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Amber Hinds

My Story

I’ve blogged off and on since middle school (back before online journals were even called blogs), took a break toward the end of college, and then, as I neared my twenty-fifth birthday, felt the itch to start blogging again.  I started this blog in 2010 as a way to share my experiences striving to match my reality to the dream and vision I have for my life.  It is a blog about finding joy on the road to becoming who I am at heart, even in moments when joy feels out of reach — these moments are what I call the “not-quite-there.”

This blog, this path, has taken me from the life of a full-time working mother in New York’s Hudson Valley to the life of a stay-at-home mother on Nantucket island, to 10 months in northern Wyoming cowboy country, a couple of years in Northern Colorado, and now Central Texas where I own a digital marketing agency with my husband, Chris.  I write about balancing business ownership with a growing family, mothering my daughters, travel, attempting to meet personal goals, and other bits and pieces of life.

Quick Facts

little random things

Years in business:

6 years freelance; 4 years agency

Favorite Travel Spot:

along the Snake River near Wilder, Idaho

#TravelGoals:

take photos of our girls at every state capitol building

Guilty Pleasure:

dark chocolate & hiding in my closet with a book

IN ANOTHER LIFE:

I’d own a small farm & home school in New England

Parenting Style:

home birth, breastfeeding, baby wearing, Montessori

watercolor feather and abstract flower background
Amber Hinds headshot 2020

My Family

I’m a 30-something who got married right out of college to a fabulous man who has been my life partner for more than 10 years and is now my business partner too.  Together, we have four daughters: Nora, Zara, Adelaide, and Vivienne.

I always knew that I wanted to be a mom, but what I didn’t know is that I would discover a love for entrepreneurship.

My Business Journey

I was a stay-at-home mom on Nantucket, babysitting to help make ends meet, when a friend asked me to help her set up her WordPress site.  One thing led to another, and soon I was designing and developing websites as a freelancer – plus helping with all sorts of other marketing-related things.

Though I initially fought it (I had dreams of owning a maternity store and doing lactation consultation work), I eventually realized that not only was I good at online marketing, but I liked it too.  After freelancing off and on for three years, in 2014, I decided to get serious about making my business legitimate.  

In 2015, my husband caught the bug and started helping part-time – by the end of that year, we realized that our dream was to have a business that fully supported our family and for both of us have the freedom of self-employment.  In January 2016, we rebranded my business from Au Coeur Design to Road Warrior Creative, and I took a break from blogging to focus on the new company.  We set financial goals, and by May of 2016, Chris gave notice at his job.

amber and chris with laptops
Chris and me in 2015 when we first started our business.

We’ve since grown the business to a team of eight distributed across the U.S., building websites and running digital marketing campaigns for enterprise businesses, government agencies, nonprofits and social good organizations. Some of our clients include Colorado State University, Lesbians Who Tech, Workforce Solutions Panhandle, Lean Startup Co., and Tommy’s Superfoods.  We’re in the process of becoming a certified B-corp.

beyond the blog

Other Places to Find Me

In addition to running my business, I founded, and for 3 years chaired, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Allied Women Entrepreneurs, which helped women in Northern Colorado start and grow businesses.  I run the Austin Food Marketing meetup, am a co-organizer of the Georgetown WordPress Meetup, and frequently speak on topics related to marketing and entrepreneurship at conferences and events across the country. Visit my speaking page for a calendar of upcoming engagements. 

I’ve been a guest lecturer at Colorado State University and have been featured in Forbes, The New York Times, Huffington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as on numerous podcasts, blogs, and other websites. My family’s journey to full-time RV living was told on an episode of Going RV on the Great American Country channel (sister station to HGTV) in July of 2018. See more press.

You can find me on social media on Instagram, LinkedIn, and (occasionally) Twitter.

Life Right Now

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Sep 20

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Everyone on Instagram is posting photos of pumpkins and beautiful trees and cozy sweaters, and I'm all like "Let's go for an impromptu swim at the lake with friends." Part of me feels a little left out that we don't get fall down here and misses New England like crazy, but then I think: you can't knock sunshine, local cider, and watching happy girls splash around, no matter what month the calendar says. #itsfallyall, Texas style.

