3 Lessons Learned After 2 Years in Business
It’s hard to believe our two-year anniversary is here! The growth we’ve experienced as a team and as a company over the past year has been incredible. I am deeply proud of how far we’ve come in our mission to not only help busy working parents relieve their mental load and live their best lives, but to also change the conversation about domestic duties and who is responsible for mental load at home, shifting the assumption off women and giving a market value to those caregiving activities.
As we reflect on the past two years of doing this work, here are 3 things we’ve learned that we wanted to share with you.
1. Stay true to your mission, but allow for evolution (and growth!)
Our core mission has never wavered, but the ways we bring it to life have grown as we’ve responded to the needs of our clients.
What started as just virtual house management services has expanded into a weekly podcast, digital downloads in our Etsy storefront, this blog, exciting partnerships, and more. If we had held too tightly to the original vision, we wouldn’t have had the flexibility to innovate and meet our community’s needs.
2. Build a great team
This lesson applies to both life and business: you are only as strong as the team you build. As a working parent and a business owner, I know I can’t do it all, nor do I want to. To try would be setting myself up for failure and my team and family up for disappointment. That was a hard lesson to learn but it’s what allowed me to grow as a business owner and parent.
I often say that when you are figuring out what to outsource and where to build your team, it’s common to start with the areas of responsibility we don’t enjoy - laundry, bookkeeping, landscaping - whatever it may be at home or at work. But it’s important to consider more deeply - could someone else do this better? Your team will be that much stronger when you work with people who bring new perspectives and skills that differ from but complement your own.
3. Systems are everything
When we started, we had a great service but lacked the infrastructure to grow and scale efficiently. Over the first year, we focused very heavily on building systems that have now became the backbone of our success. Building systems allow you to repeat processes, minimize effort and stress, and improve outcomes.
A few systems we’ve built that we’re particularly proud of are our template spreadsheets that manage selecting a new school/daycare/college, managing and selecting a contractor for home improvement projects, a matrix to manage summer camp registration and logistics, and many more which are available on our Etsy storefront.
Systems are everything for repeatable success - at home and in business - and we have found that our work to build systems with our clients is often where we have the most impact. We love to do the execution and management work as well, but it’s often in building systems where we see true, sustaining relief at home.
A huge thank you to YOU for your support, engagement and enthusiasm for this unique business we’ve created! It is truly a love letter to working parents and all busy people who are ready to live their best lives instead of constantly managing their To Do list!
