How this virtual assistant agency owner grew her revenue 15x on HoneyBook

From solopreneur to 45-person team: How Emilie Given scaled her virtual assistant business by 15x to $1.2 million in revenue in 6 years

For every person who starts their own business, there’s always “that moment.”

You know the one. The moment that pushes you to take a leap of faith, jump into the deep end, and pursue your entrepreneurial dream. For some, it’s career motivated —outgrowing a corporate role, seeking high earnings on your own terms, or wanting to be your own boss. For others, it’s about values. Our data from 2023 shows these motivators for starting your own business: greater flexibility and autonomy, or pursuing a passion beyond the traditional 9-to-5. 

For Emilie Given, founder and CEO of She’s a Given, “that moment” was a highly personal one. “I was working in corporate at Amazon as an executive assistant,” she says. “And I had a near-death experience while giving birth to my son, where both of us were at risk.” 

“At the time, I was spending 3 hours commuting every day—an hour and a half there and an hour and a half back—getting home at 6:30 and putting my baby to bed at 7:30.” 

“The experience of nearly losing mine and my baby’s life made me realize that life is really short,” continues Emilie. “And that I wanted to prioritize myself and my family.” 

So, Emilie began freelancing as a virtual executive assistant in the evenings and on the weekends. She started her business to carve out a different future for herself and her family. 

Eventually, Emilie built up a full client roster while still working full-time. By July 2019, she was ready to leave Amazon and go out on her own.  In the six years since, she’s scaled her business from a team of one to 45 visual assistants across the US, hitting seven figures and growing her revenue 15X (1,386%). 

Here’s her story. 

Building a relationship-based business at scale 

Emilie started her business as a team of one. She already had a great client roster, but to become the full-fledged agency she imagined for herself, she knew she had to scale.  

For Emilie, growing her business wasn’t about making more money. It was to create something meaningful for professional women, like her. “I wanted to create an opportunity for other women who wanted the flexibility to stay at home but still make money and have a career,” says Emilie. 

It was also about reaching a new level in her career and life. “I’m a former foster kid and I don’t have a college degree,” says Emilie. “Beyond the business, I wanted to prove to myself and to other people that I could have a successful business without a formal college education.” 

Firmly focused on growing her business, it was time for Emilie to get to work. And she went all in. “I was hungry for information. So I learned everything that I could, took a lot of courses, and invested in teachers and coaches.”

Emilie even did cold outreach to successful entrepreneurs she admired to pick their brains and learn from their experiences.

What she learned was that great relationships and communication were everything—from clients to your own team. “My business foundation became really simple. It’s just ‘hey, like, I’m actually interested in you. I want to get to know you.’” 

This approach—prioritizing honesty, authenticity, and openness—is what has set and continues to set her business apart. 

“My number one core value is relationships first.” 

In practice, this means that Emilie is uncompromising about maintaining high-quality service and personal connection, even as she scales. 

It also means staying hands-on with her business. “Even today, I take each one of my sales calls, and I am personally involved in hiring each of my employees. My number one core value is relationships first,” she emphasizes.

And it’s paid off. With relationships at her core, Emilie has built She’s a Given into a thriving business. One that has created opportunities for women across the country while maintaining the personal touch and quality service that started it all.

How HoneyBook helped Emilie grow her business 

As a HoneyBook member for over six years, Emilie has consistently leveraged the platform to support her growth from solo freelancer to agency owner. 

From the moment she went full time she knew she needed to scale her systems to match her business ambition. She started on HoneyBook as a team of one and still uses it today as her business has grown to 45 virtual assistants.

HoneyBook has supported her business growth and been a key part of her long-term success. Here are some of the features that have made the biggest impact.

Automations that streamline her workflow and save time 

Sometimes, even the simplest automations can have a transformative effect. 

What once took 10 hours now takes just one hour, thanks to HoneyBook’s automations and centralized communication. This efficiency gain doesn’t just save time—it creates capacity for Emilie to take on more clients, scale her business, and invest in strategic growth initiatives.

As the owner and operator of She’s A Given for over 6 years—Emilie’s journey has required her to take on everything from client communications and identifying leads to business strategy and growth. At the same time, Emilie is also managing her own team, and helping empower their work and growth. 

Emilie knew this wasn’t sustainable. So as the company grew, she started strategically using HoneyBook automations to dramatically reduce her workload.  

The biggest impact involves lead capture: “I used to have people fill out a Squarespace form. And then it would get sent to my email, then I would have put the project into HoneyBook manually, and then go from there,” says Emilie. “It was a time suck.” 

