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

Hi Hope, thanks for joining us today. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

In my mid-forties I was on the board of a large non-for-profit organization focused on developing female leaders in the healthcare industry. I started my board seat at the same time as an incoming president of the chapter who was approximately ten years my senior.

We became close and during our tenure on the board she was laid off. After a 25+ year career in the pharmaceutical industry, with a big job, and big title, she was aghast and set adrift, eager to find her next assignment in the industry. During that period of my life, there were several women in my network who had similar experiences. I did not want that to be me. I didn’t want my life, my identity, to only be a pharmaceutical executive, and to feel lost without my title and responsibilities.

I set out to build a business that would grow over the final years of my corporate career that would allow me to transition into leading my own enterprise without having to dip into retirement monies. I’ve done it. Six years ago I started the business, and within a short horizon I could fully step into leading my company with positive net revenues and a growing financial forecast.

Hope, 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?

I am Hope Mueller and six years ago I launched my first book, Hopey, from commune to corner office. I was compelled to write this inspirational memoir and it was followed by a second memoir, then an inspirational journal. Although I love to write, there is simply no money in writing and selling books. I pivoted my organization, Hunter Street Press, to providing two types of services: editing and publishing.

Hunter Street Press is a boutique publishing company focused on publishing material that inspires readers, authors, and lives touched. We are most proud of the engagement and partnership established with our authors. We create works that are of the highest literary and publishing quality, and help authors achieve their dream of publication.

My second business is C.L.I.M.B. Conferences, a retreat and conference organization. C.L.I.M.B hosts highly curated events designed to support individuals interested in transforming their lives and careers. We started with one retreat in 2023, three in 2024, and are hosting five retreats in 2025. We also have a leadership conference, Thrive in ’25, scheduled for June 2025. We are most proud of the absolute transformation and fulfillment that our guests experience. Our events allow people to step into and embrace their full selves.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

C.L.I.M.B. Conferences was drafted on note paper several years ago. During a phone call with the Founder and CEO of Brave Women at Work, who Hunter Street Press publishes anthologies with, she discussed wanting to host a retreat.

“I have a business plan for that!”

I dusted off the business plan and put the entire plan for a retreat together over the next several days. It was late September and we scheduled the retreat for February the next year. We launched our attendee recruitment efforts and quickly realized that after mid-October getting anyone’s attention is impossible. The holidays takes everyone’s focus for the last quarter of the year.

On January first, we had zero people registered for the retreat. We had already signed contracts with the hotels, speakers, service providers, and vendors. I sat down and ran the numbers and knew it would be hard to be revenue positive for my first event, but decided that if I had at least four registrants I would host the event. I needed to fail fast and get as many learnings in as possible by completing the first retreat.

With a final push from myself, the speakers, and service providers we secured thirteen guests by the end of January. We hosted our first event and it was revenue positive, barely, but still positive.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Hunter Street Press and C.L.I.M.B. Conferences both have powerful stories of growing our clientele, and it is primarily through being willing to tackle a dream or a goal with joy and abandon then continue to refine and improve subsequent endeavors. And being honest with our authors and guests that we were learning along the way and asked them to join our journey.

Hunter Street Press and Brave Women at Work launched an anthology series three years ago. Finding our first authors took months and we learned tons along the way about production, marketing, and launching an anthology. Since then we have launched three books and have authors waiting to join our fourth and fifth books in the series.

Securing attendees for the first C.L.I.M.B. Conferences retreat was challenging and we almost either had to cancel or move out the date. We are now hosting three retreats in 2024 and five in 2025, with a full leadership conference scheduled too. We have speakers, service providers, and guests lining up to join our events.

Growing our clients is built on the foundation of delivering high-quality and transformative experiences for our authors and guests, then maintaining and growing the community. We have a waiting list and more work than we can take on without scaling.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hopey.net/
• Instagram: @hpmueller242
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HopeMuellerAuthor
• Linkedin: Hunter Street Press
• Twitter: @hpmueller242
• Youtube: @hopemueller1873
• Other: CLIMB Conferences is being launched in June 2024. www.climbconferences.com and all social media channels to be launched in June

Image Credits
Eric Jamison, Studio J