We were lucky to catch up with Cassidy Thiesen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cassidy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

Small + family owned businesses are truly what lights me up. I grew up in a family of small business owners, so it only makes sense that my biggest drive for a career involved doing my own thing + building my own business.

My grandma started The Cook’s Nook, a small business in downtown McPherson, KS in 1988 and for the last 35+ years, it’s grown into a business that my entire family has a hand in. Working with family is the absolute best in my opinion, especially when you have a close knit relationship and actually enjoy spending all of your days with them.

What I look back on in my childhood the most when I translate it to my thoughts on family owned businesses, is that I felt like I really had a great look into what it takes to work hard, build a community, and balance a family life at home. Having a part in a small family business has been a highlight of my adult life and one that I do not take for granted.

Cassidy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Cassidy and this is Simply Lynn’s Creative. We are brand + website design studio that helps boutique brands + retailers strategically grow their business in the online world.

To me, a brand + website is about more than just aesthetics, it’s about partnering with small business owners to understand their vision and help them thrive in a competitive market.

I grew up in retail and come from a family of entrepreneurs, so I get it. I get that time is crucial and when you’re wearing SO many hats as a small business owner, some of the most important aspects to your brand can get pushed aside and completely overlooked.

We bridge the gap between stunning design + strategic marketing. The internet is a noisy place, and feels like it’s getting louder every day. We know it can be hard to get noticed, especially when juggling all the hats of business ownership.

We also know that just a pretty new logo or website isn’t going to do the trick in helping you make sustainable sales.

Our holistic approach to branding and ecommerce doesn’t just stop at the aesthetics – we help you turn visitors into customers by creating story-driven brands, immersive, easy-to-navigate web experiences, and email marketing strategies to continually nurture your community of customers.

Think of us as an extension of your team, with creative and marketing expertise to completely elevate and work more strategically within your business!

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

When I first studio my business, I was living 16.5 hours away from home, teaching high school business, and working my ass off to prove to myself that I COULD make this work. I had a gentle nudge from my husband to quit my teaching job and take my client work full time and that was really the turning point for me.

I was still teaching full time, but knew that I wasn’t going to renew my contract for the following year, so my drive to scale my client roster to. a much larger capacity was what I worked really hard towards. At the time in the online space there was so much noise (truly, noise, but at the time I had it in my mind that I needed to do this to “make it”) around making 6-figures in your business and that is honestly what I was working my ass off for, it felt like a milestone I needed to achieve to prove to myself that this was going to work. I remember hitting this milestone and sort of thinking like “ok, what is next?” and spent the next few years head down + continuing to grow my business.

In the last 2 years, I’ve really hit this balance of figuring out what I want my life outside of my business to look like and worked to balance out certain areas of my business to make that happen. This has looked like investing in team members, internal projects, and a mastermind that helped me to get to this point of clarity.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

There are a few key things that have helped me to really stand out in my market. We work with brands + retailers and my experience in retails goes DEEP. I grew up in retail, my family owns a small business that has taught me SO much of what my clients are building in their business.

My unique story and experience really does help to bridge the gap between what they need to get to that next level, but being able to meet them where they’re at, guide them from point A to B, and ultimately partner with them for the long haul and become a true extension of their team.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.simplylynnscreative.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simply.lynns.creative