121: How to Overcome Your Failures and Find Success with Emma Chapman

In this episode, we talk to Emma Chapman from A Beautiful Mess about what it was like to be an actor in la, the approach that they take for starting new ventures. And this is really interesting. I think you'll like that one. And how they really lock in their branding for A Beautiful Mess and all of the other businesses that they have. Hey, everybody. Bjork Ostrom. And you are listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. And today we are talking to Emma Chapman. And you might know Emma from abutifulmess@abutifulmess.com they've been blogging for a long time and they've been doing a really good job of it, which you can see when you go to abutifulmess.com so I was excited to jump on a call with her and talk a little bit about what it's been like to build that business along with her sister. And she's going to be talking about a few different important takeaways. And number one, we're really going to talk a lot about what it was like for her to transition out of one dream into another dream. And her first dream was to be an actor. And she went to LA to pursue that. And that dream changed. And she's going to be talking about what it was like to go through that process. And I would like that conversation to inform you on some of the decisions that you have. Is there a dream that you have right now or maybe that you had in the past that needs to evolve or change a little bit? Might not be, but there might be something that you take away from that conversation that you could apply to your life. Then we're going to talk about A beautiful mess a little bit. The overarching brand, how they launch new products, and with each of those, how they really lock in the branding. It's going to be a great conversation and I think you'll really enjoy it. Let's jump in. Emma, welcome to the podcast.

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's really fun to finally connect here. Before we were chatting, we said it's kind of nice to have an excuse just to talk for an hour, to connect with people and share stories. And you're somebody that I'm really excited to talk to, so this is especially exciting for me.

Oh, yeah. I'm a huge fan, so I was stoked when I got the invite.

Well, cool. Thank you. So it was really fun for me to spend some time researching. That's one of my favorite things to do as I lead up to the podcast. Leading up to the Podcast. A lot of times it's people I'm familiar with, but I haven't been able to dive deep into their story. So it was fun for a beautiful mess because it's the brand itself, but it's also, you know, each one of you has your stamp on it, and it's your individual personalities as well. So obviously your sister is a part of that. But I want to dig into your story a little bit because I think people will really resonate with the decisions that you made and the path that you have and how you found yourself along that way. So can you take me back to making the decision to move to Hollywood? Where was that, and where were you at in that point in your life?

Yes. So when I was around 17 or 18 years old, I had kind of got into my mind that maybe I would be an actress for a living, because I think, you know, 18, you're about to graduate high school here in the States. And, I don't know, I felt a lot of pressure to be like, oh, I better figure out what I'm going to do with my life. And up until then, I had been doing, like, lots of small projects with my older sister, Elsie. We sold, like, handmade stuff at festivals. This was before Etsy, so we had to go to festivals to sell our things, our jewelry, and we also had, like, a spot wedding photography business. Really, it was her business, and she would just have me be like a second shooter here and there. And I started doing that when I was 18. I did it in college, and I guess I just started to feel like I really wanted to have my own thing. Sometimes being a little sister, you feel like you're in the shadow, which I think is my own perception. Not one that my sister put on me or my parents ever put on me. But that's kind of how I felt at the time. I felt very like, oh, I want to have my own thing. I want there to be something special about me. So I wanted to do something creative that my sister was not into. So she likes crafts, she likes photography. She likes a lot of the same things I do. But I was kind of into acting. Some of my friends had asked me to be in some plays in local theater in my town, Springfield, Missouri. And I had done that, and I thought it was really fun, and my sister was not into it, So I thought, okay, well, maybe I'll explore that. Yeah, great. And the second kind of appeal to it was being 18 and growing up in Springfield, Missouri, which is a town that I love, but it's Kind of smaller. I was really excited by the idea of moving to a bigger city. And I knew pursuing acting, especially for TV and film, there's really three big cities in the US where you could go. Of course, now there's YouTube and there's so many more options. But this was a long time ago. So this is 2007, I guess so. Anyway, so I told my parents, I want to be an actress. I'm going to move to la. Going to move to Hollywood, which I did. I had an apartment in Hollywood. It was like my address if you wrote me a letter, which I thought was pretty cool.

Absolutely.

And I lived there for about three years. This was right after college. And I really love the city. It's beautiful, people are super friendly, the weather's amazing. The cost of living is a lot higher than here in Missouri, probably St.

Paul, Minnesota as well.

But I think over the course of those three years, I realized a couple things. One, I didn't really make a lot of progress on my goal to becoming an actress. Probably even worse than that is I realized I didn't really want to be an actress. It didn't totally suit the things that make me happy and the things that work with my personality. Like, I'm a really hardcore introvert. So I really like working from home and being alone the majority of my time working, which is probably very strange to some people, but it's what feels right to me. And that's very different than being on a set which I had worked as an extra a lot while I was in la. And so I kind of got to see TV and film sets and I was like, oh, these are really interesting, but very chaotic, very, you know, you're around people all day long and I found it very, very draining. So, not that I necessarily could have made it had I kept going, but I quickly realized it wasn't for me. And. And. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. Well, I was just going to say it's interesting to go through those phases of life where you come up against what some people would call it a dream or a passion or something that you're excited about and realize that there's a tension with you. You're self aware enough to know that there's a tension with who you are or like what you get energy from, or what you're motivated by, what feels like inspiring to you. So. And maybe you were going there, but can you talk about what that was like to have that realization, start to come to that realization that this thing that you had held as your dream, that you're passionate about. People knew you were going to Hollywood to pursue this, where you started to realize, oh, maybe this actually isn't a good fit for me and there might be something else. How do you reconcile those two things?