To cut down on all this manual work, she created an automation trigger when someone submits HoneyBook lead form so that a new project is created in her account instantly. 

Even for such a seemingly simple task, the time savings have been substantial. Now, Emilie can focus her attention on what matters most—running her business and achieving her goals. 

HoneyBook Capital

Emilie has utilized HoneyBook Capital three times to fuel her business growth, finding it far superior to traditional small business loans. 

“A lot of the other small business loans can be quite predatory. The percentages are often super high, and you’re paying it back every single week,” she explains. “With HoneyBook Capital, I really like how the payments come out of the payments that you’re being paid—so it just makes it seamless.” 

 “Through HoneyBook Capital, I’ve been able to invest in marketing, which has been huge for my business.”

HoneyBook Capital has unlocked investments in her business that range from marketing and SEO to business coaching and even emergency funding. 

“Through HoneyBook Capital I’ve been able to invest in marketing, which has been huge for growing my business,” says Emilie. “Investing in SEO marketing in particular has been incredibly helpful in driving leads and business. We now rank on the first page for virtual assistant agency, which makes our business immediately discoverable to anyone seeking this service.”

For Emilie, HoneyBook Capital has proven to be more than just funding—it’s been the catalyst that transformed her vision into measurable, sustainable success.

Personalized experiences to set her business apart 

At the heart of Emilie’s business are her client relationships, and HoneyBook has helped her maintain the personal touch her business is known for, while scaling.  

“It’s all in the details,” says Emilie. Using HoneyBook she captures client details like birthdays, like and dislikes, and family connections. “It has been really helpful in building those relationships and maintaining trust.” 

She also appreciates newer features like that help her understand her clients better: “I love how HoneyBook AI brings in information about their details and more—that’s been pretty helpful in providing that personalized touch.”

Beyond having clear information at her fingertips, HoneyBook’s core booking features—invoice, contract, and payments—have been critical to elevating her brand. “I don’t want to be the person who sends you a contract in Google Docs and then gives you an invoice from Square—it just feels so disjointed, and with HoneyBook I’ve been able to present more professionally to my clients.”

“With HoneyBook, I’ve been able to present more professionally to my clients”

When it comes to building client trust,  HoneyBook has been more than just a tool for Emilie—it’s been a growth partner. “HoneyBook has been such a great thing for my business, and it helps me feel so much more organized, and it makes me very professional as well.”

Centralized communication on HoneyBook

As the business has grown, keeping all client communication in one place has been a game-changer for Emilie—both organization and team collaboration. 

“It’s really helpful to have the whole communication chain in HoneyBook,” she notes. “I shifted away from creating emails in Gmail to talk to my clients and instead use HoneyBook’s [client] portal so that everything is trackable.”

This centralized approach has been especially valuable as she’s scaled her team. “It’s helped me delegate more efficiently because my team can have access to the conversation history, files, and entire history with a client,” Emilie explains. 

As a result, Emilie has significantly streamlined her operations and can delegate more confidently knowing her team has easy access to the information they need. All of which lets her focus on business strategy. “It’s really helped me develop and increase my capacity for growth,” says Emilie.

From a one-person team to a thriving 7-figure business

✔️$1.2 million in revenue

✔️Client onboarding process now takes 1 hour—versus 10

✔️Scaled team from 1 person to 45 people in 6 years 

✔️Grew revenue by 15X since starting her business 

The numbers tell Emilie’s story best. In six short years, she’s grown her team from one person to 45 assistants and hit the seven-figure mark, grossing $1.2 million last year alone.

This success isn’t accidental—it’s the direct result of her strategic approach to growth, leveraging HoneyBook to work more efficiently and scale rapidly. 

What’s next: Expanding her impact

Emilie’s success story is far from over. She’s now focused on two key areas of growth that align with her mission of helping others succeed.

First, she’s expanding her agency’s role in supporting the executive assistant community during challenging times like tech layoffs. “With my agency, I’ve been able to help those assistants and get them temporary work, some of which has turned into permanent placements,” says Emilie. This approach not only helps professionals navigate industry layoffs but also strengthens her talent pipeline.

Second, she’s launching a business coaching venture—another way to give back while growing her impact. Her coaching will focus on helping established business owners “spend less time in the weeds and more time in the garden.”

At the heart of both initiatives is the same philosophy that built her agency: helping people focus on what truly matters. “I really want to make that impact on other people too, to get back to what really matters in their lives,” she explains.

Just as HoneyBook enabled Emilie to focus on client relationships and strategic growth rather than administrative tasks, she wants to provide that same freedom to other business owners—creating a ripple effect of success that elevates the whole community.