We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hannah Nieves a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hannah, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

This is such a good question and I wish more people asked this. Running a business is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do – it takes grit, persistence, commitment, discipline, and trust.

We started this business full-time 3 years ago and it started with nothing – just an idea and a vision. Since then we’ve grown this to a small but mighty team of women who support a global clientele and built a multimillion-dollar brand over the last few years.

We focused on building a brand and creating a service suite that provided a transformation and ROI for the client and an exceptional client experience. Our focus was simple – help our clients solve their problems.

During the growth period of the brand, we made investments in mentorship and masterminds so we could connect with other founders and that by far was one of the best investments I made. When you’re scaling your company – it’s lonely, you make mistakes and you will go through the highest of highs and lowest of lows. Having a community to support was powerful.

We’ve learned a lot over the last few years but the biggest piece of advice I’ll share is that you need to take risks, you need to move quickly with making decisions and you need to trust yourself. You’re the safest investment.

Hannah, 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?

Prior to being an entrepreneur and founder, I worked in Corporate America. I started in commercial real estate underwriting half a billion dollars worth of real estate assets and marketing them.

From there, realized I loved real estate but loved the creative side of things. I moved to a national home storage brand where I led trade development and marketing [of which I still consult for today!]

I started out doing done-for-you services and coaching other founders, which quickly grew. Fast forward to March 2022, we split our brands out into three:

HN Consulting: Where I personally advise startups and founders with their brand positioning, personal brands, marketing and PR.

HN Haus: Our community and network for multi-passionate founders – we host retreats, events and workshops for high-performing women.

This Hudson Studio: Our creative rental studio in the Hudson Valley area of New York.

Our mission is to redefine the way we live and work and believe in building beautiful businesses AND beautiful lifestyles. Our brands embody this live, work, play model and we’re here to build iconic brands and beautiful spaces.

I’m proud of what we’ve built but I’m even more excited to see the long-term impact of our work 10-20 years down the line. We’re building a collection of brands that live far beyond myself and that’s a big accomplishment in itself.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I have many.

I think the biggest example that comes to mind is balancing personal issues while running a business, leading a team, and working with upwards of 40-50 clients at one time.

My biological father passed away [I was adopted] two years ago, I lost my grandmother last year and also suffered a miscarriage while running a 7 figure business.

No one talks about how you balance your personal life while still showing up for your business – it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through but it taught me so much about resilience and personal strength.

Being an entrepreneur is an act of resilience – it’s constantly picking yourself up when you’re down and realizing you’re the only person who can do that.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that you don’t need to show up as perfect in order to build trust. Your clients, your audience, and your team want to see the authentic YOU. They want vulnerability, they want to see the REAL you. Don’t be afraid of showing it.

For years I had to unlearn that idea and belief that everything had to be perfect in order for it to succeed and grow – when in fact some of my biggest lessons and relationships came from being vulnerable and honest with myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hnhaus.com
• Instagram: @hnhaus and @hannahmnieves
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hnhaus
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahrodriguez1/

Image Credits
Sam Bufalo