How I Built This with Guy Raz

Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map.

December 1, 2025

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  • Meridith Baer's career pivot into home staging at age 50 was accidental, stemming from successfully staging a rental house that subsequently sold quickly for a premium. 
  • Baer's early success in staging was built on an intuitive understanding of value creation, leading her to price services based on the potential sale price increase rather than hours worked. 
  • Baer's life trajectory involved significant personal upheaval, including growing up at San Quentin, a forced adoption, and a successful career as a screenwriter before finding her defining success in real estate services. 
  • Meridith Baer, despite running a large company, acknowledges a desire to step back and spend more time with friends and family, indicating that even successful founders seek work-life balance. 
  • Meridith Baer suggests that people are capable of reinventing themselves at any age and are not strictly confined to a single chosen career path. 
  • Success often involves a combination of hard work and seizing opportunities presented by luck, which requires the willingness to say "yes" before fully knowing how to execute. 

Segments

Early Life at San Quentin
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(00:05:53)
  • Key Takeaway: Meridith Baer spent her formative years living on the grounds of San Quentin prison because her father was an associate warden.
  • Summary: Baer lived on the prison grounds from age six until nearly 13, attending a one-room schoolhouse located at the far end of the facility. She felt safe growing up there, noting that security checks were performed when returning from trips into the city. Her father later became the director of corrections for Iowa, prompting their move.
Mother’s Real Estate Ventures
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(00:08:07)
  • Key Takeaway: Baer’s mother, bored while living at San Quentin, earned a law degree and actively engaged in real estate speculation, including trading acreage for a large mansion.
  • Summary: While her father ran the prison system in Iowa, her mother took 50 bad acres and traded them for a 13-bedroom mansion. This early exposure showed Baer that her mother enjoyed real estate transactions and making properties look better.
College and Early Flipping
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(00:09:08)
  • Key Takeaway: During her time at the University of Colorado in the mid-1960s, Baer began flipping small houses by making them ‘cuter’ with paint and furniture.
  • Summary: Baer transitioned from pledging a sorority to being a ‘hippie’ by her junior year, reflecting the era’s cultural shifts. She bought small houses for $2,000, added cosmetic improvements like shutters and paint, and sold them for $8,000.
Teen Pregnancy and Adoption Trauma
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(00:10:40)
  • Key Takeaway: Baer became pregnant during her freshman year of college and was forced by her parents to give her son up for adoption, a trauma she later reconciled by adopting him as an adult.
  • Summary: The experience of giving up her child at 19 was emotionally brutal due to her parents’ reaction. Decades later, she reconnected with her son, who is now in his 50s, and formally adopted him last year after his adoptive parents passed away.
Early Acting and Commercial Work
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(00:12:43)
  • Key Takeaway: Baer’s entry into entertainment began when Jerry Bruckheimer, then an ad guy, cast her in Pepsi commercials while she was in college.
  • Summary: After college, she moved to New York and worked as an editorial assistant for Penthouse Magazine, where she focused on finding writers and articles, refusing to pose nude for the publication. She then pursued modeling, appearing in about 100 TV commercials, including print ads for cigarettes like Winston and Kent.
Screenwriting Success and Disappointment
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(00:19:45)
  • Key Takeaway: Baer transitioned to screenwriting, selling her first script, ‘Prisoners,’ for a quarter of a million dollars in 1980, but was deeply disappointed when the final film drastically altered her original story.
  • Summary: She wrote the script based on her unique experience growing up at San Quentin, attracting interest from figures like Richard Gere and Diane Lane before production moved to New Zealand. Despite the initial financial success, she felt the final product was unrecognizable from her work.
Dating Patrick Stewart
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(00:22:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Dating Patrick Stewart during the height of his ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ fame required Baer to put her own writing career on the back burner.
  • Summary: Baer was stunned when Stewart abruptly ended their relationship after they began living together, speculating he wanted to explore opportunities with other women before wanting her back. Following the breakup, she found it difficult to re-enter the Hollywood writing scene as her interests no longer aligned with studio executives.
Accidental Staging Origin
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(00:25:37)
  • Key Takeaway: Meridith Baer stumbled into home staging at age 50 by furnishing a rental house she occupied, which led the owner to sell it quickly for a significant profit.
  • Summary: Frustrated with her stalled screenwriting career, she poured energy into making her rented house beautiful with furniture and plants. When the owner sold the house days later for half a million over asking, a broker asked her to repeat the process for another property, coining the term ‘staging.’
Pricing Based on Value Created
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(00:38:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Baer priced her early staging services based on the value created—the speed and premium price of the sale—rather than charging by the hour.
  • Summary: She calculated the client’s monthly mortgage cost and argued that paying her $25,000 to $30,000 upfront was a bargain compared to carrying the mortgage for months longer. She secured payment upfront because she had to purchase inventory for the job.
Developing the Aesthetic and Inventory
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(00:40:38)
  • Key Takeaway: Baer’s aesthetic evolved from using her late mother’s inherited mid-century and antique pieces to manufacturing her own furniture to meet demand.
  • Summary: She initially used consignment arrangements, like securing $100,000 worth of rugs from a dealer to use as showrooms. A signature element she introduced was using white sofas as neutral anchors that allowed various art and styles to work together.
Psychology of Home Staging
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(00:45:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Effective staging connects with a buyer’s psychology by creating an idealized, aspirational lifestyle, focusing heavily on the first 10 seconds upon entry.
