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

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

Adding a business into family dynamics expands the beauty that is being built and adds a challenge that not many will understand in our society. My husband and I now run two businesses together and figuring out how we operate together as co-owners versus husband and wife has allowed us to learn that we operate very differently in the world of business and we have to learn to use our strengths to our benefit. Often people not in the business world seem shocked that we both want to work together, work from home together, and still spend our free time together but there is no one you should be able to lean on more than your family both in life and business. We are still in the building phase for both of our businesses but having the ability to dream of what the future will be for our family is much more exciting than building something on my own or with another business partner. We have two sons who are growing up alongside our businesses, if they see the struggle and effort we put into making them something great and want to continue that tradition I would be proud that they want to continue what we have built. But mostly I will be proud to show them that you can create something on your own, something to be proud of in a healthy enough way as a family that they do not want to run in the other direction from the family business.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Kelsi Harris and I am an Owner, writer, and the voice behind the feed for This is NOCO a digital lifestyle brand focused on the community of Northern Colorado. And I stumbled into entrepreneurship completely by accident. I worked in Special Education for the past decade and up until a random day in 2023 I probably would have told you I would be in Special Education for my entire career. One day in December 2023 I saw that one of my favorite local Instagram accounts announced they were closing the account and suggested (mostly as a joke) to my husband that we take it over and create a business out of it, the rest is history.

Now here we are in 2025 and we are running This is NOCO a digital lifestyle brand in Northern Colorado focusing on highlighting the stories, lifestyle and culture of Northern Colorado. Our mission is to connect, celebrate, and support the vibrant communities around us by spotlighting local businesses, sharing authentic stories, and serving as a trusted resource for residents. We aim to foster local pride, promote economic growth, and help residents discover the people, places, and experiences that make NOCO unique.

When we took over the account it was in its truest form a micro-influencer account whose main platform was intagram, with around 6,000 followers that had not made any profit at the time. The accounts main product was a weekly schedule of events happening in Northern Colorado, 5 events per day giving people a total of 35 different ideas each week, a practice we continue today.

We have since expanded to include our own digital lifestyle hub. This is NOCO truly combines both my husband and my creative passions. Ben has been in video production for over 10 years most recently running his own production house, Hype and the Heart which focuses on high-end video content for TV and the web. While I have always had a passion for writing, and let’s be honest I am a chronically online social media girl.

This is NOCO offers businesses the reach of a local influencer, our following has now grown to over 15,000 across platforms, while focusing on the production qualify of a high end video production company. We pride ourselves on providing the people of Northern Colorado one place to look and trust for all the events, businesses and stories happening in NOCO. Our feature highlightingthe first 100% celiac safe restaurant in Fort Collins, Colorado Locust Cider had a reach of over 50,000 people. We love getting to sit down and interview the faces behind the businesses and bring a deeper look at our community than social media allows.

We are just getting started and cannot wait to see what stories we can tell NOCO.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Everything that I am currently working on is a result of a major life pivot. I was working as a Special Education teacher in the spring of 2020 and we all know that the state of education took a major pivot that year. I had coincidentally started an online teaching job in January 2020 as preparation for a cross-country move where we planned for me to stay home with our toddler in our new home. I believe the move to online education propelled me toward the life of an entrepreneur, it allowed me to look outside of the classroom at my passions, and have the time and brain space to pursue them. Our society tells teachers the lie that they do not have transferable skills outside of the classroom and this could not be further from the truth, we just are not taught how to use the skills we have for other passions. Teachers are project managers for 30 tiny accounts, copywriters, editors, and designers for some of the toughest critics. Since transitioning to business ownership I have been able to see the way these skills make me organized, driven, and marketable in managing my own business.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

How many times have you asked, “What to do this weekend in {insert your location}?” We used this question as the starting point to provide people with an accurate and well-thought-out answer every week. This way, we positioned ourselves as a more easily accessible and more reliable alternative to googling this question over and over.

By understanding what our community was looking for, we were able to position ourselves as a needed community asset within the local events market. Having a consistent presence in this space has allowed us to become the premier hub for both businesses looking to market in the local area and for the community looking to find their next event.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thisisnoco.com
• Instagram: @this_is_noco
• Facebook: This is NOCO