. It's an Instagram thing. It's, it's a location based thing. It's one of them. It's like, have you seen that restaurant with this? They want to take picture. You know, it's so, it's for us, that's the element of, we've done that. It's cool and it's different. 

[00:24:32] Marc: This is how you can design your own business, right?

[00:24:34] Marc: You can say you have the ability to say yes or no to different clients and well coming with to say. Yes to everybody comes with a lot, lots of creatives undervalue themselves and the prize themselves probably. Yeah. Ironically, the less people pay, the more they want of your time. You are, can be very busy with this small projects, but, well, it feels different.

[00:24:56] Marc: If you like them a lot, they're captivating. You get the results. You are passionate, you feel, uh, feel fulfilled in the end. It's your choice with your business. Right. Is it just a choice or how, how can you explain it as a business lazen? 

[00:25:09] Simon: Yeah. I think it's a choice in the sense of it's our brand and our name against it.

[00:25:13] Simon: And I think we're definitely fortunate enough where people will phone us and say, our client wants to use you. 'cause they've seen stuff you've done before. We still had to say no for some of that stuff because it's just not right. We've gotta be picky. But I think it's gotta be the design side of it, of, you know, a fish tank's, a fish tank.

[00:25:29] Simon: If we just created 20 square fish tanks a year, it'd be boring and it wouldn't be exciting. And, and if we put the same fish in it all the time. Yep. Every job we do, we try and put a different type of fish in there. We always try and put like one thing in there selfishly. Because it, it's good for content, it's good for showcasing, but it's also, it shows the creativeness of, of our team where we've gone.

[00:25:50] Simon: Do you know what? We've not put a fly river turtle in this tank yet. Well, a fly river Turtles maybe 3000 pound. But it, it's so unique and different. You wouldn't wanna put it in every single tank, but it's, it gives us different content to be able to showcase on our own socials and clients and everything else, but also.

[00:26:06] Simon: It's cool. It's different, I think in any business. I mean, I think people forget, we all know what run about, but people, other people don't. They just want something that looks cool. They don't know the acronyms and what you say and how this is gonna look. And it's, yeah, that's our job to portray that to. In a layman's term way, not presuming everybody knows what your run about.

[00:26:24] Marc: Yeah. Another bold decision or bold choice. You only work with the best systems. You told me you need to answer that one. Why are you doing it? Because I really like the answer. 

[00:26:35] Simon: There's definitely two clear answer to this, selfishly, because it's the best stuff and it's not gonna break. And why? Why make your job harder than you have to when you can put the best stuff in there.

[00:26:45] Simon: But secondly, because the types of properties we're in. We can't have noisy, clunky, cheap equipment running 15,000 liters of water in somebody's property. We also need to maintain these tanks. Now, we as a business maintain our own tanks, but we don't maintain anybody else's. So if we've not built it from the ground up, we've not been involved in the specifications, we won't engage with that client purely because.

[00:27:10] Simon: We don't know whether it could go wrong, but we don't wanna get into that realm of it. So we spec our own equipment and tanks to the highest level. One for, for resilience and longevity, but two, mainly four to add to the privacy of our clients. 

[00:27:24] Marc: Yeah. How, how do you see the world of, uh, aqua evolving in the years ahead?

[00:27:28] Simon: Yeah, good question. I think I, I certainly think since COVID people's. Priorities have changed. I think they wanna stay at home more. They're building bars in the garden, you know, they're building these spaces that they want to be at home more than going out. So I think the aquariums now definitely from our side is, is more prominent because it's a feature.

[00:27:49] Simon: It's, yes. All right. On one side, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a focal point. It's a show off point. It looks different. Um. But also it, it brings that sort of tranquility into your house. Obviously, you know, people have gyms in the home now. People have yoga studios, people have swimming pool. You know, it's, it's sort of a, it, it's part of that.

[00:28:09] Simon: So I think. Being able to have that even in a kitchen setting between your kitchen and diner or in your sort of open plan kitchen or, you know, we've done one recently between a swimming pool and a sort of an entertainment area, you know, so again, it's sort of more, you don't sit there and watch television all the time.

[00:28:25] Simon: You'll go and sit and have a drink and read a book next to your fish tanker. You'll go and have a conversation with your better half, and you've got the background of the fish. So I think it's definitely becoming more accessible. And it doesn't need to break the bank, but I think, you know, it's an investment.

[00:28:39] Simon: A fish tank is an investment in the sense of you're never gonna have a, a budget of it. You stick to that budget and that's it. You know, you are always gonna be adding to it, you're gonna be adding more features to it, more fish, more type stuff. But I think definitely becoming, not a common thing, but definitely more common that used to be in, in people's in properties, because people are like, I've got an empty wall.

[00:28:58] Simon: Instead of spending money on a piece of art or a media wall, can I put a fish tank in there? Yeah. It, it adds life to the home, 

[00:29:04] Marc: right? 

[00:29:04] Simon: Yeah. It does. Yeah. Especially with kids as well. I think, you know, a lot of our clients are, I've got kids, I've got grandkids, I've got, we came back from one, we've got an office in Spain, which I told you we came back from that last week.

[00:29:15] Simon: And a client there wants quite a large tank, and it's purely for his granddaughter. I think he was in his sixties. He's got a two or 3-year-old granddaughter, and this tank was purely for his granddaughter. It was the, he wanted it themed as a princess. He wanted a little mermaid, and it was, yeah. 

