A Miami entrepreneur who built her first company around solving a childcare-industry hiring problem has found her second act in a much more visual business: wallpaper.
Emma Harris founded EarlyDay, a Miami-based hiring platform built for the childcare sector, and stayed on after Wonderschool acquired the company roughly two years ago to keep growing it alongside other projects. Now she has launched Marova Design, a Miami-based, direct-to-consumer wallpaper brand that prints patterns to order and ships them nationwide, while also taking on custom commissions with interior designers who need adjustable colors and sizing for specific rooms.
What sets Marova apart is how Harris builds the patterns in the first place. She has been experimenting with AI tools, including Google Gemini, to generate and iterate on renderings, then teaching herself how to turn those concepts into repeatable, print-ready designs for an industry she describes as decidedly old-school. She still handles production and shipping logistics herself, working directly with printers to get each order out the door.
The Miami influence shows up directly in the product line: one of Marova’s signature patterns weaves in palm trees as what Harris calls an “ode to Miami,” and it’s already turning up in homes around South Florida. She’s framed the approach as bringing a “tech founder brain to a lifestyle business” — using software to move faster and reach more customers while keeping the physical, tactile product at the center of what she sells.
It’s a notable pivot for a city that has spent the past several years positioning itself as a tech and startup hub. Harris’s move suggests some of that same entrepreneurial energy, and the AI tools that came with it, can translate just as easily into a traditional design and manufacturing business. With South Florida’s luxury housing market continuing to grow, Harris sees room to expand further into work with regional designers and builders who want a distinctly local look.
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Source: Refresh Miami