Meet the Pro

Meet Miah Millan, principal designer and owner of Miah Millan Interiors and Sage and Stone Homes. She runs a full-service interior design business handling both residential and commercial projects, plus new construction builds – the kind of complex, multi-faceted projects that demand serious organization.

The Problem

Before discovering Materio, Miah was struggling with MyDoma's limitations.

"We were using MyDoma before and it just wasn't – it didn't have a lot of the features that we were really needing. It was not very organized with the library. Did not have any sort of project timeline, budget was difficult."

The platform's shortcomings forced her team into a frustrating juggling act:

"We were using MyDoma, spreadsheets separately, and just having all these different programs when everything should just all be in one."

The client experience suffered too:

"It wasn't as user friendly for the client, and so they weren't as happy using it, which just made it all difficult, you know, resorting back to emails and texts instead of keeping everything in one system."

The frustration was mounting:

"Just feeling like, I know there's got to be a better way to do this. And just not being able to be fully transparent with the client and also just like things just taking up a lot of time. And I'm like it could be quicker. It could be more efficient than this."

With Materio as a Partner

Everything changed when Miah made the switch to Materio.

"Having everything all in one platform makes it so much easier because you're not jumping around to all these different tabs. Everything is just there – can invite the whole team, the client, and it just makes it so much easier to share information with everyone that needs to know about it."

The platform's comprehensive features became game-changers:

"Being able to upload the plan pages and do the little markers – that's amazing. We use that all the time. We also love the QR code feature. We print those out, post them all the job sites."

Most importantly, the client experience transformed:

"The selections and decision making process is very easy to just send it to the client. They get an email. They get all the information, all the options there. And I feel like it's very user friendly. We can also have a discussion and comment on the items. And that just makes the decision making process easy for them and then quicker on our end."

The Transformation

The moment of realization came when Miah expanded into new construction:

"Once we transitioned from just doing full service design into also doing the construction side, when we started doing new builds, we realized how much more is involved in those projects. And what we need for organization. And we were like, Materio really has everything that we need – timeline, we can have all, you know, there's a million more decisions in a new build. We can have all of that housed in here."

When asked what would happen if Materio shut down tomorrow, her response was immediate:

"First probably cry. No, I literally don't know what we would do. We just live off it. It's like our main, the central point of our business, and how we stay organized as a team."

Success

Today, Miah runs a streamlined operation that gives her life back:

"The level of organization just makes everything so much more efficient in the day. Again gives you that time back in the mornings to spend with family and in the evenings."

She explains the peace of mind Materio provides:

"I can go home, and I know things are being handled because I've been able to check on everything and communicate with the client throughout the day."

Without it?

"I could imagine if we didn't use Materio, we didn't have that level of organization – just projects just not being run smoothly, getting text and calls all throughout the day and night, just with projects not going according to plan, questions from clients because they're not being informed of timeline, budget. So probably just chaos."

For other designers considering the switch, Miah's top recommendation is clear:

"Definitely the product clipper and being able to organize everything in the library. So handy to have. You can shop your own library. That makes stuff go so much smoother, so much quicker."