First, what is hosting? There are a million analogies out there, but the one makes the most sense to me (and keeps it the most simple) is to think of hosting like renting a building downtown for your business. It’s something that holds your stuff, can be designed how you like, runs your basic utilities, and then makes your content or business available to the public. And then depending on how much you want to build yourself vs spend in rent, you can decide what features come built into the space. E.g., If you’re planning a restaurant, it might be worth it to pay a little more for a space that’s already plumbed for it. Or if you’re running an online shop, it might be worth it to pay a little more for a platform with e-commerce already built into it. Just like buildings for rent can be everything from just an empty room all the way up to a furnished office, hosting can be everything from a blank server(s) all the way up to a pre-loaded and managed application (something like Squarespace or Wix).

More functionally, hosting is comprised of servers. And to keep it simple, a server is basically just a computer sitting in a warehouse somewhere that’s optimized to be accessed from the internet. In hosting, you have 4 primary needs from a server setup:

1. Domain Name Server (DNS): This is how your domain name connects to your website. So your website is actually located at an IP address, which is a 10-digit number that looks something like 104.25.39.105. Since no one is going to remember that ever, you create a domain name like www.abeautifulmess.com. And a domain name server does nothing but direct traffic. So you type in a site’s address, and the DNS will take that request and point you to the correct IP address. It’s like the sign that hangs outside of your restaurant you just opened. This service is almost always separate from the rest of your hosting, and many services specialize in (or on that in a minute).

2. Application: So if you’ve ever logged into the backend of a blog, you’re looking at the application. It’s the thing that turns all of this I’m typing right now or have ever typed on this site into the designed A Beautiful Mess website that you’re reading. Rather than me manually styling every thing individually, our WordPress application does all that for me. Examples of applications are WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, and Squarespace. In our example this would be like a space that already has plumbing for a kitchen. This might be a more desirable spot to rent for your new restaurant than a blank room you’d have to add all that too.

3. Database: Data, put simply, is your text and your settings. Everything you type in a post, or every time you check a box in your application, designate the size of an object, assign a link to a button, that’s data. And it’s stored on your data base. So space to store your things, pretty straight-forward.

4. Storage: So these are your files, and it’s primarily things like images, videos, or PDFs. So everything that isn’t the look of the website itself. In your restaurant this might be a big walk in refrigerator to store the food you will prepare.

To bring it all together the DNS takes you to abeautifulmess.com, where the application loads/styles data from the database which links you to the files in your storage.

When people say hosting though, they’re primarily referring to 2 through 4 in the list above. I’m going to talk through three different directions you could go with hosting, making a few notes about DNS at the end. We’ve used all of these over the course of our blog’s life and I’ll explain the pros and cons of each.

1. Service Platform

This is where most bloggers start, and I would totally recommend starting a blog and growing it on a platform that is also your hosting service. Some of the main options here are Typepad, WordPress.com, and SquareSpace. With a platform, it takes care of everything for you. You create an account, and the application is already setup, plugged into a database, and it’s managing your storage. You don’t really have to think about hosting. To come back to our analogy, this would be like wanting to start your own restaurant and renting a building that used to be a burger place. It already has your grills, a hood, the plumbing, etc. However, in this analogy, your landlord is not okay with any major construction. You can paint, put up your own signage (point your domain there), rearrange the furniture, etc. But if you had really specific functionality needs, like a brick oven for pizzas or something, you wouldn’t be able to do that. Services like Typepad or SquareSpace are the same. What you gain in ease, you lack in flexibility. So if you have really particular needs that break outside the norm of a website, it’s a little harder to accomplish in this environment.

That said, you still have a LOT of options, when it comes to a standard website. These services offer plenty of ways to customize. A Beautiful Mess was built and grown on Typepad and we really loved the platform. It was super affordable, especially when you considered that we grew the blog from 0 to over 2MM page views a month without our monthly price changing! You can have your own domain name (so abeautifulness.com vs abeautifulness.typepad.com), you can customize the site some but you will need some coding skills or hire someone with front end experience (you can also use themes to get started and need little to no code skills), and you can grow your revenue through sponsorships and CPM based ads as your blog grows. Basically, Typepad has everything a blogger needs to get started and it’s super affordable. I have some limited experience with SquareSpace, but I love the clean and modern looks they offer without any coding. I would certainly consider having a shop site on that platform and possibly a blog as well.

The main drawbacks to these types of companies / services is that they are not self-hosted, meaning you don’t own the application your blog is built on AND you will be more limited in the customizations you can add to your site. So although I think this is a great place to start, as your blog grows you will probably want to migrate to a self-hosted situation later. For some this may mean they simply start there, as they don’t want to mess with migrating later, while other sites could be content to stay on a platform like Typepad forever. It kind of depends on your goals and how much customization you need / want.

2. Self-Hosting: Managed

So here, you own and install your own application, database, and storage files. So you have to take care of the health of your files and your platform, but the health of the server(s) will be completely handled in the background. Back in our building example, this would be like renting a big open space that’s already got the basics, like plumbing for a bathroom, electrical for lighting, heating/cooling, etc. And your landlord is cool with whatever buildout you want to do inside the space. Meanwhile, she’ll take care of your basic utilities, fix the furnace if it goes out, etc. However, if you ever wanted to grow your space, you couldn’t add on. You would just have to move to a new building. It’s similar here. They’ll take care of the technical side of servers for you, and they’ll offer ways for you to scale up to a certain size (meaning up to millions of pageviews). However, the bigger you get, the trickier it gets to scale; or the more expensive.

Last year we moved our blog from Typepad to WordPress.org. Our goal with the move was mainly to have a lot more customization options available since it is an open source application (hello Plugins—there are SO many options out there) as we felt that at this stage in our blog’s life this would potentially offer the best experience for both our readers and our writing team. Our biggest needs we couldn’t address was that we didn’t have enough control over our site’s loading speeds as well as issues we were facing with image quality—considering screens are getting higher and higher resolution (thanks a lot Retina). But this also meant that we had to choose a new hosting company and we explored a lot of options. We had to weigh out a managed self-hosting against cloud-based, which I’ll talk about next. We ultimately chose cloud-based for abeautifulmess.com, though for acolorstory.com, which has simpler traffic needs, we put it in a managed environment. So let me talk about one of the best valued managed hosting options out there.

Bluehost – You can both buy your domain and set up hosting on Bluehost. It’s SUPER easy and their customer service is great if you run into issues. They offer a few different options (with multiple tiers in each) so it’s a great place to start as well as grow since you can pretty easily move between options as needed (since it’s all one company and you can reach out to customer service anytime). They have shared hosting, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers which are all managed by Bluehost. The only drawback is as your site grows (more page views) the price will change and it can become expensive. Or if your growth is too sudden, you’re limited in your options to scale the size of your hosting quickly. But again, we’re talking millions of pageviews at this point. It’s a pretty seamless process all the way up to that point, so Bluehost is what I would recommend to any blogger who isn’t on a service platform.

Some other managed self-hosting options to look in to: Host Gator, WP Engine, and Media Temple. We haven’t personally used these but we’ve had friends use them or they have been recommended to us by friends so they are probably well worth checking out.

3. Self-Hosting: Cloud-based

All right, so now you’re just renting the land, but you’ve got free reign on new construction. You can scale and build as much as you want. You have the utmost flexibility with the utmost responsibility. With cloud-based hosting, you’re able to run your site across multiple servers, optimizing for speed, and you can add or remove servers as needed to match your traffic on any given day. However, these servers need to be set up by someone who knows their way around hosting before you can even load your application or database on them. This is where the service we currently use comes in.

AWS – This is Amazon’s hosting service and it’s what this blog is currently using for our hosting. For us and our current size (again, over 2MM page views a month with lots of files including lots of images as we are a photo heavy site) it is the most affordable self-hosting option we’ve been able to find. The drawback is you really need someone (a team member or a contractor / third party company) to set up your hosting instances as well as maintain them. Should we have a day when one of the servers we are on goes down, someone will have to manually move us to another server or else our site may go down and not be accessible to readers for a little while. Honestly, we’d only recommend this if you’ve either got some experience in dev ops, or your site experiences big spikes that require a flexible set up for traffic in the millions.

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The common thread through all this is flexibility and difficulty are directly proportional. Think of the famous Spiderman quote: With great power comes great responsibility. That’s to say, the more flexibility / options you want with your hosting, the harder it’s going to be to set up and maintain. Honestly, to those with simpler needs, we always recommend some sort of service platform. A Beautiful Mess started on Typepad, and they were wonderful to us, though it did require some frontend coding. My bar’s website (The Golden Girl Rum Club) is on SquareSpace, and it does everything we need with no coding necessary. So really assess your needs and your available resources before diving into any self-hosted situation. Hope this has been helpful to any of you dealing with hosting concerns—we’ve been there so I know your pain! Best of luck and see you around the internet. xo. Emma

Credits // Author: Emma Chapman and Trey George.Photo: Janae Hardy.

