The Origin Story of Natty Writes (Because I Didn’t Go To School For This)

Did any entrepreneur actually go to school to do the thing they’re now doing? Because I sure as heck didn’t.

And I know that a lot of my entrepreneur friends didn’t either. 

But I do know that a lot of my entrepreneur friends grew up with parents who were also entrepreneurs, so they were always around that world so it makes sense that this is their destiny.

But me? Not the case! I grew up with a mom who has been working at the same bank since she was 23. She started as a teller and over the years has made her way up to senior leadership. (She’s a freakin’ boss and I really admire her for it.)

My dad did work in the family auto body business with my grandpa, but at the time I was too young to realize it was a family business and didn't connect those dots until much later in life.

So when it came time for me to think about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always thought about the more traditional jobs, like teachers, nurses, and things of that nature. (And let me be clear - there is NOTHING wrong with traditional careers like that! We alllll need you.)

I never even considered the fact that I could quite literally do ANYTHING I wanted and I could be my own boss while doing it.

In fact, if you were to ask 5, 10, and maybe even 15 year old Natalie what she wanted to be when she grew up, she probably would have told you that she wanted to be a teacher. 

And that’s only because I didn’t know that being a stay at home mom was a thing. 😂

For real, my most vivid memories of playing as a kid include “teaching” to my classroom complete with a dry erase board and podium that I made my dad make for me so I could be “official.”

I even made myself a teacher name badge and “graded papers” like it was no one's business. If I wasn’t playing teacher in my room, I was outside riding my golf cart with a baby doll in the backseat in a makeshift car seat “running errands.”

You know, things like going to the grocery store, picking up my other kids from soccer practice, all the mom things. 

It’s so funny to look back on these things as an adult because there’s usually a throughline, or as Taylor Swift would say – an invisible string — that makes sense for where you actually end up.

The Origin Story of Natty Writes

When I graduated high school and went to college, I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I had this vision of working with kids in some capacity, so I gave the whole teacher thing a shot.

I took one education class and had to observe an elementary school class and that’s when I realized being a teacher was a big NOPE from me. 🙅🏼‍♀️

But I still liked the idea of working with kids in some capacity, so I changed my major to Human Services – which basically meant that I could go on to grad school to become a school counselor or child psychologist.

During college, I didn’t have a formal job so I would pick up random gigs here and there to make enough money to pay for gas, my newfound Chick-fil-A obsession (growing up, my small town didn’t have one, so I didn’t discover CFA until then!), and of course my spring break trips to Panama City.

One of those gigs was working for my sister! She owned her own (very successful) Etsy business and needed a content writer. And I needed some cash. 

Insert: my first writing gig! (Aside from being on the yearbook committee in high school and writing romantic articles about prom at the ripe age of 16 – that plays out I guess. Another invisible string that now makes me chuckle.)

A few blog posts for my sister turned into Instagram captions and that turned into writing Etsy listings.

Little did I know that this thing I was doing that was basically a hobby at the time was an ACTUAL THING that people did for a living.

Like for real, I had NO CLUE what people meant when they said their major was Marketing – wish someone would’ve filled me in earlier. 🥲

So, silly me kept attending my child psychology and human behavior classes and dreaming about the cute little office I would have one day with a couch and mini fridge as a school counselor. (From what I hear, that’s not what it’s like at all…)

Then, a few weeks out from college graduation, I realized something that I wish I would’ve realized way sooner… if you're going to be a counselor, you have to go to grad school. HA! I wasn’t about to spend more time in school and my parents weren’t about to spend more money to get me there.

Sis to the rescue once again! She’s always been a marketing girlie and at the time held a Director of Marketing position at a law firm. She had a lot of work on her plate and was looking to hire a digital content writer… and apparently I was one?! 

As someone who was determined to have a job locked in before I walked across the graduation stage, I was like SIGN ME UP!

(That was the first time I realized that people really don’t care about your college degree all that much. 🙃)

A short 3 months later, it was clear that I loved the work I was doing, but hated the place. Turns out, law firms aren’t for me and the people aren’t all that nice – and as a sensitive Susie, I need niceness, okay?

But without that law firm and the mean people (minus my sister and maybe 3 others) that came with it, I would’ve never discovered that you really can write words for a living.

So, I gave up the original dream of having a cute counselor’s office and have been writing ever since. 

From sales pages and launch sequences for a multi-six-figure online business, to blogs and emails for a photo camper side hustle that I once had, to lots of Instagram and social captions for some of my first clients on UpWork, and NOW primarily emails and blogs for various business owners (because I don’t industry niche), I figured out what lights me up – and it’s the content that really matters.

The content that you own.

The content that never expires.

The content that keeps on giving YEARS after it’s been posted.

Blog content.

So no, I didn’t go to school for this.

But there was always an ~invisible string~ that led me to what Natty Writes is today.

Oh and about that whole working with kids thing? I now have a cute little writing assistant that stays home with me so I’m living the stay at home, working mom life while writing words for a living. 👶🏼✍🏼