From Accidental Business to Booked-Out Shopify Studio: Heidi Ewert on Motherhood, Flexibility, and Saying Yes
Heidi Ewert didn’t set out to build a Shopify studio. She built one website, as a favor, for a friend who needed to move off Etsy before a product launch.
The launch went smoothly. Heidi closed her laptop, went to bed, and woke up to 22 requests in her personal inbox.
That’s the origin story behind Endswell Studio, and it’s the center of this conversation with Heidi — someone I’ve known for years, long before either of us were running the businesses we run today.
TLDR: Heidi’s business started by accident and grew because she kept saying yes. Now it runs on a schedule built around real life instead of a standard nine-to-five. We talk about what it took to trust that instinct, how she structures flexibility as a parent of three, and why working with other creatives in her industry has made her business better, not more competitive.
The Accidental Start
Heidi was a teacher with a newborn when she built that first website. Her instinct was to say no to the requests that followed. She wasn’t a web developer. This wasn’t her job.
Her husband asked her one question that changed the direction of her whole career: did you have fun? She had. So she took on another project. Then another. Eventually there wasn’t room left to think about teaching anymore.
If you’re waiting for a clean, planned-out reason to say yes to the next opportunity in front of you, Heidi’s story is a reminder that you might not get one. Sometimes the redirection looks like an accident until you’re a few years into it.
Saying Yes to What Feels Right, Even When It Isn’t Expected
Heidi told me that if she could go back and talk to her younger self, she’d say this: you don’t have to do what’s expected. She grew up telling people she’d be a teacher and followed through, even as she became less sure of it the closer she got. Saying yes to entrepreneurship instead has brought her the most joy, the most creative growth, and connections she says she’d never have made otherwise.
That instinct is also why she said yes to a recent project for Libs Elliott, where I handled the brand strategy and visual identity and Heidi built out the Shopify site — down to a custom-coded scrapbook page pulled directly from the brand direction.
Building a Business That Bends Around Motherhood
Heidi has three school-aged kids, a mother-in-law who lives with the family and helps with everything from laundry to school pickup, and migraines that sometimes mean she can’t be near a screen for an afternoon. Her schedule isn’t rigid. Mondays are off-limits for meetings. Hours shift around sick kids and bad days.
None of that makes her less of a business owner. Building a business that bends around real life, instead of demanding you bend around it, is one of the real advantages of being self-employed, and it’s a big part of why the flexibility to say yes, or no, matters as much as it does.
Why Working With Other Creatives Beats Competing With Them
Heidi and I both build websites. On paper, that could read as overlap. In practice, it’s the opposite. Her strength is Shopify and e-commerce. Mine is brand strategy and service-based businesses. Respecting what the other person is actually good at, instead of trying to do everything ourselves, is what makes projects like Libs Elliott work as well as they do.
Your Website Should Work Like a Team Member
For product-based businesses, that shows up in the details: automations that send consent forms after a workshop purchase, hosted video courses with gated access, and customization forms that replace back-and-forth DMs. If your website isn’t doing some of that communicating and selling for you, you’re doing work it should be doing instead.
The Most Underrated Investment for Business Owners
Heidi’s answer: a domain email. Not a free Gmail address — an email tied to your actual domain. It’s inexpensive, improves deliverability so you’re less likely to land in spam. It also makes a business look established the moment someone sees it.
This might seem like a small thing, but also one of those things people skip because it feels optional.
FAQ
How did Heidi Ewert start Endswell Studio? She built one Shopify website as a favor for a friend transitioning off Etsy. The launch went well, and she woke up the next morning to 22 inquiries, which turned into her full-time business.
How can business owners build more flexibility into their schedule as parents? Setting boundaries around specific days or hours, building a support system through family or hired help, and working with clients who understand that flexibility all make it more sustainable to run a business without sacrificing presence at home.
What does it mean for a website to work like a team member? It means the website handles tasks that would otherwise require a person such as answering questions, processing customization requests, delivering purchased content, and sending automated follow-ups. This is so the business owner isn’t doing all these tasks manually, saving time.
Tune into more episodes