Yeah, so it was awful. I felt so terrible about this. I felt really foolish and really dumb. So it was kind of two things. It was one, I felt like I was going to look stupid because I had told all my friends, all my family that I was going to be an actress. And I had, you know, moved and I had spent lots of money to move and to live in this big city. And I had told everyone, like everyone I knew in my life, every single person knew that I wanted to be an actress. So I felt like, oh, I'm going to look like such a fool if I go back and tell people I've changed my mind. So that. And then the other thing was, on a personal level, I just felt directionless. I had been working towards this goal for, at that point, like six years because I had gone through college in three years and had been saving up and taking acting classes. And then I had moved and been there for about three years. So this was six years of my life that I felt like, wow, did I just waste six years and what am I going to do now? Like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. So I felt very stupid, very, very much like a failure. And I was like, this is like a sad movie where the girl fails at acting and moves home into her parents basement and all her friends have jobs and are married and have kids and she's just this loser spinster, you know. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's me. And it was just very disheartening. It was a bad year.

So when you look back at some of those feelings that you had, obviously very real and raw feelings. And I think people can probably relate in some way, shape or form and they look back at their life and different times when something they're pursuing, whether it be a career or a project or promotion, whatever it would be, they came up short or it didn't pan out the way that they did. So what do you feel like you learned about yourself or about others when you look back and you have some time in between that now where you can analyze those feelings and those thoughts, what has that been distilled down into for you to now understand?

Yes. So the first year I felt like I didn't learn anything and I was just a failure. So if anyone out there is Listening and they're in that first year. Just keep going and don't worry about learning anything right now. Just keep going. Just keep getting out of bed and living. Because that is hard some years and it's okay to feel that way. But then after that, I think you start to gain more perspective, like you said. And for me, I felt like the thing I learned the most that I come back to over and over again is that failure is really just a label. It doesn't mean anything. Almost everyone successful has had some amount or even huge amounts of failure in their story. And you always can learn something from it and grow from it. And again, that's not the thing you want to hear the first year that you're going through it, but it's true and it is kind of something that can help you as you move through that time. So for me, I. I learned a lot about who I am and what makes me happy. I also learned a lot about my talents and the ways that I can be useful within a small team, which is what I work on now. And I never would have thought if I could go back in time and talk to 18 year old Emma again, I don't think she would believe me, but I'd be like, years from now, you will be a blogger working from home with your dogs and you will be so happy. I think I would be like, no, that's not. I'll be working with your sister too. And I'd be like, no, no, no, I don't want to do that. It's really what fits. And it's where my strengths lie. And I just, it makes me happy. And having the humility to kind of be like, okay, I never saw this, but this is the right path, I think took me away.

Yeah. So as you're coming out of that year, so you had a year, maybe kind of a transitional year where you're processing, you're thinking through this. It sounds like it was a deep, difficult year for you. You've moved back home at that point, were you searching and saying, like, what is next? For me, trying things out. I think a lot of people are at that place where. And I think for the most part, people that listen to this, maybe have this podcast, have some sense of where they want to be going, but maybe some of them get there and realize it's not actually where they want to be. So when you look back, how were you able to navigate that time where it's. Part of it is just getting up and continuing to move, but part of it is saying like, how do I figure out what's next? Is it kind of opening doors or seeing which doors are open and trying to walk through those? Or what does that look like?

Right. I think when I was on the path to wanting to be an actress, I very much, like, was like, I have come up with this idea and I'm going to pursue it. There is no, you know, someone has come to me with this opportunity. Like, no one approached me and was like, hey, do you want to be in my movie? Like, that was not my story. It was just, I'm going to go pursue this thing. And I think that's one way to go about a goal, and not a bad way. I still do that all the time with things we want to do in our business. But this year, because I think I felt so down, I decided to change my focus partly out of necessity, but I think this is also a great way to approach things from time to time. If you haven't tried it and it's. Instead of thinking, what do I want and how do I work towards it, I just looked around and said, well, what's going on that I can help with? And for me, that year, it was a few things. It was my brother. He had just had a baby, and so I thought about maybe me working towards buying a house and he could become my roommate. And that's one thing I worked towards. And then the other thing was my sister Elsie had a growing business with her blog in a local vintage shop. And so I thought, can I help her with that? And it turns out I was able to do both of those things much better than being an actress, and I enjoyed them so much more. So I got really, in some ways, lucky. But I also think, like, just looking around at what opportunities are presenting themselves to you, that's maybe a better way to go about things sometimes.

Yeah. There's this great quote, and I'm trying to frantically, if you can maybe hear me frantically typing in the background as I'm trying to find it. So your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world's greatest need. And Frederick Buchner. This is me putting myself on the spot to pronounce last name. I don't know how to pronounce. But what I really appreciate about what you're saying was not necessarily looking around you and saying, what are the things that I want to do? Or what are the things that I'm super passionate about that might have been part of it. And it was where you say, you know, I realized this was something I Actually really enjoyed, but saying, what are the things that I can help with? And I think the things that you are most capable to help with are also the things that you are most capable of doing and probably therefore get a lot of joy out of that. I think people are. When you are capable at something and you're good at it, then you get joy from it often and it's a win, win, win. If that also meets up with somewhere there being a need for that. And it sounds like in some ways that that happened as you were kind of processing through that year, that there's some things that you really enjoyed and then also there's a need for those. And a follow up question that would be, did you know that you would enjoy these things that you started to do?

