Guest Post: Starting a Business While Raising Two Sets of Twins

This post comes from Cecilie Sindum, a co-founder of Orthodox Design. Based in Denmark, Orthodox Design is a homeware interior design studio for which she is also the creative director.

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“If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured, it may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed, races won or lasting happiness achieved.”
—Maurice Chevalier, Parisian actor

That quote echoed through my mind when my husband and I decided to create Orthodox Design in 2014. After running a design studio for five years, we decided to launch a collection of designs from our own signature brand on the heels of having not one, but two sets of twins. Three years later, our schedules are chaos, but we’re living our dream, raising a big family and owning our business. We constantly need to be in two places at once, at home with our kids and out expanding our business. That’s where the Cisco Spark app comes into play.

There’s a misconception that great design is about having an expensive car, fancy clothes, or a big house. We believe that it’s about surrounding yourself with the things that bring you joy. We make products for the home — glassware, vases, candle holders, lighting — that inject a bit of magic into people’s everyday life.

Given our time constraints, we needed a workstyle that was nimble and adaptive. There are so many details that need to be correct before a design goes into production. The design process develops over several overlapping phases. Keeping the latest changes up-to-date for everyone involved can be very challenging, especially when that work is spread across multiple applications.

By moving our work into Cisco Spark, we’ve increased the speed with which we can get a design to market. We go back and forth with manufacturers, making changes to prototypes and tweaking the design until it can finally go into production.

Email doesn’t allow for this kind of visual, 3D work. You need to actually see and understand the edits to communicate the vision of the design. By reviewing our edits live on a Cisco Spark Board over a video call, we’ve cut down miscommunication and wasted time. We can get on same page with manufacturers faster, speeding up production time. Another benefit? The final product reflects my original, hand-drawn design more closely.

All our whiteboard sketches are saved right in the Cisco Spark app, making it easy to pick up and start again. For example, we can send design edits in the evening, and a manufacturer can see them in the morning. By using one service we’re no longer juggling multiple tools or weeding through old emails. Everything is one place whether we’re on the road, at work, or at home.

To make our products unique and recognizable, everything we make has the Orthodox Design symbol imprinted in it. This symbol helps tell our story to your family, friends and community.

It’s our way of capturing the inspiration we felt during the product creation and passing that feeling along to future generations.

It’s a reminder to stop waiting for the “right time,” when your work and your personal life will calm down. When you’ll suddenly have enough time and space to follow your dreams. That day may never come. Find the work tools that fit your life, your family, your dreams.