And although I would definitely describe myself as an introvert, I love the challenge of getting up to speak at events like this every now and again. I also LOVE getting to meet online friends and blog readers IRL.

So, I was absolutely delighted to deliver the keynote at Thrive last year. As I started work on a new speech (for a different event that recently got canceled, sadly), I thought it might be fun to turn my Thrive speech into a blog post for you all. Why not?!

And although the experience of reading a post is pretty different from attending a conference, I still thought it might be fun and beneficial to share what I talked about with all of you.

I choose to talk about three important traits that I think you must have in order to be boss. Not to be the boss. But in order to be excellent or first-rate (which is one of the definitions of “boss,” according to Merriam-Webster), you need certain traits or habits in your life.

Starting a talk off by essentially saying, “I’m gonna tell you how to be awesome” is a bit of a gamble, right? Ha! Of course we all want to be awesome, but figuring out a sustainable path to said awesomeness is a daunting task.

And I, for one, am not an expert. I do not claim to be awesome, BUT I do claim to have learned some really valuable lessons while on my own journey so far.

(Here’s me speaking at Thrive. Was all black a good choice? Hmm.)

I shared the story of how I became a blogger and small business owner. It’s a story that starts off with a pretty epic fail. You can read a longer version of the story in my post On Changing Dreams, but essentially my dream was to become an actress.

After a few years of trying in Los Angeles, I not only was not an actress, I didn’t want to be one anymore. So then I was broke AND I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life (I also went through a big breakup that year—it was a pretty tough year, to say the least).

From this failure I have learned SO much. In fact, I would say at this point in my life I wouldn’t change that part of my story for the world because although it was a really hard time to go through, I learned so much about myself, what I want, and how to keep going through hard times.

I don’t really even view it as a failure anymore, but more on that in a minute. The point of sharing my story of failure was to showcase how I learned some valuable lessons that once I started putting those in place, life totally changed.

My life is not perfect, and I am NOT perfect (oh my, not by a long shot). But I am so, so happy in life right now and I think it’s in large part to learning how to be boss.

Trait #1: Set Measurable Goals Often

I really believe that this is the key to achieving most of things you may want to do in life. It spans pretty much any area that you can think of (fitness/health, career, personal finances, hobbies, etc.). So let’s unpack this trait a little. First, the goals we set must be measurable. This is SO important.

You have to have some kind of measurement for if you have succeeded or not. Let’s say my goal is to “get healthy.” That’s going to be a lot harder to measure than a goal like “lose five pounds” or “run a mile everyday for a month” or “find and meet with a primary care physician I feel good about.”

The goal really can be anything, but it MUST be measurable. Otherwise you’ll never know if you’ve achieved it and you’ll forever be in a nebulous state of trying.

Second, you should set these measurable goals OFTEN. I’m talking monthly or even weekly, depending on the goal. There are two main reasons for this. You want the goals to be somewhat bite-sized. I am ALL for big goals and dreams.

But it’s important to take those big dreams of yours and break them down into smaller, measurable goals you can work toward. And you also want to be setting goals often because it will help you get good at it. I believe goal-setting is like a muscle.

You have to exercise it! If you want to be a world-crusher who achieves big things, set goals often so you’re goal-setting muscles can grow strong! An easy way to get into this is to make to-do lists everyday. Set daily goals. Set larger weekly goals. When you’re ready, think big picture and work on mapping out some five-year goals.

It’s all good, but even with the big goals you have, look to break them down into small, measurable bites.

Start with a to-do list everyday (even on the weekend, people, but it can be shorter or you can include “chill out for an hour” on the list) because it is the habit of making small, meaningful changes over the course of a long period of time that can change your life. It’s real. It’s almost like magic. Really slow magic.

Trait #2: Embrace Learning and Failure

Here’s the thing that I wish someone would have told me a long time ago: Failure is part of it. It’s not a thing to avoid or be embarrassed of. I’m not saying we should aim for failure. And I would never wish failure on anyone, because it stings for sure.

But it’s part of the path to success. So don’t think you can avoid it. When it comes your way, learn from it and keep going.

Don’t label yourself a failure and throw a pity party. I’ve wasted valuable time doing that and it’s not helpful and doesn’t even feel good.

If you’re going through a hurtful time, I’m not asking you to ignore it or stuff those feelings away as if they aren’t there. No, I’m telling you to embrace it. Embrace failure for what it truly is, a part of almost every successful person’s journey.

I also believe that if you really want to be boss, you’ve got embrace lifelong learning. We try to encourage and model this on A Beautiful Mess (hopefully it shows!). Sometimes it’s hard to admit that you don’t know everything—but I actually think there’s a lot of power in that too.

Now, if you happen to be very knowledgeable in a certain area or a bunch of areas, I’m not suggesting that you claim ignorance or hide the fact that you may be an expert.

That’s awesome and I hope you find ways to share your expertise with the world. But no one knows it all. That’s simply impossible. So if you really want to be boss in life, you’ve got to accept that you have a long journey ahead that should be full of learning and asking for help. (Me too!)

This goes hand in hand with being able to embrace failure. I think it’s true humility, a very boss trait.

Trait #3: Power Through or Shrug Off Negativity

I think most often we all think of online trolls (haters) when someone says the word “negativity” on the internet. And I’ll get to that. But I actually think there are two more prevalent and more powerful potential sources of negativity in our lives.

First, it’s you. I am (and you are) probably our own worst hater. There really isn’t anyone else that points out my flaws and shortcomings as often as I do. And while I do think being honest with yourself is important, constantly putting yourself down is self defeating and can be really difficult to move past.

It can become a habit we fall into that keeps us from living that happy, fulfilling life we all want. There’s no easy way out of this. Like most bad habits we have to break, it’s going to be a daily struggle full of small (but important) choices that eventually gets easier.

Instead of putting yourself down all the time, be intentional about building yourself up. Write lists of things you love about yourself.

Treat yourself when you achieve a goal. When you do mess up or something doesn’t turn out how you wanted, don’t turn it into a personal attack, but rather think through how things could be improved for next time. Give yourself the same grace you would give your best friend.

And on that note, the second biggest potential source of negativity in our lives is from close relationships. If you have people in your life that you spend a lot of time with that constantly put you down, I really want to urge you to evaluate that. It is really hard when this is a relationship you didn’t necessarily choose (a parent, sibling, or close family member).

In those cases, you will just have to navigate it as best you can, but please think of yourself and your own well being as part of the equation, as I know many of us tend to just think of others and always put others first.

There has to be a balance there. But for relationships we choose (friends, spouses, etc.), I urge you to choose people who fill you up with love and encouragement. You should work to be this friend for others, and therefore you should expect the same in return. You deserve love, we all do.

But what about the peanut gallery? This is a term I’m totally stealing from Brene´ Brown (from her book, Rising Strong, which is awesome and you should read!). Let’s talk about a third and final source of negativity which pretty much includes everyone who doesn’t fall into the first two groups.

This could be people who follow you on IG, or your blog, or just people you casually know but you mostly see on Facebook or something like that. So what about negativity from this area, from haters?

This is going to sound incredibly simple, but here’s what I honestly think as someone who has had to deal with this type of negativity. If there is something useful and truthful about what they are saying, try to learn from it. If there isn’t, ignore it.

If you can learn and grow from the negativity, then think of it as a small failure (aka the path to success) and let it change you for the better (even though, yes, it will hurt a little).

But if you read something that there really isn’t any way for you to grow from it, then put on your blinders and ignore it because we’ve got to-do lists to conquer and boss lives to live. Ignore, ignore, ignore. I promise, it gets easier as you go.

(What face am I making here? Ha!)

BONUS Boss Trait: Be Guided by Love.

I said this during my speech last year but it feels even more relevant today. If you really want to be boss in life, you should aim to be guided by love.

Yes, have big goals in life that you go after. But the big picture goal of your life should not be about profits, or achievements, or fame; it should be about love. It’s what truly matters.

You should love yourself. It’s easy to overlook. Try to seek some balance, self-care, and let go of guilt in your life in order to truly love yourself. You should love others: coworkers, team members, family, followers, friends, and yes, even those haters.

Use your goal-setting muscles to make some plans around ways you can love yourself, your family, your friends, your work family, and your community. A true boss leaves the world a better place as she moves through it.

Of course if you have questions, let me know in the comments. And thanks for letting me share the main points of this past speech with you all! xo. Emma

“I know it’s an individual choice, but does ABM normally insure their photography equipment when you buy it? Have you found that you need it due to such heavy use of the equipment on your blog? Thanks so much!”

There are lots of different ways to approach the concern here (protecting equipment used for business), and I’m pretty excited to see if others have thoughts. Our company, like all small businesses, is unique, and the challenges we face are probably not exactly the same as everyone else. So, know that I am approaching this question from my perspective, but I’m also hoping to just give you some things to think about knowing that your situation may be quite different.