No. I never ever thought of myself as like a quote unquote business person. I didn't study business in college. I studied philosophy. Like my family has a lot of like small business owners, but no one's super businessy necessarily. Like we're more about creativity and that type of stuff. So I never imagined that that would be my primary role within me and my sister's business is I'm kind of the, you know, money, keep track of stuff person. I don't know, whatever you want to call it.

For sure, for sure. I was talking to somebody the other day and they're like, so what is role? And I was like, I said like five different things. And she's like, so what should I put down here? So yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I'm like, well, we have a tiny company, so can we just call me the CEO?

Yes. Right.

I don't know.

It's like small enough where I feel like, am I. Would I say CEO? Well, it's. No. And then I'm like co founder because it's with Lindsay. So I eventually said co founder, which I feel like is such a nondescript thing to put for a job title.

Yeah, it's like I'm part of the team and it's like, well, yeah, exactly.

So you start to get into this and focusing on the blog side of that. So you're focusing in and you're starting to help with your sister's shop as well as the website. What was it that you started to take on right away and when did you realize, hey, this is something that I'm actually kind of interested in and I'll hold off on my follow up question. I'm trying to ask less questions. So how about that first?

Yeah, I think one of the very first things I took over that, I remember from the blog, was her advertising program. She had like, we're very OG bloggers. This was, like, 10 years ago. So we just literally had little clickable widgets in the sidebar that we would put in ourselves via code on a certain night at midnight every month. Literally, I did that. And people would buy them. And it was a form of banner ads, in a way, but very DIY banner ads, I guess you could say. And I took over that program for her, and my goal was to just grow it. That was kind of like supplemental income that we used within the whole business, just like it is now, really. And so growing it, I knew, would be extremely helpful. It would allow us more cushion whenever we want to launch new products or whenever if someone needs to take off some time. We wouldn't have to feel like we needed to work 24 7. If I could just have more cushion in our bank account. So I was like, all right, I'll figure out how to do that. And I did for years, and it was really fun, and I learned a lot. I wouldn't say I'm the best person in that role, but at the time, given there were only two of us, I was the best person in that role.

Yes, for sure.

So, yeah.

And so you started to get into it. You get a feel for it, and I would guess at some point you start to double down on the things that you're doing. Can you talk about when that started to happen and when you started to realize, hey, this might not just be something that I'm helping my sister out with, but this could actually develop into something that could be sustainable for both of us for a career.

Yes. So back when we were blogging, so one, we had two separate blogs at the time, A Beautiful Mess, which was her blog. And I had a food blog called Food Coma. And it was just for fun. I think I made, like, a little tiny bit of money, but it really was just something I did because I felt like I didn't want to lose myself while I worked for my sister, which is a silly thing to think looking back. Anyway, so we had two blogs, and then our main business, though, to us, in our minds, was this local vintage shop that we ran. And it had mostly vintage, and then it also had, like, my sister's paintings and other things she would do. Like, she had an independent dress line at one point, just all of her interests, which is now kind of what our blog is. And we realized after a certain amount of time, I don't know, maybe it was A year that if we combined our forces, we made just one blog that focused on all these things, and we mostly did blogging, we could make a lot more money. And it's not all about money, of course, but we sincerely loved writing the blog. And then we kind of felt like, well, we should focus in on something, even though I still think we have very little focus.

Sure.

And we decided, like, okay, well, we're going to become bloggers. And at the time, that wasn't like, a thing. There wasn't any other. Like, I'm talking to you, and I know you and Lindsay are bloggers. Obviously you do a number of things, but, like, there wasn't a whole lot of people doing that. It was like BuzzFeed. You had to be that before you were anything.

And about what year was this? Just for context, it probably would have.

Been 2010 or 2011.

Yep.

So we were like, well, this isn't a real job, but we seem to be good at it and we can make money at it. Let's do it. Let's just make it our real job anyway. Even though I don't know, like, I don't know how the IRS is going to classify us. Like, I've been on so many holds trying to explain what we are, you know, over the years, but we. We leaned into it, and I think it was the right decision. We're at least really happy with our choice.

Yeah. So can you. At that point, was it still the business? Was it still at a point where you were saying, we're going to lean into this because we think it could potentially build into something, or was it at the point where you knew that even if it was. Even if it stayed where it was, that it would be sustainable enough for you to move forward? Like, how much of the decision was you looking out saying, I think this might be possible, versus we know this is possible right now because from ads, and maybe you were working with companies in sponsorships or something like that. We know we can continue doing this, versus this might be possible. Does that make sense?

Right. I think in our minds, we were like, oh, this is for sure going to work. But looking back, it was definitely more like, oh, this will possibly work. But we didn't come from regular day jobs. I didn't have a regular day job. We were working at our vintage store. So to us, there was no, like, well, I got to put in my two weeks at this stable job that offers me benefits. Like, we didn't have that safety net anyway, so it was easier to jump because there Was already no net, if that makes sense.

Yes, for sure.

