Peeling Behind Spoak
Meet hilah.
Hilah Stahl is CEO and founder of Spoak, a virtual decorating service that helps people bring their personalities into their home.
We were so drawn to Spoak because our missions align so well and we love to see them implementing some of the same ideas we do but in home decorating.
spoak’s mission is to help give everyone a space that feels uniquely theirs.
Through a personality quiz, Spoak pairs you with a personal home decorator who works with you to understand your style and what makes you YOU, and then guides you in picking out unique items and objects to reflect that in your home.
We asked Hilah some questions about Spoak to see if we could get to know a little more about this mission-driven brand.
1. Tell me all about Spoak. How did you stumble upon this idea?
Spoak is an online decorating service that pairs you with a personal decorator (we call them Thingologists) to help you with whatever you need, be it layout, sourcing the perfect decor pieces, or DIY ideas.
When you sign up, your Thingologist creates a beSpoak Book for you, which is basically a shoppable, online home bible, that continually updates as your project progresses with mock ups, products, color palette, and other tips and tricks for your space.
We focus on helping our clients find meaningful, unique pieces by sourcing from artisans and emerging indie brands instead of the typical big box retailers.
The idea came to life after I started doing this as a hobby for my friends and family. They often had basic furniture but always needed help tying everything together and wanted pieces that had a story. Once I helped a few friends, their friends started asking for help too, and on and on it went until here we are!
I have to pinch myself often that I get to build a business that helps people, champions makers, empowers talented hobbyists, in a category I love so dearly!
2. We love when a brand speaks in an authentic voice. Did yours come naturally?
A big part of our brand and value proposition centers around Spoak being approachable and personal.
We don't prescribe you a predefined interior design style, we don't condescend, we don't enforce our own personal aesthetic onto our clients -- we really champion this idea that Spoak is the service that can help bring *your* personality to life in your home, with the help of someone who can execute it beautifully.
In order to stay true to that ethos, we felt it was necessary that both our branding and our Thingologists feel like close friends. Completely nonjudgmental, stylish, expert friends.
I thought, “How can decorating be more like an inspiring conversation with a friend over a glass of wine, and not a task on your to do list?”
It comes naturally in that I was ultimately doing what Spoak currently does before Spoak was a thing for my friends and family, and I tried to champion how I would talk to them when thinking about our brand.
3. What advice would you have for businesses in making their site uniquely fit their brand?
Oh boy. A vision and some practice!
So much of what we've done to customize Squarespace came from late night Google searches and small custom tweaks because I had this picture in my head of how I wanted it to look. A style guide for fonts, colors, and other assets is also hugely helpful.
We have patterns as part of our branding, and that helps make everything cohesive because it can be part of the background on every page.
4. What advice would you have to get strong quotes and attractive photos from your clients?
I'm not sure we're experts in that quite yet, but we do surveys and ask for their feedback all the time. When they say something meaningful, we ask if we can quote them, and they usually say yes.
As for photos, since Spoak is such a personal ongoing relationship between you and your Thingologist, it's often the case our clients proactively send photos because they're so delighted, or they want to share the progress that's been made. Then, of course, we ask their permission to share it.
I don't think there's a secret bullet, but I think if you build a brand and company your customers deeply care about, you'd be surprised how much they're willing to contribute to see it become successful.
5. Tell me about Spoak Signs. What are those and is everyone as drawn to them as we are?
Part of Spoak's magic is how we help bring your personality to life stylishly in your home.
We are anti cookie-cutter apartments, that's also why we largely recommend pieces from small artisans and indie brands, so you don't have the same decor as all your friends.
So often with e-design services, clients take a relatively cold style diagnostic and then get told what combination of interior design styles they are. We took a different approach, since we don't really believe that's how people are in real life.
It's much more nuanced. We ask about your personality, hobbies, and interests, and instead created something a bit more "Spoaky", so that you still get a fun outcome to your personality quiz, but rather than an interior design style, it's more heavily focused on combining what you like in decor with your personality.
We hired an illustrator I found on Instagram named Madeline Martinez to help me bring them to life visually. We had a lot of fun collaborating on it. And the result is so beautiful!!
And yes, people are loving them :)
6. We love your little things newsletter. What is the primary goal of your newsletter and how do you keep it valuable?
Thank you!! We love it too.
The goal of that newsletter was to offer its readers short, to-the-point recommendations across a variety of topics.
We aim to cut through the noise in your home, but why stop there?
Our Thingologists are curators, and there are so many long winded articles and tips and newsletters out there -- we thought, what if someone just gave you all the best tidbits upfront? That's what we aim to do with The Little Things.
7. What do you want Spoak to be known for? How do you make that a reality?
A platform that enables its customers to live life more meaningfully!
Genuinely personalized pieces, content, recommendations, that come from small businesses around the world with a great story. Everything we do is taking baby steps toward that ultimate goal.
For example, our Thingologists often end up recommending books, articles, recipes and other content to their clients from all over the internet because they know them so well.
It's important in this era of so much choice (and so much noise) to have places that feel safe, personal, and curated. Like your own personal boutique, full of not just products but also content, that means something to you.
am i the only one with the sudden urge to redecorate now?
If you enjoyed learning more about spoak and peeling behind their brand tell them, thank them, and support them.
Spoak is available for homes, offices (at a start-up friendly price of $99/month!), and holiday gifts.
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Sign up for Spoak for your home.
Give the gift of Spoak to a friend this holiday.
Contact Spoak for corporate or office services.