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Sep 19

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This year has been overwhelming on so many fronts and I, like many parents, have been trying hard to stay upbeat and positive for my daughters, so they can be at least a little shielded from the anxiety we're feeling about the state of the world. Today as I was chauffeuring the girls around to dance I heard the news of RGB's passing and it was like a punch in the gut. I gasped reflexively and dropped an F-bomb right there in the car without even realizing it (which says a lot because I never swear). I have four daughters and never before have I been so worried about their future. I used to think that we were handing them a world that was in-progress, yes, but still ready to be their oyster. Now, I am terrified of the crumbling world we're going to leave them with, and the opportunities that they might not have under an ultra conservative government. These are the faces of the future. This is who we're fighting for, who we're voting for come fall ... girls who will someday be women and who should have full bodily autonomy and equal opportunities in their work and personal lives, as should their peers with Black and brown skin. Biden may not be your first choice - he certainly wasn't mine - but it's time to get him in the White House...if only because we need to make sure that these beautiful girls are handed a world that values them.

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Sep 8

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I don’t have sisters, only a boatload of brothers, and never had a large group of female friends in high school or college, so I’m approaching the years when we’ll have multiple teenage girls in our house with a measure of caution. I’m female, yes, but I’ve never surrounded myself with lots of other girls or women, and I’ve never been a girly-girl.⠀ ⠀ That said, I’ve certainly experienced more than my fair share of teen drama and emotions run rampant, and as we start to near the teenage years I’ve been reflecting on how my own experiences can shape who I am as a mother of daughters.⠀ ⠀ From the early days of when I became a mother, I have tried to foster an environment of trust and open communication between me and the girls. Chris and I have never lied to them – not even about holidays – and have tried to involve the girls fully in our life choices, dreams, and realities. That means we have had many transparent conversations about things I never had with my parents, like about finances and money. We’ve involved them in major life decisions like moving and invited them to be present at the births of their younger sisters.⠀ ⠀ My hope is that if I make it easy for them to talk to me now, and show that I’m just as honest with them as I expect them to be with me, that will continue into adolescence.⠀ ⠀ Last year, Nora and I started writing in a shared journal, part of The Care & Keeping of Us books by @americangirlbrand. This has been a wonderful way to write back and forth between each other and has led to some great face-to-face conversations as well (though I'll admit that I don't always respond as quickly as she might like me to). If you have a teen or tween daughter I can't recommend this book more.⠀ ⠀ Check my blog for a letter that I wrote to Nora on her birthday.

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Sep 6

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I have an eleven-year-old. At times I feel like Nora’s birthdays are celebrations, but also tiny losses. They’re bittersweet moments to marvel at future possibilities and find joy in the past year’s accomplishments, but also moments when I mourn the loss of tiny, sticky fingers reaching for my hand or slow, warm breath as she slept curled beneath the quilt on my bed.⠀ ⠀ Over the years and months – sometimes over a single day – I watched Nora’s babyhood melt away like an ice cream cone in the hot sun. Childhood never lasts long enough no matter how you try to savor it; dripping down your fingers despite how strongly you will it to stay cold so you can enjoy it more slowly.⠀ ⠀ Each year I think about how the last 12 months have slipped away. It seems like she went from a tiny baby to a toddler, to a six-year-old missing her front teeth, then a tween in the blink of an eye.⠀ ⠀ Perhaps it’s always that way for firstborns: you’re never really ready for them to grow up and every milestone comes and goes when you’re looking the other way. Then suddenly they’re on the cusp of their teenage years and you realize that there’s only a handful of years left until they leave home on their own forever.⠀ ⠀ This is Nora at 11. Still the kind and thoughtful girl that she was at two. A beautiful spirit who thinks about others first and is our "right-hand woman" around the house, helping with her sisters and chores happily. She's studious, loves to read, plays piano, is a beautiful dancer, and thinks she might one day want to be a writer.

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Sep 1

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What school looks like these days. We set up a temporary folding table desk in our living room so they could have a focus space outside their room and brought our printer home from the office. It works and the two of them are doing an amazing job at self motivating and staying focused...but we do miss school. All the computer time is hard for our Montessori kids, who're used to working with manipulatives and paper and pencils rather than tech. Fingers crossed the school can reopen in September.
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