So it was like, yeah, I mean, our focus was here. Now we're going to shift our focus here. That to us, that's all it was. Whereas I think if we had, you know, if I had had a stable job, I think it would have been a lot scarier for me because I am pretty risk adverse. Elsie, probably, she's just crazy. She'll leap no matter what, which makes.

For a good partnership that you balance each other out. Yeah. And it's interesting to think about, you know, a lot of times startups that are going into. I'm interested in startups from distance and also just startups in general. But they talk about this idea of ramen profitability for startups. And the idea is you are profitable really early on because your lifestyle is so low. Like you're eating ramen, so your meal expenses are $3 a day because you have ramen for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But it seems like there is some truth to that for you where you didn't have this super inflated lifestyle. So it allowed you to be more flexible in the decisions you're making and saying, okay, let's shift our focus and our energy over here. We can do this because we haven't pinned ourselves down with a bunch of business debt or anything like that. So you can shift your focus over there, give your attention to the blog and that allowed you to kind of start building that snowball.

Yeah, exactly. You nailed it. We were the ramen girls already, so yeah, we had nothing to lose for sure.

So at what point in the growth and maybe if you could give a general point of maybe a season or a year, did you both, whether actually this happening or kind of virtually or whatever it was, sit down and look at each other and say, this is a thing. Was there a point? Or was it kind of the slow boiling and eventually the temperature got hot enough where you're like, oh, this is a business.

I think it was kind of both. I mean, it was a slow thing in that we started blogging more and more and we could see that that was working for us. We enjoyed it. We were making money from it, you know, all of the things. And we could see that our vintage store, we were spending less time on it and it was also making less money. Probably those were related. But you know, so that I think though the moment where we did kind of look at each other and kind of have to take a breath was when we made our first hire. You know, because the first person we ever hired Was my then boyfriend, now husband, Trey, which. That was a crazy move to hire a boyfriend, but he seemed like the right f. But he had a job. He had a real job that had benefits. And so we knew, like, I can't just hire him for fun and then change my mind in two weeks when we run out of money. This is no joke. If we're gonna do this, this is changing someone's life. This is changing their career path. And obviously, I cared about him. He was my boyfriend and my now husband. So we both kind of were like, all right, if we're gonna do this, we gotta really do this. We can't just be, you know, doing it for ourselves, for fun. Like, this has to be like, no, this is our path, and we're committing, and we're going to see it through no matter where it goes. And that was an easy choice for us, but it was scary, I guess, because the possibility of failure was much higher with someone else there having to kind of shoulder that risk, too.

Yeah. And anytime that you introduce, like, legitimate payroll, it becomes this thing of, like, well, there's a month that's really bad. It doesn't matter. Payroll still needs to go out. Somebody needs to get paid. And it. It is moving into that point of, like, this is a legitimate business. We have. We're paying people. We have an employee that's showing up. So it makes sense that that kind of transitions into the official business stage. For Beautiful mess. Was there a time when you then shut down the shop where you said, hey, we're going all in on digital?

Yes, we did.

And was that a hard decision?

It was, by the time we announced, was already made in our minds, and it was kind of already happening. But we were really nervous about what our readers were going to think because, again, no one was really just a blogger back then, so we were scared people were going to view that as inauthentic or, I don't know, something along those lines, fill in the blanks. You guys know you're all bloggers listening.

And you never know the things that you say. You never know if those cross the airwaves, the Internet, and arrive with the same intent that you're hoping that they do. So it's not only literally what's happening, but then how what's happening is perceived as well, which is difficult.

Right. Because you can't really literally open up your heart on the Internet. You can try, and we do, and I know you guys do too. It's just, you don't know how you're going to come off. You don't know if you're going to do a good job communicating. I would say it's 50, 50 if I'm ever going to. I'm like, did I do a good job really explaining the feelings and the thought behind this, or did I just say, you know, oh, well, this is something I decided six months ago and now I'm just filling you in, you know, and it's like, oh, well, that wasn't very, you know, you didn't really explain that. You didn't really bring them to where you are, Emma. So fail.

It's something that we get asked about a lot. And Lindsay, specifically, people that are processing and trying to decide how vulnerable and transparent should their voice be and their brand be and their. Their blog or social media be. Can you talk through what that's been like for you as you've decided to share openly and any of the mental frameworks that you've had to develop in order to do that and maybe why you've decided to do that?

Yeah. So for us, we definitely feel like a beautiful mess is very personal, and it is something that we love and we're doing long before we ever made money at it. So for us, not that much has changed other than now. We don't have to eat ramen every day, I guess, but someone who's just showing up, or they've just shown up a year ago, they don't have all that story. And also, there's another element to blogging or podcasting, I'm sure, where you're, you want to talk to someone, like, I'm just talking to you, Bjork. I'm just talking to you right now. But the truth is I'm not. I'm talking to, you know, number of listeners. I'm talking to a big group of people. And many of them have gone through lots of different things. So if I share my personal experience about failing at acting, it's gonna send off these, you know, triggers in other people's minds about their own, you know, quote unquote failures, something they've gone through. And so I don't want to be insensitive in the way that I talk about myself or about things that happen because it could trigger someone else. So it's like you're constantly being like, I want to be honest about how I feel and what I've been through, but I also have to recognize that I'm talking to a big group and I have no idea what they have all gone through, and I want to be as aware of that as I can be, which is a medium amount. So I think we try to walk that line and I think like everyone, we do it with some degree of success and some degree of failure. And we try to learn from that and get better at it over the years. And I think we do. And we still have plenty to learn.

