Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Snaman.
Hi Heather, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My background is in nonprofit and advocacy work. I’ve spent most of my career in roles where the goal was to make a difference, rather than a profit. Kate (founder of Queen of To Do) and I met through a babywearing group when our oldest kids were tiny. We spent about six months together, learning how to keep our babies close while juggling real life at the same time, before we finally learned each other’s names.
What grew out of that was one of the most important friendships and partnerships of my life, built initially through volunteering together and later genuinely showing up for each other over the years.
Fast forward about a decade to May, 2021. I’d been heavily involved in a couple of nonprofits over the years, growing them and my experience. Kate was running Queen of To Do on her own with eight clients, a waitlist, and her husband going through treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She was drowning.
I reached out and said “What if I help you?” She told me there was literally zero money to pay me. I said, “We’ll figure it out.” And we did.
I joined as the first employee, focused on getting Kate’s expertise out of her head and into systems we could train a team around. We ended that year with 8 W2 employees, something we’re proud of. To this day, all of our personal assistants are W2 workers, many of them former stay-at-home parents returning to the workforce.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, absolutely not. I came into this role when things were already on fire. I knew that I trusted Kate though, and I absolutely believed in the company. I knew there was something there, that people were returning to work (this was 2021 mind) and the status quo had shifted in a way. I knew Kate had clients who absolutely adored her, and was pretty sure we’d be able to figure it out.
One of the harder things I didn’t expect was the tension between intellectually knowing delegation is the answer and actually doing it. We built a company on the premise that legging go is healthy and smart, and yet there are still plenty of moments where we’re both white-knuckling tasks we have no business holding onto.
Trusting other people with someone you care deeply about is a skill, and skills take time to develop.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Queen of To Do is a lifestyle concierge and personal assistant service, but that description doesn’t quite capture what we actually do.
We take the mental load off people’s plates. I’m talking about the endless accumulating tasks that don’t seem like a big deal, but collectively they just grind you down. They steal your evenings and weekends, sap your soul when you walk through the door after a long day. The laundry and dishes, the errands, dealing with service providers, vehicle maintenance, holiday stuff, all of it. The stuff that falls through the cracks, makes you feel guilty when life gets full, we handle it all.
Now, I don’t do any of that. In fact, I’m the posterchild for being bad at it. The dishes, specifically, made me feel like a failure for years. As a work perk, I have a personal assistant who comes to my home twice per week and she lifts that weight from my shoulders in ways I truly cannot describe. The dishes are done, my kids don’t have laundry mountains under their beds, returns are dropped off, things are just magically done.
I’m a single mom, when I get off work it means a lot that I get to spend my time with my kids instead of toiling away on housework. So, I’ll say that what sets us apart is that we really do make a difference in people’s lives. The goal is that our membership clients feel supported, that we’ve shown up for them in a proactive way, and that feels right for them. There’s a real relationship there, and that’s not something you can fake or scale cheaply, and we’ve worked hard for that.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
I have a string of multi-colored post it notes under my computer monitors, holding all my life’s wisdom. The most important, for me, is “Finish Something!” Despite my operations role, I actually thrive in the visionary seat. I’d rather spout off a thousand pie-in-the-sky ideas and have a thousand happy, well-paid project groups spawn to put ideas into action but alas, it’s not the world I live in. So until my dream is realized, I need scraps of paper to remind me to actually get bring projects to fruition instead of getting distracted by a new shiny.
Other highlights are “Progress, not perfection” and “Let people rescue themselves.”
Pricing:
- $2700 / month +
Contact Info:
- Website: https://queenoftodo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/queenoftodo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/queenoftodo
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/queen-of-to-do/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@queenoftodo
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/queen-of-to-do-austin-2
Image Credits
Group photo with many people (confetti on the floor) – credit to Mary Arcuni Photography.
