We had the good fortune of connecting with Nikki and Anna Hollerich and Hagen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nikki and Anna, what do you attribute your success to?
If we had to sum up why we think we are successful, the word ‘grit’ comes to mind. From the get go, we said yes to almost every opportunity that was presented to us. We are ‘yes’ girls. We have learned from those experiences and narrowed down how we use our time best, but for the most part when someone asked us to be at a show, make a project, do a colab, the answer was yes! This is what we have come to call planting seeds. Overtime we have made so many connections, done so many events and met so many people that our seeds are now are growing. We don’t have a magic answer

What should our readers know about your business?
We like to say we capture moments in wood. A group of (primarily) women work together in the woodshop to create hand crafted art. We are most excited about creating portraits of adorable pets. We have worked hard over the years to perfect our skill on the saw and staining to get the detail we want. We know that are many people who make woodwork, we feel excited that we have found a way to use our community to scale that process. Five years ago we brought a band saw home from our in-laws. We spent an entire weekend creating a piece to go in my house. From that one post 7 people asked if we could make them one… so we did. The business has grown to three brick and morter shared spaces and about 20 staff since then. There have been many challenges along the way. One thing that we have learned is that there is likely a solution to every problem, so we work to find it. We love a creative challenge as well. We want the world to know we can capture their special moments in wood while creating a super cool community of humans.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If our best friends were visiting us we would be sooo excited to show off Minnesotas amazing culture. If there is one thing we know first hand its that Minnesota LOVES to support local. They buy local gifts, support local food and absolutely make a lot of local beer. If COVID wasn’t a current threat there would absolutely be some sort of festival happening in Minneapolis/st paul. It doesn’t matter the time of year, when its freezing cold you still can find people out and about doing crazy things like the polar plunge or kite contest on frozen lakes. When its beautiful temperature you can find the same people eating tasty food, drinking local drinks. We are hard core fans of the Minnesota State Fair and all of the support that it draws out.

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?
Shout out to our parents Don and Carol. They taught us to be strong and confident and not to let gender rolls get in our way. We are so thankful that we were raised to conquer and not to fear. There have been countless conversations and situations that we can draw on our ability to think creatively, this is no doubt due to our parents continuing to think outside of the box growing up. We are thankful for their drive and their passion to love us.

Website: hagenandoats.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hagenandoats/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hagen-and-Oats-431311760380660/

Image Credits
Photos By Kelly Weldon