I Lost $500K Starting My Design Company — Here's Why I'd Do It All Over Again

I Lost $500K Starting My Design Company — Here's Why I'd Do It All Over Again

Here's how I lost $500K starting Critical.

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Fresh out of design school, I landed my first interior design project — and thought I’d made it.

Until I realised every surface I was specifying was imported, toxic, and destined for landfill in 5–7 years. Nothing was made to last. Nothing was made here.

So I asked myself:

What if we could make our own materials?

Ones that looked good.

That felt right.

That told a better story.

We started in a spare room.

No engineering degree. No fancy lab.

Just a small team, recycled plastic, and a big dream.

After four years of tinkering, we finally opened our first Cleanstone factory.

And the day after we opened…

A tornado flattened it.

Not a metaphor.

A literal tornado.

Ripped the roof clean off.

We lost everything.

But our community showed up.

We rebuilt it. From scratch.

With under $30,000.

Since then, we’ve helped hundreds of architects and designers swap out fast-fitout junk for low-carbon surfaces that are built to last.

We've raised $3M, scaled our tech, and diverted tonnes of plastic from landfill — and carbon from the sky.

And it’s just the start.

If you're working on a space that matters, we’d love to support you.

You can build something beautiful, local, and less wasteful.

Critical. exists because people like you gave a damn.

Let’s kōrero.

criticaldesign.nz

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