Here are a few questions I would ask anyone who is considering insuring their business-related equipment. Also, when I say business-related equipment, I’m referring to smaller priced items like DSLR cameras or laptops, not necessarily company cars or larger priced items like that. But we’ll talk a bit more on that at the end.

What kind of business are you running?

I am sort of getting at two things here. First, if your business is somewhat similar to A Beautiful Mess—a blogger, content creator, lifestyle based company—then first I would just question what items are truly necessary for business functions. If you are in the beginning stages of your business, whatever you do, it might also be a good time to think about making sure you have all your business files set up and you are official with the federal and your state government (possibly your county too if you need certain licenses or other business documents). I bring this up because as soon as you establish your business, you should seek to get liability insurance, also sometimes called commercial general business liability insurance. This does not protect your business from EVERYTHING, just many of the big, bankruptcy type fears. I know, fun stuff to think about.

You will likely need to find an insurance broker or agent that you trust and feel confident working with in order to get this set up. Just as a quick note, a broker can quote you insurance from multiple companies while an agent generally works with just one company. We work with brokers most of the time, but the most important thing is to find someone you feel confident working with. That way when something does arise in your business, you can ask them lots of questions and get things sorted quickly. Now, the liability insurance will probably not cover damaged property like a camera. It’s possible, but I know ours does not. So I would ask your broker their thoughts on coverage for any specific equipment your business might own or what they feel is the best way to protect your needed equipment in case something should happen to it. If possible, get a few quotes and make sure you pay attention to what it truly covers. Many policies will not cover “wear and tear” type issues but may cover equipment if it’s lost, stolen, etc. Take note of any deductibles as well since we’re thinking about lower priced items. If your deductible is high enough that you might as well buy a new camera, then it may not be worth it.

What about warranties or other coverage? 

Insurance companies are not the only entities that can help you if your equipment gets damaged. They are a good option that you should explore (get those quotes!), but exploring a few other options might prove more cost effective. Most manufacturers offer some kind of warranty, so make sure when you are getting ready to buy that you take note of this. Often it will cover certain types of damages and not others, and it may only be for a set limit (1 year, 2 years, etc.). In order to take advantage of the warranty, you sometimes have to register your equipment or at least save the original purchase documents so you can prove how long you’ve owned it. File these with your other business papers. I recommend a file cabinet from here (they are so cute! makes business filing at least a little fun).

When shopping, it’s good to also check into other, extended warranty options that sellers may be offering. Just as an example, if you purchase your camera equipment from Best Buy, they offer a protection plan (additional cost at time of purchase) that can last up to four years and cover all sorts of damage. If you use your camera often, like we do for work, then this might be the most cost effective option. So no matter where you plan to buy, before you do, see if they offer additional protection warranties, how much they cost, and what all they cover. And be sure to save your paperwork/receipts to take advantage of the plan should you need. And just to be 100% clear, I am just using Best Buy as an example because I have a photographer friend who told me about their plan, and when I looked into it, it did seem really worthwhile. This is not sponsored or an affiliate of any kind, just something I’ve seen that could be useful to you, but do some research and see what you think. Go look into options in your area for what might work best for you.

The bottom line: make sure you are covered in some way, but I’d research insurance vs. warranty options before investing in either.

Also, one more quick note regarding business equipment: consider depreciation rates for your business taxes. Typically any equipment over $2500 will be depreciated over years if you plan to use it during that time for business. We use an accountant for our business taxes, so if you do too, then ask them how this works or at the very least make them aware when do you buy equipment that could fall within this range. It could be that the camera equipment you use doesn’t quite fall into this range, but larger ticket items certainly could. So I figured I’d at least mention it.

Insurance, warranties, taxes—oh my! That was a fun one, huh? What about you guys? Any other small business owners out there who have more thoughts on insuring equipment? xo. Emma

Credits // Author: Emma Chapman. Photography: Elsie Larson. Image Design: Mara Dockery.

If you tuned in to our Livestream a few weeks ago (you can still watch it here), then you heard that we’ve been working on this post for a while. In some ways we are sort of always working on this post, because, like most small business owners, we are constantly thinking about how to improve and grow. It’s something we talk about almost every day.

Our little business keeps growing and it’s on track to have its best year yet! (YAY!) With that, we feel like we’re in the best place to reflect and decide where we want to be headed. The industry is constantly changing and so is how we run ABM. We like to think of blogging as an evolving career. I mean, ten years ago we had no clue that we’d be able to make our blog into a side business, much less the “mothership” of all our creative projects and a full-time career for us plus a small team. Blogging will probably go down as our life’s most surprising opportunity. And we truly never know where it will take us next.

The importance of change
Depending on how long you’ve been following us, you’ve probably seen a few phases of our business. When I was the only owner, I sold paintings and art prints on an Etsy shop. When Emma joined, we sold vintage clothes and cupcakes from a Springfield storefront, custom made a small fashion line with a couple local seamstresses, and eventually moved into full-time blogging. That’s let us expand into apps, online classes and product development. Business, no matter how calculated your risk may be, is always trial and error. We’re always learning and moving forward.

We started blogging for fun. We ended up full-time blogging because it worked and showed the most opportunity of all the creative ventures we were dabbling in. Find what works and grow it the best you can. But just because the first thing you tried wasn’t working doesn’t mean you should beat your head against the wall. Or maybe what was working just isn’t anymore. Change and adapt. Find another risk you can afford and take it. There’s a famous Thomas Edison quote: “I have not failed. I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” And yes, those who fear failure more than you will always be there to kick you while you’re down. But you only really fail when you stop trying.

The Nashville move and the studio house
For the first time since becoming partners, Emma and I will be working remotely. I’ll be honest. It’s sad and a little scary, but we have a game plan, and we are both 100% committed to making it work! We’re gonna be on FaceTime a WHOLE lot more! We’re already embracing the transition and starting to create a new normal. Anyway, you can read more about the move in my post here.

When I decided to move, Emma decided she really wanted to work from home too. (We LOVE working from home—I cannot explain how much we missed it these past two years.) That meant we didn’t have a need for a whole studio house anymore. We moved our more office-y staff to the space above Emma’s upcoming bar in downtown Springfield. Then, Emma, Laura and I (as well as most of our contributing writers) will all be mostly working from our homes.

This is going to be an exciting change of pace from what we’ve done these past two years! Of course we love all the ideas we dreamed up in the studio, but you might’ve noticed we weren’t sharing as much of our own homes. We really, really missed that. So we’ve decided to bring the focus of our content back to projects made and photographed in our homes. For me that will be mainly home decor updates; for Emma it will mean more food from her home kitchen. We’re both SO excited.

This shift really feels most natural to us! Working from home might seem like a small change to you (you can’t really see where we’re working from anyway, right?), but to us it’s a HUGE change and a really exciting one. The small change I hope you will see is an overall cozy-ness in our vibe. That’s the goal at least.

Making room to simplify
I know it probably seems like we’re running in a lot of different directions…and we are. But this year we’re continuing our quest to simplify. We’re evaluating our priorities, what’s working and what we can see ourselves growing into in the future. We’re feeling, more than ever, that we want to focus A Beautiful Mess on home projects (both renovations and decor) and food! We’re exploring ways to hone in on those things while staying challenged!

The change in social media
Instagram: This has been a super exciting year for Instagram. We started an official ABM account, and it’s grown so fast we’re not even sure what to do about it! I think the most interesting part about it is how much it’s changed the way we communicate with you, and hear from you. When we first started ABM, we had no social media (none!). So it was simpler in some ways. We posted, then we read the comments. These days, we’re getting comments on each post and through all the different social media channels. We’re still figuring out how to prioritize our efforts. I mean, if you guys are all going to engage with us via Instagram, it makes sense to put more effort into that space. Kind of a fun challenge!

Pinterest: So this has been one of our largest traffic sources (outside direct and Google) for a couple years now, but recent changes to Pinterest have caused a bit of a shift there. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your feed is no longer sorted chronologically. It’s now shuffled per Pinterest’s recommendations, which results in pins showing up in your feed from sources you’re not even following. It’s a similar move Facebook made a few years back. So it’s shifting the control of your feed from those you’re following to those running Pinterest. It definitely makes sense from a business standpoint, as it gives them an easier path for advertising. We’ll see how it affects the user experience over time. Here’s an interesting/helpful write-up I found.