Yep. And I think one of the things that I think about as I continually process through the decisions that we make about what we're sharing, how we share it, where we share things, is trying to always think back to like, what is my. This is going to sound. Maybe it's. Maybe it's. I don't know what it is. Fluffy. Maybe it will appeal to you because it can be philosophical, we can tie back to your philosophy major. But I feel like, what is your heart behind sharing that information or sending that email or writing that blog post? And some of it might be strictly business related. There's content that we produce and things that we do that are transactional in nature and require that for a business. But I think also the heart of those can be positive and encouraging. But that's one of the things that I think about as we think about how we're sharing information. Because like you said, there will always be some type of content that will land in a way that isn't that you wouldn't want it to land for whatever reason because of somebody else's story or their past or their history or the how they're viewing it. But I think if you can come back to that idea of like, what's your heart? That's one of the things that I think about.

So yeah, I agree.

Yeah. So to come back down from the clouds a little bit. Would love to hear you talk about as kind of a transition. Do you feel like your experience coming up from the having those six years in Hollywood or the three years in Hollywood, three years in college kind of pursuing this acting career, do you think that motivated you to more than normal in terms of applying that to the success of a beautiful mess? Like, did that give, did that kind of fuel your fire to say, hey, this is something I'm gonna really invest myself into and really dive into?

I think that it's really. It made me fireproof. Let me explain. I was never afraid after that point to pivot. I still will pivot very quickly in our business now, sometimes too quickly maybe, but I am never afraid to try something and fail. It doesn't scare me anymore because I have done it. I have done one of the biggest failures you can do. And I am still standing. You know, it kind of gave me that in business where I'm like, all right, what's the worst case scenario? Oh, we look like fools. No problem. Let's try it. Worst case scenario, we go bankrupt. Let's not do it. We're not doing that one.

Yeah.

You know, kind of gave you that where you're, like, not afraid of losing your ego or whatever. Like, so it gave me that, but it didn't make me feel like, oh, I have to be a success because I'm proving myself. I didn't feel that. I still don't feel that. I don't know how to explain it. I think I just. Because I went through this big, you know, to me, failure. I think I just realized how much it doesn't matter. Like, success is something that you see from the outside, but the person on the inside might feel completely different about it. You know, someone who is a famous actress in Hollywood right now, she might feel really sad because xyz, you know, whatever. And I don't know that. I just look at her life and think, oh, how cool. And it's like, you know, someone can look at me, me and be like, oh, you just sit by yourself in your house all day. How sad. And I'm like, oh, I'm so happy, actually. Yeah, you're welcome to think whatever you want, of course, But I love it. And so I think it's, you know, it taught me a lot about perception and like, it's just about what works for you, not what looks good.

Yep. And self awareness, I think, is a huge piece of that. You becoming self aware and saying, this is where I thrive. So one of the things that you mentioned was pivoting and going into different areas. And we talked about the shop closing down, focusing in on digital. But one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is the other brands that you've developed. And there's multiple different angles I would love to take on this, but the first that I would love to hear you talk about is how do you maintain the focus and dedication on the multiple different brands and building those. When you have these different projects that you're doing cookbook, you have courses, obviously social media is a huge part of it. You have a shop that you've developed, you have beautiful apps that are really successful. You have your own product line. And the interesting thing to me is they're all done really well. It's not like it's these things that are kind of crummy and you're like, oh, you're juggling a lot of stuff. It's like, oh, you're juggling a lot of stuff, and all the balls are still in the air. So can you talk about what that looks like and how you approach that?

Well, that's incredibly nice of you. Believe me. I think some of them are well done and some of them are not. To me. Yeah, for us, we try to take on a number of new projects every year. That's kind of how I view it, and my sister and I view things differently, but we still kind of end up in the same place, which I think is kind of fun. It's probably like that in marriage, too. But anyway, we try to take on a few new projects every year because we love new stuff and we have a lot of different interests and we used to think, oh, we should just become the masters in one area. Because I hear that kind of advice a lot, and I think it's awesome for some people. And I think for us, we've realized that's just not who we are. We like too many things and we're interested in too many things, and we'll probably be starting a new brand when we're 62. Like, that's just who we are. So we're like, okay, this is who we are. So every year we're going to start at least a couple new things, and we're going to see how they do. So we're going to invest sort of a minimal amount of time and resources and money into them. Not too much. Not so much that we put our payroll at risk and the people who are counting on us, but enough that we truly do test it. And the things that work well, whether that be they make just enough money and we enjoyed it a ton, or they make a lot of money and we enjoyed it enough, you know, whatever the case may be, then the ones that do well, we grow those. And the ones that don't do well, we stop doing them. We pivot away. We learn a lot every year when we do these new ones. And some of the ones that have taken off are exactly the ones that you mentioned, like our apps. It started with just one app, and now we have an app company that has three apps and it's about to launch a fourth. And we're hoping to take on some different projects within the apps field soon. So we have that and we have Refresh and we have, obviously our online courses and things of that nature. And we still blog all the time. We'll always blog because it's fun.

Can you talk about maybe a specific story of something where you had the idea, you decided to do it, and then you realized, hey, this is something that is working well. We're going to double down on this and put more time and energy into it and how you made those decisions along the way.

