We recently connected with Heartlyn Rae and have shared our conversation below.

Heartlyn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Our whole life has been based on taking risks. We didn’t go to college and take the path most people take. We chose a career that is the hardest thing to break into. But we both knew from a young age that we wanted to sing, and perform, which now has evolved into creating content and podcasting. We both took a risk and moved to Nashville with a small amount of money saved, no jobs, no place to live, and an old beat up car. We shared a bedroom with two twin mattresses on the floor and took on random odd jobs while pursuing songwriting and making content along the way. Once we felt the Nashville chapter coming to a close, we took yet another risk and moved to Los Angeles which was also a scary decision when you’re not from a big city. But as scary as those risks were, they paid off, and got us to where we are now. For those who are nervous about taking a risk, something we found helpful was making a list of the pros and cons. If the pros outweigh the cons, then you know it is time to go for it.

Heartlyn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We both began singing and performing at a young age doing community theatre together. We also did singing lessons, acting lessons, dance lessons, everything you could imagine to grow as a performer. When we were teenagers we formed a girls country music group called Arrowheart where we signed with a label and we were promised the dream. Those few years helped us grow as artists and allowed us to perform in major venues opening for major artists, but the label didn’t deliver what they promised, so we took a risk and left the label and started our own girls singing duo “Heartlyn Rae” which is our middle names Julia Lyn and Alexis Rae, while keeping the word heart since we always follow our heart. Which is what we still do today, is put our heart into everything we do. We still apply the singing into our videos, our friendship, some comedy elements, and relatable situations. Our goal is to entertain and provide an escape for our viewers and to make them feel like they are part of our friendship. We host a podcast called Excuse My Friend where we talk about dating, pop culture, life, and we interview some amazing guests like reality stars, therapists, dating coaches, attorneys psychics, and more.

Have you ever had to pivot?

We built our social media presence by being crazy and messing around with the public. We would drive by strangers and sing to them, compliment them, prank them, be funny with them and got some hilarious reactions which is how our social media took off. People fell in love with the public pranks, but after a while we decided to pivot and change our content because we wanted to show more of our talents and our friendship. This has been a major struggle because when an audience follows you for a specific thing, they will be quick to unfollow and stop supporting you when you start to do something else. We had to really humble ourselves and be ok with losing followers and having lower views so we could regroup and rebrand to be able to post what we wanted long term.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

We have had people look down on us for what we do, thinking we are just posting silly videos for the fun of it. Which it is super fun, but at this point it is a business and there is lots of strategy with it. Also, back then when we were starting out, we were intentional about our videos because we had a bigger picture in mind. We have had friends tell us to get a real job and what we are doing isn’t a real job, but it is. Being an influencer or a content creator is so much more than standing in front of a camera. We have put in and still put in countless hours of filming, editing, coming up with scripts, emails, marketing, networking, negotiating, the list goes on and on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/excuse-my-friend/id1644480933
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heartlynrae/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heartlynraeofficial
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/heartlynrae?lang=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@heartlynraeshow
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@heartlynrae?lang=en