Newcomers (to us): So I just started making my Snapchat public, (@elsielarson), and I have to admit I’m pretty much obsessed with it. I’m too new to it to comment on how it is affecting the business, but I can see that thousands of you are viewing my snaps each day, and I’m enjoying sharing a less curated, more random side of my world with you. We’ve also got a Periscope account, (@abeautifulmess), but I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. We’ve only used it a couple times. Should we do more? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Both Snapchat and Periscope are a ton of fun. I love that they delete after 24 hours because it removes a lot of pressure for us to be too “produced” and makes it feel more lighthearted. But, to be honest, it also kind of bums me out to put a lot of effort into things that don’t archive. I LOVE having over eight years of blog posts I can go back and read at any time! Even though some are highly embarrassing, I love that they are archived. So, I guess that’s the number one thing that puts me on the fence with those two social media apps. I’d love to hear your thoughts, because basically the only reason I’d put more effort into either one of them is if YOU enjoy them!

New projects we’ve got coming up soon!

– The new app! I feel like we keep teasing it and never giving any details…sorry about that. It’s just not quite done yet. But we’re in the testing phase, so it’s not too far away now! I CAN tell you it’s going to be a photo app focused on creating fresh, clean colorful images. Augh—so excited!

– We’re launching a new small business e-Course soon. We’re now almost a decade into running this crazy business, and we’re going to share everything we’ve learned. It comes with over two hours of video lectures. Can’t wait to launch that!

– We’re working on a cookbook, but it won’t be on bookshelves until 2017. We already told you all about this one, but we’re still SUPER excited. We’re just beginning the development, and we’ll be working on it and shooting all fall, winter and spring this year! Follow @emmaredvelvet and @elsielarson for behind the scenes peeks. This is definitely a passion project for us, and we’re so thrilled to have the opportunity to do this!!

-New home tours! One of the things I am most excited about for the coming year is oversharing every detail of my home renovations and decorations. I am so passionate about this home, and I know Emma and Laura are in the same state of mind. There will be lots of fun home inspiration coming each month alllll year.

Alrighty! Well that’s what we’re up to at the moment! We’re excited to enter this fresh season which I am calling “cozy time” with you. We can’t say enough about how much we love and appreciate each of you who read A Beautiful Mess! Thank you for coming here and being a part of our world. WE LOVE YOU!

Feel free to give us any requests or constructive feedback you have on your mind! I think I’ve already said it 40 times in this post, but we’re always looking to improve and we’d love to hear what you love and what you’d like to see more of. xx. Elsie (+ Emma too)

I also want to point out that answering emails often leads to big opportunities. It's crazy to think that there might be an email sitting in your box right now that might lead you to a new venture, a new opportunity, a long term partnership, etc. There might be an unread email sitting in your box this very second that could change your life a little bit—so don't miss it! But, it's hard! Staying on top of an ever-growing pile of messages that need decisions, research, answers, etc. is not always an easy task. But over the years, I feel like I've gotten better and better in this area, and I'd love to share five tips I've learned with you.

1. Answer tough emails first.

I know, you don't want to answer that one first. I get it. And I have a tendency to think, "Oh I'll just gain some momentum by answering these quick ones first, and then I'll get back to that really time-consuming one later." But honestly, it doesn't usually work that way. I usually end up NOT getting to the tough one later, and then putting it off for longer than it needs. Meanwhile it's on my mind and distracting me from my other work. So, the best thing I've found is to tackle the tough ones first. Get it off your plate and out of your mind so you can move on to other tasks.

2. Create template answers for FAQs.

This is especially useful if you are working for yourself and you handle a lot of "customer service" type emails. A lot of times you'll get the same or very similar questions over and over again. Create a template answer that you can quickly copy and paste, and then maybe just customize a little to make it feel more authentic before you hit send. This can save you SO much time. Of course, there are emails where it would be inappropriate to send a templated answer. So just make sure you know the difference.

3. Organize and sort mail into folders.

This is actually a trick that Trey does really well. Not only does it help you prioritize what emails might need a faster response or just more attention, it can also be beneficial when you need to go back through emails to find information you may have forgotten or need again. Depending on what email system you use, there are different ways to accomplish this. And I know one barrier will be finding the time to just set this up, but add it to your to-do list one week to spend a couple hours creating your tabs or folders or however you plan to organize things, and I promise it will be time well spent.

4. Unsubscribe to junk.

I am subscribed to quite a few newsletters. I use the information many of them provide and I do want to receive some of them (like for sales at favorite shops, etc.). I know a lot of people will set up a different, more personal, email for these types of things so that it won't distract from their work email account (and if you work at a company that issues you a specific email, then you already have this built in). But it can also be a good exercise to go through and make sure you are actually still using and enjoying all the newsletters you are signed up for. If not, unsubscribe. It will only take a few seconds and will save you time as you won't have to receive those emails any longer. You can always sign up again if you find that you want back in.

5. Out of Office setting is only for when you actually need it.

This is partly a tip and partly a pet peeve of mine. When I email someone about something important, like potential freelance work, and I get an out of office response (or no response at all for 2+ days), then I expect they are on vacation or in some situation where they don't have Internet. BUT, if I hop on Instagram and see that they are not on vacation, I likely will reconsider working with them because I find this to be very unprofessional. We all have to take time off or have situations from time to time where we don't have good Internet access and can't respond. I am the same way. I also don't always check email on the weekends, so I don't usually expect others to. But sometimes I see people, especially creatives who tend to mostly freelance or work for themselves, use vacation settings as a way to simply not answer emails in a timely manner. Don't do this. It looks unprofessional to others and it's certainly a trap for yourself. Don't give yourself a free pass just because you've gotten overwhelmed. Get in that email box and make some progress. You got this. 

If anyone has other tips for getting through that sometimes-overwhelming email box, feel free to share! xo. Emma

Credits // Author and Photography: Emma Chapman. Photo edited with A Beautiful Mess actions.

First off, if you are a creative entrepreneur of any kind (blogger, artist, photographer, musician, etc.), you’ve probably already realized that promoting yourself and your projects/business is absolutely vital to your success. And for many of you that probably makes you feel SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE. I think many of us (myself included) grew up hearing that we shouldn’t talk about ourselves too much as it might come off as bragging or like we are full of ourselves or something. But, if you’re about to launch your latest line of handmade necklaces and you don’t tell people… well, chances are no one is going to buy one (because they’ve never heard of it!).

Self-promotion is key to a creative entrepreneur’s success. It is absolutely vital and there’s really no way around it. If you’re still in the boat of I-don’t-feel-comfortable-promoting-myself, let me gently encourage you to step out of your comfort zone. You can do this. You really can! And there are lots of ways to self-promote without being (too) annoying. But the bottom line is you have to give yourself permission to talk about the things you work hard on. Here are five ideas to get you going:

1. Start a newsletter/email list

Ground breaking, I know. But here’s some real truth, we didn’t start a mailing list for the first six years we had a blog. We already had multiple books and an app out before we ever started one. So silly! I think for a long time we thought no one would want to sign up for an ABM newsletter, but we were wrong. The great thing about an email list (or newsletter, I’m using the words to mean the same thing here) is users have given you permission to contact them by joining the list. They WANT to know if you have a new product out or are offering a sale.

You can find about one million articles online about starting and maintaining a newsletter. One resource I really like is the Smart Passive Income Blog, so check out Pat’s site if you haven’t already. There are also lots of different sites that can host your email list. (I recommend using a reputable one as there are legal considerations when you start a newsletter—mainly that users are able to opt out anytime they choose. So pick a site that can facilitate this.) We have used and liked MailChimp, but it can become costly the more your list grows, so do your research and find a source that works for you.

Once you have a newsletter, just remember these three things: make it easy for users to find it and sign up (don’t bury it in your website design or no one will sign up since they can’t find it!), occasionally reward users for subscribing by offering a special discount or a free download of some kind (depending on what type of products or services you offer), and don’t be afraid to use your newsletter often. We used to be very afraid that if we sent out too many newsletters everyone would unsubscribe because it might feel too spammy. If people want to unsubscribe, they will. Don’t worry about it. Just make sure you are offering real content with each newsletter and see how your users respond, then adjust accordingly.

2. Host a giveaway

Everyone loves getting something for free, right? I know I do. Hosting a giveaway is a great way to remind people about your projects but also offer them a chance to win something. Let’s say you just launched your first e-course. Hooray! You post about it online and wait for the students to start rolling in. After a few days or a week your post is buried and forgotten. So how can you remind people without being a broken record? One option is to give away a few “copies” of your course. This will generate interest, and it’s a way to get your course in front of eyes again without having to say the exact same message you posted before.

One word of caution on giveaways is you have to be strategic and also cost effective. If you’re promoting a digital product, like my example with the e-course, then you can afford to giveaway as many copies as you like since there are no printing or shipping costs involved. But what if you make custom wedding dresses for a living? How can you possibly host a giveaway? If it’s not cost effective to giveaway a custom wedding dress, what else could you offer that relates to your product/service? Could you create a downloadable mini wedding planner you could giveaway? Do you have the skills to create a necklace or other accessory that might not need to be sized and can more easily be made and shipped without costing you an arm and a leg? Sometimes you have to get creative to get your idea out there. 

