Illustration by Justin Tran
Kristin Richardson knows how hard it is to be a parent and have a demanding full-time job, which is why she started a business that offers help with the workload.
In the run-up to Christmas two years ago, Richardson was working full time from home as chief sales and marketing manager for a medical company. Amid her nearly nonstop phone calls, she was ordering holiday cards and making party plans for her two daughters, whose birthdays fall around the start of the new year.
At the end of one particularly harrowing day, she recalls, “I hadn’t eaten, I had a raging headache, and I was dehydrated. That was my breaking point.”
Richardson’s initial solution was to advertise for a personal assistant. The only applicant was a man living in the Philippines. Then she investigated companies that provide online personal assistants. “They don’t know your market,” she says. “They don’t know the best party place or where to get the best ham biscuits for the party. Nor do they have in-person relationships in the community to grease the skids and get things done.”
So last summer, Richardson created what she needed: a team of local personal assistants who stand ready to help with life’s many demands. She says she named the company Sherah not to refer to the superhero She-Ra or the biblical architect Sheerah but to evoke a strong woman. “We like to say we help women rise up and roar,” Richardson says.
“This is a beautiful community of women helping women,” she says, noting that her goal is to provide support for women who wish to stay in the workforce, as well as to hire those who want to set their own schedules. “My team is mostly stay-at-home moms, but there’s also a woman who has a J.D. and MBA; another has a master’s degree in psychology,” she says. “These are smart, accomplished women who wanted to take a step back and put their families first.”
Kristin Richardson, founder of Sherah, works at home with her daughters Kora, age 9, and Blake, age 7. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Richardson’s clients are primarily working women but also include a few stay-at-home moms and single fathers. She notes that every parent faces days filled with demands, which can mean that some tasks just keep getting pushed to the side. One client who is a physician hadn’t seen her dentist in a decade until a Sherah assistant scheduled it for her.
Here’s how it works: A $100 monthly membership fee grants access to a team of personal assistants. Coverage begins with a 60- to 90-minute session during which the team gets to know the client and their needs and preferences. From there, a task list is created and prioritized, and jobs are assigned within the team.
An annual membership is available for $1,200, which includes an hour of free task time per month. A premium membership is also offered for $5,520 per year, covering eight hours per month.
The membership fee also includes proactive information — reminding members to think about camps, family birthdays, annual events, etc. — and tips about local vendors and new experiences in town. The monthly fee is essential, Richardson says, to provide customized assistance and meet client needs appropriately. “We are doing our best to stay ahead of members to make suggestions that help their lives run more smoothly without them always having to ask,” she says.
Specific tasks — such as arranging for a squirrel to be removed from a client’s attic the week before Christmas — are billed at $15 per quarter-hour. “We called the preferred vendor, spoke with the specialist, booked the appointment, confirmed the time was OK with the client, and added it to her calendar and her husband’s to remind them,” Richardson says. “That took 15 minutes total.”
Emily Krause, who signed on as a Sherah client in September, says she struggled with letting go of the internal guilt over needing help. “There’s the ever-growing list that sits there in the back of your mind and causes constant stress — getting our COVID-19 boosters, researching contractors for the house, calling to schedule the sprinkler guy to blow out the lines,” she says. “Every Monday, I’d say I’m going to do those things. And by Friday, I’d feel like a failure because I’d done none of them.”
Krause says that, in two months’ time, her to-do list for six months “vanished.” Additionally, her Sherah assistant, a registered nurse, was able to help establish a sorely needed care plan for a family member. “We had a knowledgeable, caring person to engage with us,” she says. “She was very thorough and gave us options, which was important for me and my loved ones who were also involved.”
It can feel selfish to ask for help, but if it means my mental health is preserved and I can show up for my loved ones and my job, then it’s worth it.
—Emily Krause, Sherah client
Getting things done is only part of the benefit, Krause says. “It can feel selfish to ask for help or hire a personal assistant service to wrap Christmas presents, but honestly, if it means my mental health is preserved, and I can show up for my loved ones, and I can show up for my job, then it’s worth it. I can think of something, send a quick message and move on. It’s the same reason you hire somebody to cut the grass — you want that time back on your Saturday.”
Richardson says she routinely hears from clients about the impact Sherah is having in their lives. “One client said her child says she seems happier,” Richardson says. “I heard from another client, a banking executive, that she’s pursuing a promotion. She said she wouldn’t have the confidence to go after the job if she didn’t know she had us behind her. She wants that big job; why shouldn’t she be able to go for it?
“I’m working harder than I ever have, but this is the most fun I’ve had in my career,” Richardson adds. “To get help for these women and hear their relief, it’s worth it.”
Learn more about Sherah by going to mysherah.com or emailing info@mysherah.com.