  • Summary: Staging aims to make the house what it ‘wants to be’ and appeal broadly, often involving small touches like dried pasta next to the stove or a cookbook on a cutting board to suggest home life. The entry view is crucial for creating the initial emotional connection that drives a purchase.
Early Business Scaling and Hardships
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(00:46:26)
  • Key Takeaway: Within a year of starting, Baer needed to hire regular staff beyond day laborers and faced a devastating tax audit and a colon cancer diagnosis simultaneously around 2001.
  • Summary: She transitioned from storing furniture in client garages to renting a small office/storage space, eventually moving into a warehouse. She resolved the tax issue, which stemmed from not charging sales tax on furniture rentals, while undergoing major surgery.
Post-Recession Growth and Expansion
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(00:49:36)
  • Key Takeaway: Following the 2008 financial crisis, which temporarily flattened growth, Baer’s business doubled annually as staging became standard practice for high-end real estate sales.
  • Summary: Media attention, including a story in the LA Times, prompted expansion into New York and Florida, requiring her to find designers with the right aesthetic who were also willing to do the physical labor. The company established a minimum job fee of $10,000 to maintain profitability.
Business Structure and Future
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(00:58:21)
  • Key Takeaway: At age 78, Baer manages Meredith Baer Home, which employs 320 people and stages 700 to 900 homes concurrently, but she is contemplating stepping back or selling the brand.
  • Summary: The company generates significant revenue from staging, but also from selling staged items (excluding mattresses) and through its ‘Insta Home’ and ‘Luxury Lease’ services. While she still works long hours via email, she desires more time for personal life and is open to selling the company if the right opportunity arises.
Founder’s Future Plans
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(01:00:42)
  • Key Takeaway: Meridith Baer is actively considering selling her company, contingent upon the right situation arising.
  • Summary: Meridith Baer currently works about 10 hours a day but desires more time for personal life, including friends and her grandson. She has contemplated selling the Meridith Baer Home brand, stating she would likely do so if the right opportunity presented itself. She notes a lack of formal training in business or interior design, which might influence her decision regarding a company sale.
Career Reinvention Philosophy
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(01:01:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Individuals are capable of reinventing themselves multiple times throughout life, contradicting the notion of a single, fixed career identity.
  • Summary: It is remarkable that Meridith Baer built her current business after previous careers in acting and screenwriting, starting this venture at age 50. She believes people are not stuck on a single path and can change direction when they stop loving what they do. Society often teaches people to choose one career and adhere to it, but the truth is that most people embody many different roles.
Luck Versus Hard Work
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(01:02:25)
  • Key Takeaway: Success is a blend of luck, such as fortuitous encounters, and the proactive decision to seize those lucky moments.
  • Summary: Meridith Baer attributes success to luck, citing being asked by Jerry Bruckheimer to be in a Pepsi commercial as a life-changing lucky event. She also views the necessity of finding a place for her furniture and plants as a stroke of luck that led to her business. The critical element is learning to say “yes” to opportunities and then figuring out the execution afterward.
Host Humor and Minimum Fee
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(01:03:28)
  • Key Takeaway: Meridith Baer Home maintains a minimum service fee of $10,000, even for non-sales staging requests.
  • Summary: Guy Raz jokingly asks Meridith Baer to stage his messy studio, emphasizing he only wants to live in a staged environment, not sell the space. Baer humorously responds by confirming they will stage it, but reminds him that the company’s minimum charge is $10,000.
Podcast Outro and Credits
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(01:03:53)
  • Key Takeaway: Listeners are encouraged to follow the podcast and sign up for Guy Raz’s newsletter for entrepreneurial insights.
  • Summary: The host requests listeners follow the podcast to avoid missing new episodes and invites them to subscribe to his newsletter on his website or Substack for lessons from entrepreneurs. Production credits are then listed for the episode, including producers, editors, and engineers.
Small Business Spotlight Intro
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(01:04:36)
  • Key Takeaway: The American Express Business Platinum segment features Jess Berger, founder of Bundle and Joy, a pet food brand focused on gut health.
  • Summary: The show transitions into the Small Business Spotlight, presented by American Express Business Platinum. This segment introduces Jess Berger, who started Bundle and Joy after noticing her dog, Winston, suffered from skin and digestive issues. She developed a brand centered on gut health and sensitivities, aiming to be more than just pet food.
Bundle and Joy Founding Story
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(01:05:04)
  • Key Takeaway: Jess Berger founded Bundle and Joy after successfully using an elimination diet on her dog, revealing a market gap for chicken-free pet food.
  • Summary: Jess noticed Winston’s issues during the COVID-19 pandemic and implemented an elimination diet, finding that removing chicken instantly improved his health. She discovered a significant lack of pet products available without chicken, a common ingredient. This realization spurred her to launch Bundle and Joy, focusing on gut health and community building.
Trade Show Launch Strategy
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(01:06:32)
  • Key Takeaway: Despite pandemic-related product delays, Jess Berger successfully secured initial retail deals by boldly attending a trade show with mock products and wearing roller skates.
  • Summary: Jess spent 18 months on R&D before planning a launch at Expo West, which was disrupted by the pandemic, leaving her with no actual product. She decided to “fake it till we make it” by showing up with a hand-built display and mock products. To stand out, the team wore roller skates, which attracted immediate interest from grocers like Sprouts and Whole Foods, leading to on-the-spot deals.
Business Growth and Legacy
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(01:07:36)
  • Key Takeaway: Bundle and Joy has expanded significantly to major retailers, and Jess continues her mission inspired by her late dog Winston and current pets.
  • Summary: The product delays eventually resolved, and Bundle and Joy expanded its reach to Walmart and Costco, with plans to launch in PetSmart, where Jess began her pet industry career. Jess’s original dog, Winston, has passed away, but she is now inspired by her new Great Danes, Sol and Luna, to ensure they live as long as possible.