3. Offer a discount or sale (for a set amount of time)

This is a similar tactic to hosting a giveaway. Basically when you host a sale you get to talk about your project again but without being a broken record (because you’re informing everyone about the sale). If your discount or sale is only for a set amount of time, even better! This gives people a more immediate call to action letting them know they only have so long to take advantage of the sale, and it gives you the ability to talk about your sale at least twice: once to announce the sale, and once toward the end of the set time to remind everyone the sale is about to end. Setting how much you can discount your project for is up to you and your margins. 

4. Publish related (free) content

This is most effective on a blog or website, but it can also work on many social channels as well. Let’s say you are publishing a cookbook. The day comes and you blog your heart out about your new cookbook! OK, great, now what? It’s two weeks later and you want to remind everyone about your cookbook again, but how can you do this without being totally annoying (and you already hosted a giveaway too :)). Why not post an original recipe (not found in your new book, or one that is), and at the end of the post say something like, “If you enjoyed this, then you’ll love my new cookbook where you get over 100 original recipes. Click here to learn more!” Yes, it’s got a touch of sales-y in there for sure, but what you really just did was give people something for free and then offer them more if they want it. That’s not annoying, that’s actually a lot of work and really nice. And it’s a great way to remind people of projects!

5. Incentivize others to promote too

If you don’t want to do all the talking yourself, or if you want to reach people that you don’t currently have a connection to, then I highly recommend you look for ways to incentivize others to promote your project. The ultimate example of this is to set up an affiliate program. If you’re not familiar with affiliate programs, google it. But basically it’s a way to partner with others so when they promote your project and sales are made, they receive some set amount of payment or a percentage of the sales. 

Other ways to get others to help promote is to offer them your project early or at a discounted rate. For example, when we released both of our apps, we sent goodie bags with iTunes gift cards to friends and other influencers a week before the launch. They were able to learn about our app, download it for free, and get a few goodies while we hoped they might like our new app and post about it on their channels. If you go this route, know that not everyone you send a goodie bag to is going to necessarily post about your venture. But if they like it, they might. And if they don’t, just chalk it up to the cost of doing business. 

I could probably write another 1000 words on each of these five ideas, but I think I’ll leave you with these thoughts for now. If you have questions regarding any of these, or if you have other small business questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. Thanks for letting me share and to all you creative entrepreneurs reading—GO YOU! We’re totally rooting for you here at ABM. xo. Emma

I am not a money expert. Never have been. And also, let's go ahead and get this out of the way: money is sort of awkward to talk about, right? I think of it kind of like body image– we all think about it, it's a part of all our lives, but it still feels kind of weird to talk about. And honestly, I can only talk about my own experiences and perspective. So, take that for what it is. 

Despite the money weirdness, I wanted to share with you a few money lessons I've learned so far in my 20s. And I'd love to hear about your experiences and different perspectives as well… if you want.

1. Seek Advice and Don't Be Afraid to Learn.

Like I said, I am no expert and I never have been. I'm okay admitting that. The truth is, numbers in general terrify me. I have always struggled with math (gradeschool through college). So when it came time to start thinking about my own personal finances, I was more than a little intimidated. And if I'm being honest, I still am at times! What has helped me most over the years is to try and approach it all with an attitude that is willing to learn. I seek advice, I ask questions, and I read articles and books on things like budgeting. It's helpful. Two authors I've always enjoyed are Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman. So if you have no idea where to even start, try checking out one of their books from your library and see what you think. The more you read about these types of things, the more confident and empowered you will feel. You don't have to know everything in order to make a good decision.

2. Build Credit Now.

I think it's super easy to think about credit as this nebulous thing that you'll need some day way far in the future. Credit scores are so mysterious, right? But the truth is, credit can be a little tricky to build. It takes time. And although it might feel like you don't need it right now, you probably will need it sooner than you think. Having good credit is useful for a whole host of things from getting a loan to buying a car or house to credit check requirements for rental agreements (even renting a car!). Bottom line, it doesn't hurt to have good credit. So, it's good to start building it now.

There are lots of different ways to do this, and tons of helpful resources out there that you can research (and you should). But here's the true story of how I built credit for myself, making it possible for me to buy a house when I was twenty-five. First off, I got a credit card when I was pretty young (like eighteen or nineteen). Sometimes this is referred to as your account mix, meaning how many lines of credit you have open. Having a few is good. Although I would not suggest this to just anyone, as having a credit card can have some bad consequences if you are careless. The secret is to pay off your balance (or the majority, like 90% of your balance) every month. There have only been probably 3-4 times over the course of the last ten years that I didn't pay off my credit card balance in full every month. If you feel you are the kind of person who will overspend and then not be able to pay off your balance, then I would not recommend a credit card. They can be dangerous in the wrong hands, but honestly pretty useful if you can stick to a budget.

The second thing I did was take out a small loan to, again, have multiple lines of credit in my overall credit history at a young age. I think it was around $3,500 from my bank. During the summer before my last year of college, I had decided to utilize my university's study abroad program. I spent a summer semester taking a few classes at the University of London while also checking out the city, and I got to visit Paris as well. I had never been to the United Kingdom or Europe before, and that was probably just about as educational as the classes I took. Anyway– I had saved up enough money to do the trip without the loan. But I had read (while seeking advice, my first point!) that taking out a small loan or line of credit and then paying it back is a good way to build credit when you are young. So I did it. I paid the loan back easily within the year (before I graduated). Yes, there was a small amount of interest that I ended up paying along with the initial loan (as that's how loans work). But, because the loan was so small and I paid it back so quickly, it didn't amount to very much at all. A worthwhile investment into my future credit score.

3. Avoid Unnecessary Debt.

Sort of the opposite of those two stories I just told you, right? Not really, well maybe, let me explain. I chose to get a credit card and take out that small loan because I had a plan: to build credit. And I knew I could manage those two little bits of debt. Debt that you are unsure you can manage is what you should aim to avoid. It sounds simple, but it's SO hard to do! And there's no clear cut way to do this. I have three challenges for you to think over though. Just a thought experiment. 

First, and this goes back to the previous point, ask yourself if you really need a credit card. If you already have one and there's some kind of promotional to sign up for another, do you really need it? It's not bad to have multiple credit cards or to leave a little balance on your credit card each month. But do you really need all that? Credit cards tend to have fairly high interest rates, so once you get into a cycle of debt with it, it can be difficult to get out. 

Second, if you want to buy something just for fun but don't really have the money, ask yourself if you'd be willing to sell something in order to pay for it. That's right. You really want a new food processor? (Now you know where my head was at in my early 20s.) Well, would you be willing to sell part of your DVD collection for it? Mainly this exercise helps me figure out if I really want something useful, or if I'm just in the mood to shop. Shopping for fun is fine if you have the money for that kind of thing, but if you don't, it's just a money suck.

Last, and this one's tough, but I would challenge any young person to really think hard on their college choice before jumping into a school that will require them to take out loans (which is most schools unless you have scholarships or outside help). Educational loans tend to have the best interest rates out there, but even still, if you find yourself at the end of your college career with a degree you don't really plan to use and a bunch of debt, you'll be disappointed. Even though I absolutely think we should value education, you still have to consider the worth in perspective with what job options you'll have when you're done with your schooling.  

Thanks for letting me ramble on about a few things I've learned in my 20s. So, what's the verdict? Do you like talking about money? Wanna hear more? Or did you hate it and never want to hear about it again? I love talking with you guys about life stuff, but I also love hearing what you all think and want to talk about. Also, if you all have any lessons or personal stories you'd like to share, I am all ears. xo. Emma

Credits // Author and Photography: Emma Chapman. Photo edited with A Beautiful Mess actions.

Earlier this year I shared part 1 of this series (about blogging as a career), and today I'm back to share about the second life-changing young industry that we're involved with, developing apps. 

First, a little timeline/perspective maker! 

-Seven years ago when I stood in line for my first iPhone, I didn't know what an app was. Oh, and by the way, if you didn't have the original iPhone, the camera sucked. Bad. 

-Four years ago when I signed up for Instagram, I had no idea that I would soon share photos there every single day. I slowly transitioned into taking a good majority of my photos/memories with my iPhone. This is mind-blowing to me as someone who didn't even own a digital camera until I was in my twenties. 

-Three years ago I had the crazy idea to create our own app, and we talked about it for months as just that… a crazy idea.

-A year ago, in May, we released our first app, A Beautiful Mess. It went to #1 paid app on the first day and stayed there for more than a week. Our business was changed forever by this one risky venture. We invested an amount of money that seemed insanely scary to us, and we made it back on the first day. It was nothing short of a miracle and one of the happiest/craziest moments of my life. 

-Last month we released our second app, Party Party! It was also successful and went to #1 paid app on the iTunes charts. We celebrated, again, and by the end of the day I was looming over Trey's desk trying to talk to him about the next app because we're completely addicted to and in love with this process. 

All of this in just seven years.

