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

Hi Sara, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I first started Mighty and Bright in 2013, when my daughter was three; I was coping with a pretty brutal divorce, and she was showing signs of anxiety. My background was in adult psychology, so I started researching child development, and got us in to see a trauma-informed therapist. I became fascinated with how kids learn and communicate, and created a visual co-parenting calendar that completely shocked me by how much it helped her anxiety.

Four years later, I was diagnosed with cancer at age 34 and realized that divorce isn’t the only time kids and adults need structure in order to thrive. Mighty and Bright now has a line of visual calendars for kids and adults — and even has some special themes for people who are facing specific challenges.

We also have a line of adult charts that help with managing chores, clutter, and division of labor. These truly are game changers for every family that has used them.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was born and raised in Northern California and spent the vast majority of my childhood playing outside in the dirt. From a young age I was very into art and liked painting, drawing, and building things out of clay. Career-wise my degree is in Psychology, but I spent six years as an illustrator and ten years in marketing.

I started my business, Mighty + Bright, after I went through a difficult divorce. I developed the first visual co-parenting calendar for kids, which helps them cope with divorce-related anxiety by showing them when they’ll see each parent.

At the time of my cancer diagnosis, I was working for a media company and running my business on the side. When I learned I had breast cancer, I was 34 and had a six year-old daughter. I ordered about 10 books on Amazon to explain cancer to children and didn’t like of them. I came up with a science-based and totally not-scary way to tell my daughter that I had cancer and spent my treatment writing and illustrating my first children’s book.

I now have eleven children’s books under my belt, ranging from explaining how the nervous system and coping strategies work to helping parents explain chronic or terminal illness.

The co-parenting calendar was the first product in what has now become my full-time job: Mighty and Bright. We create a line of line visual calendars, routine charts, and task charts that work as a system for people who recognize that out-of-sight planners and digital organization simply don’t work for them. Everything can be set up in 15 minutes, and the feedback we get most often is, “this is a total game changer.”

Our products have gone viral many times and we have a loyal fanbase and have worked with some of the coolest influencers out there. It’s super fun and a really inspiring thing to do each day.

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

I’d been running my business on the side for eight years when Covid hit and I was unceremoniously fired from my job because I was unable to come into the office as a cancer survivor. I spent the first three weeks of Covid playing Animal Crossing with my daughter, thinking, “this whole pandemic thing is going to be over soon. Let’s just relax.”

When it became clear that the pandemic wasn’t going to come to an end anytime soon, I shifted my thinking: what if I looked at my business as a game, stopped catching digital bugs and selling them to raccoons, and instead started selling calendars to actual humans? I continued looking for full-time work, but a little piece of me wondered: what if I could do *this* full time?

This was the beginning of building a lasting business. It took me a couple of years of trial and error, but partnering with online influencers was the true catalyst for growth. I realized, in working with thought leaders, that our products can really make their advice actionable. This is a secret sauce that allows us to work with people who have excellent ideas and no way to help their audience execute them.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I’ve had a lot of experience with various platforms and tried a subscription model for awhile. We currently use and are obsessed with Shopify, which is the least buggy and easiest way to build a business I’ve found.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.mightyandbright.com
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/mightyandbrightco
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mightyandbrightco
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saraolsher/
• Youtube: http://www.tiktok.com/@mightyandbrightco

Image Credits
Betty Boyce Photography