Moments of transition happen when you least expect it, or maybe when you need it most.

It was March of 2018 and I remember sitting on a stool in a sharing circle around a group of female entrepreneurs and being impressed when hearing Kristen speak about her background and the incredible “blue chip” brands she’d worked with, but mostly, I remember feeling drawn to her fun and happy energy. At that time, I had already transitioned from my in-house role as Marketing Director for a luxury home furnishings brand to my own budding marketing agency. I had visions of continuing to grow the service-based aspect of the business with my savvy team of freelancers. Never did I think I’d want or need a business partner, that’s what nightmares are made of - or so I’d heard. 

After the circle concluded, it was time to do that thing where you figure out how to sum up who you are as a human in a few words and avoid selling it too hard. I consider myself an outgoing introvert, which means I like people but too much for too long zaps my energy. I grabbed my lukewarm coffee and meandered around a bit. Who would spot me and tell me to join their conversation? None other than Kristen Schellenberg.

I was relieved because at that point, I was feeling like it was musical chairs all over again and I didn’t have a seat. Kristen was welcoming and shared more about her recent transition as an in-house Director of Creative at an influencer marketing agency to her own creative studio. Kristen is the first to say she is an absolute extrovert and found working on her own painfully lonely. While her business was growing, she didn’t find a real need for freelance support, she wanted a peer - maybe a business partner. What was my response? “NO, you don’t want one. Just grow a team.”

We saw each other a few more times during that month at those entrepreneurial meet-ups and began referring business to each other. I had also included Kristen as a panelist for a workshop/panel event that I produced for my agency in May of that year. That same month I headed to Europe for a couple of weeks and while I was there, Kristen reached out to let me know she and a partner were producing a panel event and wanted to see if I’d like to join. My immediate reaction was pangs of jealousy in the pit of my stomach. Had she found a partner after all?

While I had been the one vehemently against the idea when she brought it up, now I was having second thoughts. I wrote back casually to ask about her new partnership and the event as I fully resigned to the fact that I may have missed out. Based on the time difference, it was a while till I heard back. Luckily, Paris has a way of distracting a girl. Low and behold, she did not actually have a business partner, just that she was partnering with a woman for this particular event. Kristen must have sensed my new curiosity. Side note: Kristen has a scary accurate intuition and sometimes I trust it more than my own. She wrote back again, casually asking if I was at all considering a partner. We continued to exchange emails while I was away & decided to meet for coffee when I got back to talk about the possible idea of how a partnership could work for us. 

That day at coffee, we both came prepared with all the possible things that we might want out of a partnership. I still have that list today. We decided to test the waters by combining my strategy services and her creative services into a proposal for a well-known clean skincare brand in Beverly Hills. It was a slam dunk. Still one of our favorite projects to this day. 

In July, we made it official and filed formation papers for our LLC under the name of Hart & Highland,

and had an attorney create an operating agreement for our partnership. We went in with eyes wide open because so many partnerships end in a heartbreaking mess. We talked through all scenarios, from the decision capabilities of our husbands to how we would handle Kristen’s photography equipment.

One piece of advice from a friend was to come up with every possible issue that could happen and figure out how we would handle AND if one person does something that upsets the other, you say it immediately. Just rip that bandaid off so it doesn’t fester. It’s not always easy but it’s our golden rule - and it works.

Flash forward to today, we’ve expanded to a full-service creative and marketing studio, more than doubled our revenue each year, and grown an incredible in-house team focused on helping our brands create truly effective marketing ecosystems. As co-owners, we’ve learned more than a few times that you either have to get comfy on the rollercoaster of agency life - or get off - and I think we like it a little wild like that. We want to do it differently, shake things up, get weird - and encourage our brands to do the same. As we go into our 4th year of business, we cannot wait for what lies ahead in 2022.


Written by Arica Rosenthal