Yes. So probably the easiest example to explain, I would say, would be apps. So our first app, it was called A Beautiful Mess and it came out sometime in 2011. Trying to remember when, but it was basically like you could add little text, handwritten text, and doodles and things to your photos and then upload them to Instagram. And we came up with the idea. Elsie came up with the idea because people kept asking her on her Instagram how she did this with her own pictures. And the truth was she would put the picture in Photoshop, use her tablet to write on it, save it out, send it to her phone, and then upload it to Instagram. So it was a lot of steps. Very annoying. You don't have to be crazy to do this all the time, which Elsie is. So she would explain this to people. She told them exactly how to do it, but people were always like, oh, is it an app that you're using? So one day she was like, emma, we should build an app that does this. And I was like, well, I've only downloaded two apps in my whole life. I mean, I guess let's look into it. How much does it cost to build an app? We started researching and learning about apps and how you build them and how that works and where you have to put them on the two different main stores and all that. About two years after that, after she said, let's build an app, our app came out. We had no idea how it would do. Like I said, we don't really even consider ourselves tech people at all. So we were like, our readers might like this, our readers might hate it. Maybe it took us too long to build it and it's going to be old feeling by the time it comes out. And we had spent. We had gotten a book deal and we had spent basically all of our advance from the book deal on building this app because to us, it was kind of like extra money that we weren't planning on for that year. So we were like, we could afford to do that. So that's what we did. And in our minds we were like, well, we could have just lost that money, which was bonus money anyway. Or I mean, we still had to write the books, but, you know, it.

Could turn into something.

Yeah, yeah, it could Be something. And it turned out it was something. It went number one in the iTunes store the day it came out, and it stayed there for weeks and weeks after. I don't know if it was number one, but it was in the top five. And we won a few, like, iTunes Press Awards for it and some different things like that. And it had problems. We had to rebuild parts of it because, again, Elsie and I are not super techy, but we realized, like, oh, this is kind of like a different sort of digital product because we've been selling E courses for years. And what's fun about them is you do all of the work and then you launch it, and it's just kind of passive income, you know? And this is the same thing, just a very different. It's like a mini piece of software, which took me a long time to wrap my mind around. Some people are probably listening. They're like, obviously, that's what an app is like. Okay, well, you guys are smarter than me. It took me a while to get it. I just didn't get it.

But it makes sense. It's not something that you would think about as software you download onto your computer or. It seems like it's an entirely different ecosystem, and in a lot of ways it is.

Right?

Yeah. So you go through this process, you have the app, it's successful. And what does that look like then, in terms of your attention? Because now you have a cookbook, you have a successful app, you have the blog. How do you manage these multiple projects and keep those balls in the air? Or is it kind of like you chunk it out and say, we're going to focus really hard on this for three to six months and then go into maintenance mode for that as we focus on the next thing.

Right. So usually when we launch a new thing like an app or a new brand or whatever it is, we don't tend to hire someone right away for it. Most of the time, we just kind of test it out. So that just means if we really want to do an idea, Elsie and I have to do extra work for months or a year or whatever it is. And then if it does well, then it usually gets its own team member. So for apps, my husband Trey, he used to do our ad program, and he transitioned over to being basically the head of our app company. So he runs it all the way, and he does such a great job with it, and it is in such a better place than when we didn't have anyone running it. But also, he's really the right fit for the Job, too. So, yeah, all of our main areas that do well, they get a team member assigned to them.

Got it. And then this is a business question, just out of curiosity, do you create different businesses or all of those, like DBA doing business as underneath the A Beautiful mess large business umbrella.

Yeah. So we have two companies. One is actually called Red Velvet Art llc, which is what a Beautiful mess is. And we fresh. And then the other company is called Color Story, and it has all of our apps. So it has a Color Story party, Party party, and A Beautiful mess, and it's about to add another app.

Got it. Okay. And that's one of the things that we've thought about. Have you ever thought about merging those, or do you think that you'll maintain those as two separate companies?

We very intentionally separate. Made them separate because in our minds, we thought we one, we let other people run Color Story. Ellison and I are very involved in it, but it's very much its own thing now. It's kind of like getting a manager for your rental property. It's like you got to check in, you still got to be involved, but overall, it kind of just does its thing and you're just around for when it needs something. So that's how this separate business, the Color Story, is for us. And then another piece was, we really don't know that much about apps still. Like, we're always learning more. And in our minds, we were like, it could be that one day we might sell that part of our company. And for Elsie and I, we don't really have a big interest in selling a beautiful mess. I mean, you never know the future. But we love it. Like, it's our thing. But, you know, in apps, we love. We love it, but also we could see it becoming a valuable property to someone else who maybe has more of that, and they're better at it, and it might be very valuable. Who knows, you know? So we were like, well, we better separate them, because we would never want a Beautiful mess to be put in any kind of jeopardy because it was so tied together.

Yeah. That it was intertwined to the point where people couldn't understand where profit was coming from or expenses. This way, it's just really clean. So if there ever was somebody that came across, Google says, you know what? This looks like a good business for us to buy, then they can see the really clearly where expenses are coming from and profit and it's not intertwined. That makes sense. Sure.

Exactly.

So from a business perspective, you have a really solid business. You would do. I Read a couple of the kind of year in review business updates that you have done. Did you do one of those in 2016? Did I?

