Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Pearl Reist.
Hi Emily, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
How to Handyma’am is a podcast and education arm of our main construction business. Samantha Pearl (my mom) and I started working on the house her and my dad bought in 2020. It was an old house from 1856 and needed a lot of work done to it. We decided to demo ourselves and have “real” contractors do the finishing since we didn’t know what we were doing. Then COVID hit and suddenly largely no contractors were coming into peoples houses. We decided to take on the renovations ourselves and learn almost everything the hardest possible way.
Inspired by the confidence we gained from the complete remodel we did, we decided to buy a flip house and completely renovate it. We gutted the house down to the studs and worked for 9 1/2 months bring it back to life. Here we perfected our craft and learned a lot from our mistakes on the first property we worked on. People saw what we were doing via facebook on this property and wanted us to do work of their homes. We started small with building a shed door for a friend and then it grew from there. In the last 6 years we have served about 800 different clients and built up a lovely crew of hardworking people around us. We hired Arly, a co-host of the pod, as our first full-time employee and trained her along side us. Now having been on this journey with us for 3 of our six years, she has become like family and joined in our mission to teach women these skills.
6 years ago we didn’t have any of the skills we now know and absolutely believe every woman can learn these skills. Enter the podcast, How to Handyma’am. We’re on a mission to make the trades, taking care of your home, and contractor relationship accessible to women and empower them to have choices about how their homes (and their own lives) are run and managed. To us it isn’t as simple as picking up tools, but opening up an entire world of what is possible with some knowledge and community.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth road.
Running a small business is not the easiest path to choose in life. Aside from the podcast, the construction company we run does about 600 projects a year. Running a small crew and a high level of service comes along with its own set of challenges, and we decided to add running a small media empire on top of that. Running MyHandyma’am is our day job, and How to Handyma’am is our dream that we are pouring our heart and soul into around the main business.
We have a motto that helps even in the roughest patches: “Make it exist first, make it good later.” So with largely imperfect amounts of time and resources, we just choose to show up imperfectly and get our message out into the world, that women can do it.
Another struggle we’ve had is managing the expectations of being women in construction. It can be hard being visible in a male-dominated field because we’re greeted largely with skepticism and often the thought that we don’t know what we are doing because we are women. Sometimes we reply with our credentials (Samantha and I are licensed residential builders), and we are still told that doesn’t matter because there is no way we know what we are doing! These people fuel us on, though, and tell us we are pushing back against expectations in the exact way we should be and showing women that there are women who can do this, and they can too!
The struggles make the highs extremely worth it, and to be doing it together with Samantha and Arly makes even the struggles seem not too bad!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am an artist and designer by trade, which is exactly what I thought I’d be doing after college. While my mom and I were starting the business, I was earning my degree at the University of Michigan. I actually custom-built my General Studies major to focus on graphic design, art, entrepreneurship, and social media, though I wasn’t entirely sure how I would use it yet. A career in the trades wasn’t something ever suggested to me in school. But once I picked up the tools, I realized that the core principles of art and design—spatial awareness, problem-solving, composition—translated perfectly into being a handyma’am.
Today, I’ve transitioned out of the field to serve as our Director of Business Development and Creative Services. I oversee the overall aesthetic and strategy for our social platforms and the How to Handyma’am podcast, ensuring we reach and inspire as many women as possible.
What I am most proud of is crafting a unique brand identity that completely redefines what a construction business can look like. I’ve intentionally brought feminine touches to our branding to send a clear message: you don’t have to change who you are to work in this industry or take care of your own home. You can just be yourself.
What truly sets us apart is how we blend this design-first mindset with practical execution. I specialize in helping clients look past temporary design trends to create timeless spaces that genuinely feel like them. I am also an Aging in Place Specialist, which allows me to focus heavily on the long-term functionality of a home. Whether I’m working with a client or guiding our podcast listeners, my goal is to provide practical, accessible advice that gives a home the look, flow, and independence they deserve—no matter their budget.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
If I could go back to 2020, when my mom and I were staring at a gutted 1856 farmhouse with absolutely no idea what we were doing, my absolute best piece of advice would be: make it exist first, make it good later.
As an artist, this is a rule I live by. You can’t edit a blank canvas, and you can’t refine a piece of art that doesn’t exist yet. The same goes for starting a business, picking up a power tool, or launching a podcast. You have to give yourself permission to create a messy first draft. We learned everything the hardest possible way on our first properties, but those mistakes weren’t failures—they were the actual canvas we needed to perfect our craft. Don’t let the fear of not being perfect keep you from just starting.
My other major piece of advice applies to anyone taking a leap with a family member or loved one, and it comes down to a radical acceptance of flaws. >
Building a business with my mom, Samantha Pearl, succeeded because we didn’t try to change each other to fit a corporate mold. Instead of looking at each other’s weaknesses as drawbacks, we viewed them as pieces of a puzzle. The areas where I lack aren’t vulnerabilities; they are just the exact spaces where my mom’s strengths fit in perfectly, and vice versa. When you stop fighting your partner’s flaws and start designing around them, you build a crew—and a business—that is completely unbreakable.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://howtohandymaam.com
- Instagram: @howtohandymaam
- Facebook: @howtohandymaam
- LinkedIn: @howtohandymaam
- Youtube: @howtohandymaam