[00:29:29] Marc: Yeah. Lot, lots of previous podcast guests talked about that people are building the room bubbles since COVID.

[00:29:35] Marc: Yeah. So with wellness held calm, uh, nature is a big part of it. So, uh, yeah. I think we go back to, to this aquarium phase. I had one in my, my parents had one when I, when I was a kid of eight years old or something. Yeah. We had an aquarium, uh, in home. Yeah, I remember these red fishes with a silver line on there.

[00:29:52] Marc: Very small, but, uh, we had a, we had an Acqua room, but I really liked it. Yeah. Looking for fish. Yeah. Well, wonderful. Uh, future I had, and we can go extreme. There are people with new demands, new wishes. So, um, I love your principle of doing every time something new and something cool and different and to keep yourself excited, but, um, to raise the bar as well.

[00:30:13] Marc: Actually, I have a final question for you, uh, Simon. The, the firework question as I call it, there are so many. Interior designers out there. So many creatives trying to build a business that matters, eh? And you've clearly built a business with purpose, with your own purpose. Hey, your own principle set.

[00:30:32] Marc: What's your advice to designers who want to stand out and to be fulfilled, not just successful? 

[00:30:38] Simon: Yeah. I, I mean for, for us, and I think for everybody in that space or this space, I think it's, it's stick to your guns. I think for me it's a very simple sort of, you are, you, you are who you are, you've set this business up, you know, with whatever purpose.

[00:30:52] Simon: You started off in that business, and I've seen so many businesses, not just in this business, I've worked for myself for 20 years being involved in some businesses. They've come, they've gone. Some, we, we did well, really well with some didn't, but, but always the clear factor is if you don't stick to what you've got, you go off on diversions and you, you chase other stuff, which then takes you away from your core focus.

[00:31:13] Simon: It's hard. I think it's the worst thing you can, it's the worst thing to endure through a business because you're sort of saying, well, I could go here because this isn't going as quick as I wanted it to. Maybe I'll just sort of start doing this instead, or I'll start selling. You know, so we, we were the same.

[00:31:28] Simon: We got asked to do fish ponds. We got asked to do sort of coy ponds and stuff, and we can't do them. And we, we, we have done them and we've passed 'em to other people. Um, but yeah, we can't do them, so why divert off that? But we get a lot of phone calls for that. Same, for smaller fish tanks. We get a lot of phone calls for that, but.

[00:31:43] Simon: It's not our core focus, so rightly or wrongly, we stuck to our guns. And it, it's obviously worked out because it's allowed us to sort of build exactly what we wanted, prove and what we can do, why we're different to everybody else. And I think it's just not giving into, I think you mentioned it before, it's, it's, it's saying no to stuff.

[00:31:59] Simon: I think learning to say no is a really big thing I think in life and business. Um, especially the older I get, I'm definitely saying no to a lot more stuff than I would generally in life personally. Um, but I think. Sticking to your core goals of my business is this, this is why we set it up. This is the market, this is the niche we're in.

[00:32:19] Simon: This is the value we can add above and beyond other people. And it, it may be a small thing, but I think you've really gotta focus on that and, and elevate that. Um, you know, we've tried so many different things that haven't worked or that haven't worked as well as we thought they would, but I think you've gotta sort of, yeah, try different things.

[00:32:36] Simon: Definitely not stay in your own, not, not be too rigid. Try different things, see if it works. Test the market. Speak to the people around you who you trust. Um, but yeah, I think it stick to your guns. Know, know where you're trying to get to and don't get distracted by it maybe, or it's, yeah, the grass is not always greener, but also, yeah, you're not gonna sort of, it, it's a bit of a rocky path.

[00:32:58] Simon: Otherwise if you try and go off and divert from it. 

[00:33:01] Marc: Wonderful. Simon, thank you very much for this conversation. Yeah, thank you for your honesty. Your, uh, your logics and your craft. You've shown us that, that you're not just a designer of aqua, you're the designer of your own life, of your business, and that starts with truly knowing who you are.

[00:33:17] Marc: The as the real you, as a person, as a designer, right, as a business owner. Because when you have just your own set of principles, when you have clarity, you make better decisions. And not just in design like you told us, but in, but in life. And not chasing money, but building a real foundation. Of a purpose driven, uh, success.

[00:33:37] Marc: So, uh, thank you, uh, so much for the wonderful entrepreneurial lessons and your stories about, uh, fish. Yeah. Because we do, uh, had a lot of knowledge extra now for a fish. Well, thank you very much. Thanks so much. If you are listening and thinking, I want to create spaces that live that breed and move people, then follow Luke Aquatics and get inspired and maybe one day collaborate.

[00:34:02] Marc: Check out beyond the Dare Design Club slash Simon. And and until next time, stay curious, stay creative and reminder. Remember, it's not just what you design. It's the impact it makes. And if you are interior designer ready to build a business on your own terms, come join us inside the Beyond the TE Design Club.

[00:34:23] Marc: Go to beyond the TE design.club/join. You also find the link in the episode description. And one last thing. If you enjoy today's episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave us a five star review on Apple Podcast or your favorite platform because it helps us to reach more designers like you and keeps this podcast growing.

[00:34:43] Marc: Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to turn your notifications on so you never miss a new episode. See you.