I don't think we did. Okay, so the last year, very haphazard. We are not as good as you guys were with your financial reports.

So in 2015. Yeah, in 2015, saw that you did kind of an overview of the year, talked about the things that worked, the things that didn't work in that you mentioned, we've crossed the border. Or maybe it was a year where you had a seven figure income from the blog, which I think is important to say, not because money is the most important thing, but it shows like, okay, this is an established business, you have employees and there's success in this business. I'm guessing that's been something where you continue to grow and build. What have you noticed in these past two to three years? The industry as it always does, has changed very quickly. What have you been able to do in your business in order to continue to grow? And what has been most helpful as you've continued to leverage a Beautiful Mess into not just a blog with you and your sister, but a business?

Yes. One thing I recommend to anyone, because it's something we do at a Beautiful Mess that really helps us. So anyone with any business, business, but especially blogging, is I think it's really helpful to have multiple revenue streams. Obviously we have a couple different businesses and as I've clearly said throughout this, we have way too many interests. So for us this is maybe easier than it might seem to others. But I think it's really important because our industry does change so often and I like it, it's exciting. But it can also be very financially stressful if something about it just changed that really affected how you made the majority of your money. So when you have multiple revenue streams, it allows you to better insulate yourself from those changes. You know, so if something dries up, you know, all of a sudden banner ads turn off. Google's like, no, see you later. I don't know, that would never happen. But you know, something like that. Then it's like, okay, well we're going to lean in to our other revenue streams. It's not just like, oh, well, we're bankrupt because that's the only thing that we have.

Yeah. You know, yeah. So what are, what are some of those the most important ones for your businesses? You talked about the apps, obviously a beautiful mess. And the blog advertising income. What are some of the other ones that you've implemented that have been helpful for your business?

Yes. So we love our online digital E course program. And that's just our courses.abutifulmess.com so that's really fun for us. We get to interact with people a lot more in that arena. So that's really fun. And then the other thing is a brand that we call We Fresh, which is a part of a beautiful mess. And it is basically an online retail company that does women's clothing and accessories as well as wellness products. So it has natural lipsticks and lip glosses, it has essential oils. And then we're about to launch a beauty box.

Awesome. Can you talk about. This is kind of tech specific stuff. But for the courses program, do you run that off of WordPress or is that another like a teaching platform that you use for that?

No, we're using WordPress. It's the WooCommerce.

Yep.

Stiff. Yep, yep.

Great. And then for the shop, was that something that you built on Shopify or E Commerce platform?

Yeah, it's also a WordPress WooCommerce.

Oh, it is. Okay, cool.

They're really very similar. The big difference is obviously how inventory is tracked. But also we're trying out some new plugins that can facilitate subscription boxes because we're about to launch one and we're finding that. That's way harder than I thought. I'm kind of shocked by how. I just thought there would be a plugin that would just totally do a monthly subscription box. It seems like a model that a lot of people are doing with different types of products that can be the.

Next business is a plugin that solves that problem.

I am that person on the team who's like, guys, I can't believe this doesn't exist. We need to build it. And everyone on the team's like, Emma, that will take a year. We're not.

Right, right. So for the. So WooCommerce, so familiar with that. WooCommerce, I think now is officially owned by Automattic, which is the parent company of WordPress. And you say that you're not techie, but it's like you're obviously very deep into these things. And for the courses are those ones that you're producing internally on your own. Are you working with other teachers that then teach those or what does that look like in terms of the production of those courses?

Yeah, it's really similar to how we work on our blog. A lot of our content is written by Elsie and I, but we love to partner with people who basically know more than us. And the same Thing is true in our courses. So anytime we can teach something that we care about and we love and we have noticed that our readers ask us about a lot, we love to do that. But we really prefer to bring on at least one other teacher who can offer their expertise and also their just perspective. Because I think if you learn, just say blogging just for kicks. If you learn blogging from one blogger, you're only going to know their tricks. But if you learn it from five bloggers, you're going to know all the tricks. So we're trying to facilitate people knowing all of the tricks. So we bring in a number of different teachers.

My point with jumping into some of the technical things, I know that people are interested in that, but also to come back from that a little bit, talking about branding and the work that you guys have done with branding have done a really, really good job and maybe that would be a good thing as we kind of come to the end. That would be good to touch base on would be the intentionality that you have with the long term ness of your blog and your business and the significance that you place on branding. Can you talk about how bloggers can integrate and amplify a strong brand into their web presence?