We feel so incredibly lucky to be in the challenging, unpredictable, often-times-frustrating and super rewarding world of apps. We've learned so much in these past two years. And we look forward to learning more because the app world is evolving at an insanely rapid pace! 

Today we're excited to share what we've learned from our adventures in creating apps, where we think the app world is headed, and why we love it so much (spoiler: it's not about the money). 

The pros and cons of a young industry (in this case, apps) 

Much like blogging, apps are a baby industry. It's so young it's hard to tell what will happen. That's okay. It's really healthy, actually! The app world is constantly changing, which is fun and exciting. The energy is electric. I am constantly learning from what others try, what catches on, and what users are gravitating toward. 

With that said, we've actually developed four apps in the last two years, so we've learned a lot of lessons. (I know above it says we released two apps, but we also released an Android and Windows version of A Beautiful Mess, which are a development process all their own.) And we're still learning! Here are a few of the pros and cons of the current app business, from our perspective. 

I'll start with the cons…

Cons: The financial risk is insane. Even for a less risky category, like photo apps, most people have to sell 70,000+ apps (sometimes double or triple that) before making any profit at all. This is terrifying, even for companies that have a large following like we do. There is enormous risk in developing apps, because the initial cost of development is very high, and the potential revenue per user is very small. 

Developing apps is a long, hard process. Many apps take more than a year to develop. You would be surprised how many app concepts get shelved halfway through development. Either the company gets cold feet, or something else really similar comes out, or the market changes. Anything can happen. There is a lot of money invested in apps that never even come out.

Expectations are high (especially for those leaving a review). We always say app dollars are the most expensive dollars people ever spend. Even though an app might only be $0.99, and the developer may have paid say, $100,000 to develop it, the customers expectations may not be met and reviews may be bad. Even the most honest companies with great intentions can get terrible reviews. Customers expect a lot for that $0.99, and there is a lot that can go wrong with their experience from start to finish. Not to state the obvious here, but app making is still software development. And it's software development for very, very limited computers: phones/iPods and tablets. Don't get us wrong. They're incredible devices, but their computing power pales in comparison to a laptop or desktop. But we still expect the speed and quality of our laptops from our phones. So app developers have to find tricks and efficiencies that create that quick home-computer-like experience within the limited power of a mobile device. To put it simply, managing that experience can be challenging. 

Change is rapid. It's tough to be in a business where every update takes months and months and costs tens of thousands of dollars, but seems so instant to our users. It's crazy because it's moving so quickly on the outside, but tends to move SO slowly on the development side. We have to keep up with trends and expectations while still planning six months to a year ahead at all times. This fast/slow balance can be kinda strange at times. 

Pros: Well, obviously there is a lot of money to be made in apps. Although maybe not quite as much as people think because development is so expensive, and there is continual maintenance to provide at all times. Also, the app platform (iTunes App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, etc.) takes about 30%. That's significant. Even still, our first app is a big part of how we had our first million-dollar year, as a company, and I'd be silly not to mention this as an obvious perk of the whole gig. With that, learning the business and the market has been so fascinating. Like I said earlier, app dollars are the most expensive dollars anyone ever spends, so that creates a fun business challenge!

The development process is so rewarding. It's hard to word how cool it is to see an idea that started as a conversation over drinks become a functioning piece of software you can use and play with. It so exciting every time I see the first beta available to download and test—even when it's just a skeleton of what the app will be. Before we got into the business, it all just seemed like magic. Apps just worked or didn't work. We had no clue why you could do some things and not others. But to work hand-and-hand with developers for each step along the way, learning what powers each individual element, is just amazing. It gives me a completely different perspective on apps I use.

Creating apps is exciting. Apps are a really, really exciting business to be in. We just passed the one million mark of ABM apps sold, and it was one of the strangest, happiest feelings, because I couldn't really wrap my mind around the thought of one million different people using my handwritten doodles and arrows and stuff. Sometimes on random nights, Emma and I will be texting each other screen shots of Instagram pics where a celebrity used our app and giggling all cheesy. It's fun. And even more than that, we scroll through both the #partypartyapp and #abeautifulmess hashtags all the time to see all the cool ideas you guys are coming up with. 

Anything is possible. Not to get all cheesy on you, but it's so cool to be able to think about our phones like this. It used to be a little disappointing to think of a useful app, look through the App Store, and come up empty handed. And now, we get the opposite feeling: excitement! We get to think it through as an opportunity and think about whether it really is enough of a want that thousands of people would join in to use it. Any idea that's good enough could become real!

"I have an app idea; where do I begin?" 

Since we launched our first app last year we've been told dozens of fun app ideas. Pretty much every business lunch, or tax meeting, or family gathering includes someone pulling one of us aside and telling us about his or her awesome app idea. And so we've learned people have app ideas… like CRAZY. 

Since there are no shortage of ideas, how do you decide if your idea is worth the financial investment, possible fundraising, reasearch, and multitude of other sacrifices you'd have to make before making a penny? We can't answer that for you. I'm not even going to try.

If you're really, really serious about an app idea, there are two equally important challenges you need to address: 

1. Development: I'm using the word "development" as a coverall for app creation, so this isn't just coding. It's also UX planning, wireframing, and designing. If you're dreaming up app ideas, you're probably vaguely familiar with the steps here but not sure how to track down resources to pull it off. There aren't really any effective templated Squarespaces of app development for more unique ideas. So at the very minimum, if you don't know coding, you're going to need a developer. And if you don't know design, you'll need a designer. You can work with an agency, who will manage the whole process for you and offer insights/expertise in the industry. But they're a larger investment. Or you can go freelance, which can be just as effective if you feel really confident thinking through user experience on your own and research all the little steps that need to happen to get an app ready to upload. And be sure whoever you work with has experience in the type of app you want to do. A good place to start is by just looking up who developed quality apps.

2. Marketing: As much as I wish that a good idea executed well markets itself, the majority of the time it's just not true. Even with built-in distribution like the App Store, a great product without marketing likely will not survive. You have to reach some sort of platform to at least kickstart the app's momentum. Only then can the app quality market itself. A Beautiful Mess is very fortunate to have a loyal readership like you to help us get the word out and kickstart the momentum. We also reach out to our friends and fellow bloggers to see if it's the type of app they'd want to use and share. Part of what makes our apps work is that we create them with bloggers and social sharing in mind, so every time someone blogs about the app or shares a photo on Instagram, it's like its own little ad for the app. This is what makes photo apps so successful in the App Store: they're self-promoting.

Beyond that, try your best to think ahead a year (or more) from now and make sure you believe that your concept will still be relevant and potentially popular at that time. Ultimately, there is nothing you can do to erase the risk factor. If you sit down with ten app companies and ask them how they got started, you'll get ten different stories and sets of advice. 

Our advice: Find an agency or developer you trust and connect with to partner with or hire. Take your time. Try a lot of different people. Don't settle for the first company or quote you get, because it most likely will not be the best. It is not easy to switch developers, so find someone you see a long-term future with and vice versa. 

The best advice we can give, based on our own business experience, is to never invest money you can't afford to lose. Calculated risk is a part of business, but since apps are so incredibly unpredictable, it's important to make sure you're okay either way. 

Choosing the phone operating systems for the app release

Each operating system has its own needs and requires a complete rebuild of the app, so you have to be strategic in choosing how you release an app. While Windows is definitely showing some growth, and Blackberry has a strong niche presence, really, the big guys to consider are Android and iOS. We get asked pretty often why we favor iOS. We've touched on it a little bit in some previous posts about the specific apps, but this seems like a good post to break down the numbers and our thoughts. 

So first the market share numbers* (as of writing this post): 
• Worldwide phone usage, Android: 85% / iOS: 12.7%
• U.S. phone usage, Android: 57.6% / iOS: 35.9%
• ABM readership phone usage (according to our reader survey), Android: 24% / iOS: 65%
*FYI, Windows Phones are about 1-3% market share across the board, and Blackberry is less than that.

Looking at market share alone, it makes doing Android a no-brainer, right? Even conservatively, if we went off the ABM survey results alone, the Android version could be half as successful as the iOS version. And that'd be great! That was our thinking when got rolling on the Android version of A Beautiful Mess. But the Android launch of the ABM app just didn't quite take like iOS. By comparison, it fell flat on its face, selling 1/20 the number of apps iOS did.

But apparently, we weren't alone. Just in Q1 of this year, iOS' App Store generated 85% more revenue than Android's Google Play, which is an ongoing trend. There are all kinds of theories why that you can read, but the bottom line is that it's quite the deterrent for app developers looking to recoup an investment. And in our case, it was more like 95% more revenue on iOS, so it makes all the more challenging for us to figure out how to approach the market. Of course, our conclusion isn't just to ignore Android. The Google Play store is growing more by the day, and it's definitely gaining on the App Store. Plus, there are a lot of developers making a fantastic business on Android. We just haven't found the right strategy for our business yet, but know we're actively looking for it. 

