On building / A personal essay
Entrepreneurship is action.
Learning to build a business, grow a family, and trust ourselves to figure out what comes next.
Read the essayNotes on business and life
Good things
take tending.
I’m sharing what I’ve learned building Seattle Tree Care—about leading people, creating lasting value, and deciding what success means to me.
Kelsey GruenwoldtCo-founder, Seattle Tree Care · Seattle, Washington
What I’m interested in
PeoplePerspectivePossibility
01 / The writing
What I’ve
learned.
Notes from nearly two decades of building Seattle Tree Care, raising a family, and learning as I go.
Published perspective
Big-Picture Thinking for Daily Excellence in Tree Care Businesses (opens in a new tab)
How a longer view can shape the daily decisions that help a company, and the people in it, thrive.
Read in TCI Magazine (opens in a new tab)Personal notes
More than a job.
Understanding the company’s value beyond a single year’s income changed how I thought about borrowing to fund its growth.
Read the notePeople shouldn’t
have to guess.
What are we building? Why? How does each person contribute, and how do they benefit?
Read the noteWhat am I
waiting for?
A question I asked myself facing the Sea of Cortez, and the answer I’m trying to put into practice.
Read the note02 / A little about me
How I got
here.
I’m Kelsey. Peter and I have spent nearly two decades building Seattle Tree Care and raising our family.
We began in 2007 with a practical goal: supporting our growing family. We were raising our kids while building the business, and the two have always been intermingled.
In 2017, we changed our name from Treecycle to Seattle Tree Care to better reflect the services we offered our clients. In 2018, I began to understand that we could intentionally build value in the company beyond what it earned in a single year.
That understanding made me more comfortable using debt to fund future growth. By 2020, we had made our first investment in commercial real estate and were more confident investing in our fleet and equipment. Managing our balance sheet took on new meaning.
Much of what I’ve learned since has been about people and communication: explaining what we’re building, setting clear expectations, helping people develop, and paying attention to how we lead. I’m interested in the work behind those ideas, including the things we have had to learn more than once.
I’m a fourth-generation Seattleite. Family, travel, and time outdoors matter to me. I’ve been keeping notes on what I’ve learned from building a business and raising kids. This is where I’m beginning to turn those notes into stories.
The company we’re building (opens in a new tab)From the family photos
Raising kids and
building a business
The two have always been part of the same story.
From my notebook
A few
working rules.
01Keep explaining what we’re building.
What are we building? Why? How does each person contribute, and how do they benefit? Leaders need to keep that conversation going. Explaining it once isn’t enough.
02Stop learning the same lessons.
Write down the process, the decision, and the reasoning behind it. Give the next person something to build on, so the company can carry what we’ve learned forward.
03People notice what we do.
How we respond, follow through, and hold ourselves accountable matters. Our actions need to support the expectations we set and the story we’re telling.
03 / Keep the conversation going
Let’s
compare notes.
If you’re building a business, leading a team, or putting your own experience into words, I’d enjoy hearing what you’re learning.
Connect on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)Seattle, WashingtonWith care, Kelsey