Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Schlain.
Hi Victoria, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m a born and raised Houstonian and Texan through and through. My husband and I both grew up around Cypress and eventually started our family in northwest Houston. But amidst the pandemic and the crazy housing era, I found myself 5 months pregnant and laid off from my high-paying oil and gas job. There were a lot of questions and unknowns for the rest of my pregnancy that we had to wrestle with. When our 2nd daughter was born, we made a huge leap of faith and sold our house and most everything we owned, renovated and moved into an RV and started traveling around America with our then two-year-old and six-month-old. We saw amazing sights traveling America’s highways and backroads but the best part of it all was how much quality family time we got to have with our young kids.
How many parents can say they both witnessed all of their kids first major milestones together? We were so grateful to be able to live in these moments with them, and it set us on a path where we knew we didn’t want to go back into the normal rat-race lifestyle.
We also learned so much from others around us on our travels, and it inspired us to be more proactive about taking control of our own life. So, we gave up the nomad lifestyle and searched for property to start a homestead. Being native Texans, we were happy to find something that we could set our roots into here.
Fast forward a few years and that’s where we are now: building a homestead, homeschooling our kids, and learning to do more things for ourselves; getting back to more basic and slow-living lifestyle. And as we entrenched more into the community around us, we realized many people were seeking to do the same thing, but there weren’t many great ways for people to connect with each other and learn from one another outside of typical social media.
And while so many are branching out and diving into entrepreneurship, that clash of mixing traditional skills with modern technology created a gap that we wanted to help fill in. After a lot of late-night talks, we dreamed up Hearth & Harvest and started building it into reality.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t think anyone that sets out to start their own company does so because they think it’ll be the easier or smoother road. There have definitely been struggles and continue to be as we grow our company.
We started out with a social platform and a built-in marketplace to allow small businesses to sell directly off the platform. But then we realized that a lot of small businesses were just too busy to add something else to manage. So, we launched and just a few short weeks in, we did a major pivot and changed the marketplace to a directory because we were seeing the struggle with the vendors we had signing up with us. To lean into supporting what small businesses already have, we added comprehensive web services to help bridge the gap for people that have something great to offer but may not be tech-savvy enough to manage their own website.
People also get so comfortable in their normal routine, that introducing a new option that may even be better for them takes a lot of repeated exposure to remember to consider something else. It’s a lot of follow-ups and reminders when people are so busy these days and tend to forget things easily while they’re juggling 20 other things physically or mentally.
Diving into establishing a new business while being a stay-at-home mom is a huge challenge in and of itself as well. My priority is on my kids, but we’re also trying to set an example for them of good work ethic and the importance of perseverance. Them seeing us start up this business from scratch is showing them all the ins and outs of countless skills but also the amount of hard work that is required to follow your dreams. But like any mom, there’s always a level of mom-guilt that I have to balance myself. All I can do is keep trying and continuing to show up daily as both a mom and business professional.
As you know, we’re big fans of Hearth & Harvest. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Hearth & Harvest is small-scale social platform built for local communities to connect on topics related to homesteading, natural wellness, homeschooling, etc. It’s intended to be a space for people that are looking to speak freely and share information on topics that they are interested in, that most mainstream social platforms don’t allow easy access to. As there is a cultural shift happening and more focus on health, people are choosing to search for more information and find others that can share information on these topics but may not know where to start. This is where we’re aiming to provide a go-to place for people to connect.
Built into our social platform is also a business directory to help support small and local businesses. As more people are trying to veer away from big-box companies and learning to depend again on their own neighbors, local farmers, and searching within their own communities, we wanted to also bring those businesses in the forefront for them for easier visibility. Our directory is 100% free and more than a simple business name and number. Businesses can be seen with a full bio, photo gallery, links to socials, reviews and ratings from others in the community. Small and local businesses have a real chance of connecting with an audience searching for these kinds of things, without competing with algorithms and bot or spam accounts on the over saturated mainstream platforms.
Lastly, because of my husband’s career background in IT, we wanted to find a way to give back to the community as well and support local businesses. We do so by offering full package web services that is capable of supporting full enterprises. We manage everything for small businesses including server hosting, branded domain + email services, e-commerce, bookings, SEO management, ongoing maintenance and updates, etc. We believe that websites are a digital business card for a company, and every high-quality company deserves to have a website that reflects that same unique brand’s personality and high-quality professionalism.
But realistically we know that small businesses have so much other things to manage in their field, so we’re trying to make it easier for them to run their business and not have to add tech-genius to their running list of talents. We create custom websites for our customers that are scaled to grow with them as their business expands, and best of all it’s being supported by a local business just like themselves. We were tired of the lack of consideration and professionalism we encountered from corporations that are only after your money. We wanted that experience to be different for small businesses that don’t want to just be a number; so, we take the time to learn about all of our clients and become vested in themselves as well as their business because we believe in what they’re doing, not just what we can get out of their business.
What makes you happy?
It has always made me happy to help others and I genuinely love helping others achieve their goals.
Even though it hasn’t been my job for very long, it’s probably why being a mom brings me the greatest joy. It makes sense when my career before being a mom and even with Hearth & Harvest now is tied to helping others.
But this section in the middle of raising my kids and learning and growing with them in motherhood and helping them build their own childhood is hands down the happiest part of my life. I’ve always loved to learn and I’m still learning everyday by being their mom. Only now I’m also relearning things as my kids are seeing things for the first time and getting to experience those things with them and it’s a feeling of wonder, amazement, and satisfaction that you don’t really get from anything else.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hearthharvest.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hearthharvest
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hearthharvest.TX
- Other: www.services.hearthharvest.com