So our advice on choosing an OS is to start with what you know and build from there. We're all iOS users, so dreaming up an iOS idea was only natural. But if you're an Android user, you probably have a good handle on the types of apps that would enhance your experience. Once you have an idea, research, research, and research more. Look up any numbers you can find on the app category you're interested in. To put it obviously, find what works and do that.

Where do we think the app industry is headed? 

While we're not comfortable speaking for all categories, we can speak for our own (photo & video) with some confidence and two years of experiences, including lessons learned the hard way. 

More and more people are using their smartphones as their primary camera. Kids are growing up with photo albums full of Instagram memories. We love this, and we're amazed by it. 

We want to continue to create apps that make it easy and fun to save and share special memories from your life in a beautiful way. 

Our first app, A Beautiful Mess, started out as an idea of one thing I wished I could do to my iPhone photos that I couldn't do with any app at the time. Party Party was the same way. Our next idea is the same. We're trying to create apps that we can't wait to use. Our strategy really is that simple. 

We see smartphone photography growing and changing so rapidly. It's more than just trends and filters and styles too. People are often using their phones to take more beautiful photos than they could take with a camera. It's an amazing thing, and we love being a small part of it! 

So that's a little bit of our story about how we got into the app business! 

The takeaway that I want to send with you guys isn't so much about apps as it is taking risks. When we first had the idea to make an app, we were every bit as clueless about it as anyone else. It was a long road from point A (the idea) to point B (the release). Along the way we were discouraged by friends and family members for risking so much money on an untested market. We doubted our choice until the day it was released. We had no security that it would pay off. It did pay off, but some of our investments have flopped too. Risks are scary, but they're a big part of growing a business. 

The moral of this story, for us, is to take that calculated risk. Don't spend money you don't have. But if you have can take the risk and you believe in the possibility of a great return, go for it! 

Before we got into apps we didn't consider ourselves a techy company. We still don't really fit that mold, but that doesn't matter. What's important is that we found a way to use our talents in a new marketplace. We created products that our customers love to use on a new format. When you find a new venture that doesn't compete with or cannibalize your staple income, it's worth looking into. 

Be smart. Listen to good advice. Do your homework. At the end of the day, if you have a risk in front of you, don't hold back just because you're afraid. Developing our first app was one of the best choices we ever made, and we hope we can inspire some of you to take a risk in your business, too, when the time comes! 

If you have questions or opinions, leave us a comment. Trey and I will be responding, and we can't wait to chat with you! xx. Elsie (+ Trey)

Credits // Author: Elsie Larson and Trey George. Photos edited with A Beautiful Mess actions.

What in the world is “success” anyway? Good question. And honestly, I think only you can answer that for yourself. For example, I’m not all that great at math. In college I only had to complete two algebra courses in order to finish my degree (in philosophy).

I went to every class, turned in every assignment, and voluntarily attended a free tutoring session twice a week that my college offered. At the end of each of these courses I got the same grade, a “B.” To me, this was major success! I was, and still to the this day am, so proud of that grade!

I know some students would have been disappointed with a “B,” as they would have been striving to receive an “A.” The point is, you decide your goals. You make your dreams. And this gives you the power to be successful. It’s totally in your hands.

I could have compared myself to other students who received better grades, but what’s the point? I worked hard and achieved my goal. That is success. No comparisons needed. 

I don’t know everything (like at all). And I certainly don’t know everything about success. But, what I have learned over the last few years I’m happy to share with you. Here are my secrets:

1. Positivity is a powerful force.

Being positive about your ideas is like allowing a plant to get sunshine. Good luck growing anything in the dark. I know lots of people who never actually do anything because they think all their ideas are too dumb, impractical, too random, or that if they put anything out there they will get made fun of or criticized.

Listen, the whole world is filled with critics. It’s the people who choose to be creators who stand out. Choose to be a positive force in your life. When you have an idea, instead of immediately thinking of all the reasons why it’s not very good or won’t work, spend a few minutes thinking about how it could be improved.

Assume you have a good idea; now how can it be better? Some ideas will end up getting discarded, but not every single one. Be positive first, then think critically to refine your idea. 

Also, and this one is hard, strive to surround yourself with people who build you up (rather than tear you down). Having a constantly negative friend or family member can make it difficult to achieve your goals.

How you navigate those situations can be tricky, but staying positive and surrounding yourself with positive people is one of the keys to success.

2. Make realistic AND lofty goals.

The fact that I’m encouraging you to set goals probably doesn’t surprise you. If you don’t have goals, you likely won’t get anything done. But have you made it a habit to set goals that you know you can accomplish as well as those that scare you a little?

If you don’t have a goal in your life right now that absolutely terrifies you, like you don’t even want to tell anyone about it because it’s so crazy, get one in your life. Now.

Attempting the seemingly impossible over and over again is good practice. You won’t achieve it every time, unless you’re Superman or something. But, like most things you practice at, you will achieve it some of the time, and as you get better and better you’ll have more and more success.

I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to fail 100 times if it means I’ll achieve one impossible goal versus never failing and never achieving that lofty goal. Failure is often just a step toward success.

Pro tip: Don’t put all lofty goals on your to-do list. You’ve got to keep those more realistic ones on there too. Failure, although a key a success, is also super discouraging.

Achieving those realistic goals keeps you grounded and will help you through those discouraging moments.

3. Don’t wait for perfection. 

Sometimes we all need a drop-dead date, you know? It can be hard to finally let your idea out into the world. We all have a tendency to keep refining things, wanting to make them absolutely perfect before we show anyone.

And I do think a certain amount of this is totally worthwhile and professional, but sometimes you just need to set a deadline and hit it. Even if the result is less than perfect. 

For example, we have over 4,000 posts on this blog. Guess how many of those were absolutely perfect before we pressed publish. I don’t know, but it for SURE wasn’t all of them! Not even close.

And yet ABM attracts right around 1.5 million readers every month. That’s right, an imperfect website has that kind of appeal. We strive to produce the best articles we can, but if we waited until everything was perfect we would not be where we are today. 

I’ve also been conducting a bit of an official experiment for the past year and half or so. I try to note every time I find a typo in books I read. Guess what? Since starting this experiment I haven’t read a single book that was 100% typo free.

Many of these books were NYT bestsellers and/or written by famous authors with impressive bodies of work. My point is not to focus on flaws, but to know that flaws do not equal failure. Success is often imperfect.

So, you don’t have to wait on perfection before you put your work out there. Strive for it, but don’t wait on it. Press that “publish” button, and if something isn’t perfect, well, you’re gonna learn something that will help you keep moving forward.

You’ll never learn anything by hiding your work behind a closed door.

4. Start now.

This one I am SO guilty of. I think, “Oh, I’ll have more time next month to do XYZ. So, I’ll work on it then.” Or, “I don’t feel great right now; I’ll work on that later.” And so on. I like to think that I’ll do everything tomorrow, never today.

And that’s a great way to get nothing done. 

Start right now. Make a goal, make a plan to achieve it, and then immediately start taking steps to complete it. Do something today to move toward your dreams. Planning counts, but you can’t plan forever.

Action makes things happen. Maybe you will have more time next month, but so what? What can you do today? Maybe you can’t do as much as you’ll be able to next month, but I bet you can do something. Do it.

Don’t ever wait for your dreams to come to you; go get them. Today. Now. There will never be a better time than right now to start. 

5. Expand on success, learn from failure, and if necessary, quit. 

You know how people say, “Quitters never win.” I could not disagree more! I don’t know about you, but my life is not full of endless resources. I have the same number of hours in my day as you.

I’m good at certain things and weak in other areas (like math, as I’ve already admitted to you). To have success, you have to take all of your life’s variables into account.

When you do have success, first off, celebrate (you did it!!!!), then evaluate why. What about this situation worked? Did you discover certain natural talents or abilities you may have?

Did you uncover a collaborative relationship that worked really well for you? Expand on these things. How can you have even more success in these areas?

When you fail, first off, celebrate (you learned something!!!!) and evaluate what you learned. What didn’t work about this situation?

Did you find that you are not gifted in certain areas or you just plain didn’t enjoy something like you thought you would? How can you pivot from this experience toward success?

If necessary, quit. Sometimes things don’t work. It might have nothing to do with you. It could be that the industry you are working in is going through a bad time. It could be the medium you work on is undergoing change. Or it could be you; you may just not be good at something. That’s okay! This has nothing to do with self-worth.

You are MUCH more valuable than your current accomplishments, and you always will be. But if something isn’t working, my best advice is to quit now and move on to something else.

I don’t want to be a broken record too much here, but my best example of this is when I quit pursuing my dream of acting and moved back to my hometown to work with Elsie.

This was one of the very best (and most successful) decisions I ever made, and it all started with me quitting. Quitters sometimes win big. Don’t be afraid to change course if it feels right.

