We had the good fortune of connecting with Jessica Korthuis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jessica, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Being a working mom and two-time entrepreneur, “balance” is something I work on all of the time. I’ve come to realize that balance doesn’t actually exist, and most of the successful women that I know who try to find balance end up creating more internal friction because they’re searching for a “thing” that doesn’t actually exist.

It may sound like semantics, but integration is a term that has resonated with me more and more over the years. Integrating my home and work life in ways that bring me joy -that’s what it’s really about.

I heard this some years ago and it has stuck with me ever since (I wish I could remember the source), but it was a woman speaking at conference and this was her response to how she “balances it all.” She said, “you have to understand that you’re endlessly juggling, and what you have to do is understand which balls are made of plastic, and which balls are made of glass.”

We’re going to drop the ball, we just have to be intentional about the ones we will not, and cannot, drop. For me, these are my mental and personal health, my family (husband and children), and the other is my company and our mission. Health and family come before any other activity – this is something I constantly practice.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My business has evolved a lot over the years, and we have now settled on a business model and framework that makes the most sense for us. My company is called Sohuis (so-house), and it’s an educational platform and membership community that helps early stage female founders learn how to brand, market and launch their businesses.

90% of businesses fail within the first five years, the primary reason for this is access to capital, and the second reason is marketing! (Believe it or not) Founders end up targeting an audience that’s too wide too soon, or they never achieve product market fit, or – they end up building solutions that their customers don’t want. This happens all of the time, and it’s completely avoidable.

Our platform helps female founders avoid these pitfalls by teaching them the fundamentals of branding and marketing. Our programming touches on everything from copywriting, to creating the perfect logo, to building a go to market strategy, optimizing your SEO, growing your Instagram, and more. What makes us unique is that we are combining what makes communities magical with expert-led programming that is designed exclusively for women.

Our classes are hyper-specific, super actionable, and created for the busy mom on the go or the womanpreneur who has a gazillion things on her plate to accomplish in a day. There are tons of amazing communities and memberships out there, we are members and advocates for many of them. However, when I launched Sohuis, I didn’t see any community that exclusively focused on the huge issue of marketing for women – so our niche expertise in this area makes us very different than a lot of other memberships and communities.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
So let’s assume Covid is out of the picture, I live in Roswell, so naturally I would start close by and go to our favorite local spots. A day would probably include: breakfast at Gracious Plently on Canton Street, a hike to the falls at the Roswell Mill, lunch and afternoon coffee at A Thousand Hills, then dinner at Moxie Burger. In town, I would definitely do Ponce City Market and head to the West Side for dinner, drinks and entertainment!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I can’t even begin to peel back the layers to this! My husband has been my biggest advocate, my mom, my circle of friends, endless women I’m friends with on Instagram and have never met in person. I think what’s relevant to share here is that my ongoing growth has been a result of me endlessly talking with people, sharing what I do, serving them in what they do, and finding ways to support each other. This has been a compounding effort that, over time, adds up!

Website: https://sohuis.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sohuisinc/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicakorthuis/

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