Yes. So one thing that I've encountered a lot, and I don't know if any of your listeners are going through this or maybe know someone who's going through this, but I think sometimes bloggers feel silly calling in a brand or saying like, oh, I need to do better branding on my blog or on my Instagram or whatever. They feel like very just silly about that because they're like, it's just me, it's just me sharing recipes. You know, I don't want to make it seem like I'm this, you know, all important whatever, so I don't want to be branded, quote unquote or whatever. And I totally get that feeling. Like I do sometimes feel silly about our brand. I really do. Like it's sometimes kind of, you know, you feel like, oh, is this coming off salesy or is this coming off, you know, inauthentic When I don't mean it to, I don't know. So I understand that fear. But to me, I view a strong brand as simply you trying to communicate very quickly, sometimes literally just through a color or a font choice or whatever who you are and what you're about. So kind of like the heart, like you were saying behind your communications, you're kind of trying to show your heart. But visually or through whatever branding materials you're doing, depending on where you are, if you're on the Internet or you're on social media or whatever. And for us also, we're a very small team, but we're still a team of people, and we have different ideas about our brand. And. And so one thing that helps us is my sister, Elsie. She is the brains behind everything visual at a beautiful mess. So she puts together every season kind of a. I don't know what to call it. It's basically a mood board that helps us all kind of know, oh, this is what our photography should look like. These are the colors we should emphasize when we're working on something for social media and so on and so forth. And I know to some people, that might sound kind of silly to put together a mood board that is your brand, but I think it's incredibly helpful because when I'm being creative, when I'm photographing some pancakes, let's just say, and I have a thousand napkins to choose from, all these colors, I sometimes get a little overwhelmed. I like working within kind of parameters and being like, okay, I could be creative, but I have to use pink. All right, how can I use pink? How can I be interesting? I don't want to do the same thing I did last time. And I actually like that. I think it's an interesting creative challenge to work within these kind of borders that you define. And that's. That's what branding kind of is. It's like, these are the fonts I use. These are the colors I use. This is the type of voice I use. Now. How can I really push the limits with those boundaries and communicate who I am through that?

Yeah, that was one of the biggest takeaways that we had, or one of the biggest wins that we had a couple years ago, and super easy as well, was to say, okay, let's put down. We didn't have to develop it because we kind of, in a way, already had it. A style guide. I like the idea of a mood board because it kind of communicates what is the mood that you want to communicate for your brand. But we said, okay, what are the colors that we use? And we just put those down. What are the fonts that we use? We put those down. It's like, oh, this really helps inform the decisions that we're making. When it comes to other things, or when we're working with another company, we can say, hey, here's our style guide. Or if we're working with a freelance designer, we can send that to them. It makes it A lot easier to understand your brand. And if you already have some of those things picked out, can be a relatively quickly, quick thing to put together. And if it's not, you can take that time. And Lindsay talks about that with photography. She'll go through Pinterest and kind of develop her desire for photography. Like what do I want to communicate and see in my photographs? Put together a private board for that and then from that develop her photography mood board. I think that's a great takeaway for people we have.

Exactly.

So last thing I like to ask people on the podcast is if you are speaking to the people that are in the early stages, if they're just getting started, they're in year one, two or three, and they're interested in building a strong, successful brand like A Beautiful Mess. And the other things that you guys have, what would be your advice to those people.

Other than going through and reading all your guys past financial reports and listening to this podcast to get all the tips, all the free tips I would do, I would honestly do that. We do that all the time in A Beautiful Mess still. So I really would tell any friend starting do that.

Thank you.

Then after that I would tell them like, pick two revenue streams you're gonna focus on in the first year, just two, and try to build them to the biggest that you can for the year and see how it does. And if one fails, don't get discouraged. But also be aware. Might not mean that you can quit your other job or just be aware that it takes time to grow something, but be intentional about growing it.

That's great. And I think a good note to end on. But before we do, I want you to plug two things. You were nice enough to offer a discount to your store that you had talked to a little bit. So we'd love for you to talk about that. And then we talked about different places that people can follow along with you. But if you can share maybe your personal social media accounts and then some of the best places for people to find a beautiful mess.

Yes. So I'm my personal Instagram is emmaredvelvet and my sister is Elsie Larson. I had to think about it because she's had a few. She's sneaky. But yeah, mine's Emma Red Velvet. Now you know why? Because our business is called Red Velvet.

Yes. Okay, makes sense.

Yeah, so that's us. And then you can find our blog online just@abeautifulmess.com and we are a beautiful mess on Instagram and Facebook and all that. And then one of the brands I was Talking about earlier, wefresh.com, where we sell women's clothing and accessories as well as wellness. I wanted to offer your listeners 30% off their first order. So that means you could order a bunch of things or just one thing. And also you can order nothing. No pressure, guys. But if you want to order something, a 30% off code you can use is FBP for Food Blogger Pro 30. So that's FBP 30.

Awesome. And that's spelled O, U, I, we fresh. Yes. Can you explain. Can you explain where that comes from?

Honestly, it was my sister's idea and I was kind of like, people aren't going to know how to pronounce it.

Sure. But it's one of those. It's one of those sister conversations. I can imagine that happening. But it's one of those brand names where it's a strong visual name. Like when you see it O, U, I fresh. So it makes sense. Does the word oui, does that come from something?

I believe it's French for yes.

Got it.

I think I should know that. Oh, gosh, now I'm going to look it up and be like, no. It's French for love.

It's French for no. That's funny. Well, we'll be sure to link to that in the show notes as well. So people can go and visit the shop, check it out, and then if they're interested in purchasing something, use that code FBP30. Really appreciate you sharing that with the audience. Emma, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was fun. It's great.

That's a wrap for this episode. Emma, thanks for coming on and thank you, wherever you you are, for listening to the podcast. Hey, if you have any ideas for somebody, that would be a great interview, somebody like Emma, we'd love to hear from you. You can drop us a note at podcastoodbloggerpro.com or any insights that you'd have at all. We would love to hear what those are. We really appreciate you listening to this podcast, and we always want to find ways to improve, and one of the best ways we can do that is to hear from you, whether that be a suggestion or somebody that would make for a great podcast interview. Thanks again for tuning in. Make it a great week.