No matter where you are at in life right now, hear this: you are awesome. You are original. You have great ideas. And you can totally achieve your dreams. I believe in you 100%. You deserve to hear that every single day, so please at least hear it from me today.

Never be afraid to dream big. Never be afraid to quit something if needed. You are as free to live a successful life as you let yourself be. Thank you for being a part of my story. xo. Emma

Anyway, job hunting. With it being graduation season, it seemed like an appropriate subject. We talk a lot about starting your own venture here, but let’s face it: There aren’t enough customers out there for every single person to have their own company, so a lot of you might be job shopping. You might be thinking, “Emma’s husband offering job hunting advice? Step 1: Marry a business owner. Step 2: Work there. Great.” Understandable. So I’ll focus on my career hunting pre-ABM, as I’ve done my share and been relatively successful landing some positions I loved.

Graduating college is weird, right? All the movies make it seem like some blissful moment of glory—you know, throw your hat in the air, freeze frame, happily ever after, etc. But for me, all that was overshadowed by this heavy notion of “now what?” I no longer had the option to sign up for my responsibilities. I had to apply and compete for them. It was 2008 (you know, the year the market plummeted). I had a degree with a double major in philosophy and journalism, and sadly, there weren’t a lot of jobs out there for pontificating about split infinitives (most choose to not care). Plus, less than 30% of college graduates actually work in the field they majored in.

I kind of felt like I was holding a blank map. My roommate moved to KC, and the little market research company I worked for was quickly shrinking and had me cut to part time at $9/hr. So I moved back in with my parents and slept on a twin mattress on the floor in their basement. I spent pretty much every spare minute scouring job sites and listings. I started out really picky, and by the end I was throwing my resume at anything with 40 hours and vague enough applicant requirements. This went on for months, and I have to say it was one of the most defeating pockets of my life. It can be hard not to take all the rejection personally. But I didn’t give up, and a local ad agency decided to give me a shot in account service.

And since then, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. That same ad agency that gave me a shot ended up laying off 75% of its staff. And then I was in the same job-hunting situation, only older and feeling even more defeated. I certainly can’t speak for all fields, but here are some things I noticed through it all, now having been on both sides of the hiring process.

1. Identify your strengths, not just interests
First, you need a clear definition of yourself as a worker. Your interests are simply what you like to do, whereas your strengths are what you can offer an employer.  A company only cares about your interests insomuch as it improves what you can offer them.

Plus, if you start with your strengths, you open yourself up to positions you might’ve otherwise overlooked. For example, I’m a huge music fan, but so is 95% of humanity. If I narrow my job hunt to my interest in music, I’m just restricting myself to a very competitive (and not very lucrative) job market. And I don’t really have any outstanding strengths in the field that markedly set me above every other guy who was in a medium-low band in college. That said, I have a strength in management and communication. I’m a people person. And thinking from that perspective opened me up to a whole world of positions I’d never considered. I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to work in a field where you excel, rather than blend in. Find what you’re good at, something a company needs, and do that.

2. Keep the resume prioritized and concise
There could easily be a whole post about resumes. But above all else, lead with the most important information, and only make the resume as long as it needs to be. Having watched others review resumes as well as reviewing several myself, I can tell you with confidence a lot of employers skim read. They’re just people after all. Chances are, if they’re hiring, they’re probably busier than usual. So they’re trying to find the useful information in your resume as soon as possible. So if you bury your experience and strengths between a bunch of nice-to-knows vs. need-to-knows, they’ll likely get overlooked.

3. Network, network, network
I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, and it can make the job hunt sound more like luck than anything else. Yes, it’s true that the most talented person does not always get the job. The person with right friends does. And you can choose to write yourself off as an unlucky introvert and curse the unfairness of life, or you can decidedly get your name out there. Where do your friends and family work? Where do your friends’ friends work? Find companies where you might fit and excel. Then, find a connection to someone with hiring power/influence. This is exactly how I got someone to look at my resume at that ad agency, which made it possible to start this leg of my career.

You have to find a way to get your resume to rise above those online forms they make you fill out, and nothing does that better than word of mouth within the company.

4. Informational interviews
Here’s a networking tool. Don’t overlook a company just because they’re not hiring. If you’re able to track down a valuable contact there, see if they’ll set up an informational interview to talk about their company and the kind of employee they’re looking for. This accomplishes a few things. First, it further establishes this person you meet with as a connection within a company you’re interested in. Second, it communicates forward thinking and your passion for the company. And last, chances are someone working for the company is well connected throughout the industry. While this company might not be hiring, they can recommend you to a similar company that is.

5. LinkedIn
Yeah, I know. I know. Another social network where you have to build ANOTHER network base. Shouldn’t Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and whatever Google+ is be enough? You might even already have an account that’s just sitting there. Believe it or not, when it comes to job hunting, LinkedIn is far and away the most useful social network. It prioritizes sorting people by the company they work for. You can find a company you love and then find a person that could connect you to it. I’ve had several job recruiters find me because of it. I’ve landed several interviews through finding connections. Yes, it can feel shameless, but it totally works. It’s how I got my job at an agency in Nashville (a city I really wanted to live in). If you’re only half-heartedly using it, try out its full potential and establish some connections. Think of it as an active tool to find people rather than a passive tool for people to find you.

6. Never overlook internships or any chance at experience
The more experience you have, the easier you make the job hunt. The best way to show you know how to do something is to do it. Again, I can’t speak for all fields, especially the public sector and highly specialized positions (healthcare, accounting, engineering, etc.). But in general business, experience wins over education every single time. I’ve seen college dropouts with ample freelancing/contract experience get the job over people with their masters. And that’s so annoying, because I can control the education I get, but it’s a lot harder to control my experience if a company won’t hire me. It’s this catch-22. I can’t get a job to get the experience to get the job. So if you’re looking to break into a field, consider an internship. Or start freelancing for some of your friends’ small ventures or needs. Offer up free services. Employers aren't going to ask how much you got paid to do it. They just want to see what you’ve done in a real-world situation.

7. Take any opportunity to show you care
Every piece of extra effort is noticed and appreciated. If you’re applying, definitely write a custom email (or cover letter) for each company. We can always tell when it’s copied and pasted generically. Dress up for an interview or meeting. Do your homework on the company. Learn about their values, culture, news, or just anything you can find online about them. Make it really clear you want the job.

8. Think of an interview like a conversation more than an audition
Here’s another topic that could get its own post. Yes, they need someone with the right skills, and the interview will mostly center on that. But more than hiring a functional set of skills, they’re hiring a friend—someone they’re going to have to be around for 40 hours a week. If they like you as a person, that immediately pushes you to the top of the list. Ask a lot of questions about the job. As far as you’re concerned, they’re experts about the company. Make them feel like that, and be sure to show your interest in what they’re saying. Follow the rabbit trail down any tangents they want to go on. Make them laugh. I promise if they enjoy the conversation, they’ll remember you.

Above all, be comfortable. The best thing my dad ever taught me about interviewing was that the interviewers want to hire you. They want to be done with the search. And they want you to be the one. They’re hiring because they need help immediately. If you’re the right person, that means they’re relieved of some stress.

9. Follow up
This is an easy one. Again, you’re dealing with busy people. It’s very possible they didn’t get your email with your resume. Or if you’ve already interviewed, and it’s been a couple weeks, check in and see where they are in the decision-making process. Anything you can do to elevate your name a little helps.

10. Be patient and try not to get your heart set on one job
When I first started my job hunt after college, I found this position online that had me obsessed: Music Editor Assistant at Amazon. If I recall, the job pretty much entailed helping choose featured albums for the music page and the short write-up descriptor copy. It had vague enough requirements for me to qualify, and I felt like a perfect fit for it. Part journalism, part music. I could do that! I completely customized my resume for it and wrote an overlong, embarrassingly passionate cover letter. After I submitted my resume to their automated job recruitment system, I was so excited I told my dad about it. He just kind of smirked and started rapid-firing questions at me: “Seattle? Who do you know up there? Why would they hire someone in Missouri? Do you know anyone who works for there? How are you going to get your resume looked at?” I wanted to think my dad just didn’t understand how the Internet worked and that he was totally wrong. But sadly, nope. Never even got a response.

You will find several jobs that you think are the one, the kind that get you daydreaming. Most of them won’t be. You will not get the vast majority of the jobs you apply for. And don’t be discouraged by that. It’s just a game of numbers. Keep applying. Keep trying. I’ve applied for hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs in my life. It can take months, a year, or in some cases, years. You might have to take a lesser job while you continue to hunt. The only way you can guarantee you won’t get a job you love is to stop trying.

None of these tips are the magic bullet. Unfortunately, that doesn’t exist in job hunting. It’s a combination and a lot of trial and error. The whole process can be wildly discouraging, but I can't recommend enough to push through. It will get better. -Trey  

Credits // Author: Trey George. Photography: Sarah Rhodes. Photos edited with Bowie and Stella from the Signature Collection.