“Being creative and solving problems every single day has been the most gratifying thing, and the thing that I have loved to do for my entire career.”
Running a household can feel like running a startup. Calendars, schedules, routines, school events, grocery lists, childcare logistics: the invisible work of family management can quickly become overwhelming, especially for working parents trying to balance both business and home life.
For Mei Lin Ng, that daily chaos became the inspiration behind Hearth Display, a family organization platform designed to help families stay connected, coordinated, and less overwhelmed. What started as a personal pain point eventually evolved into a fast-growing tech company used in thousands of homes across the country.
In this episode of the Entreprenista Podcast, we sit down with Mei Lin Ng, co-founder and CEO of Hearth Display. She shares her incredible journey from studying photography to revolutionizing family life through innovative technology. Discover how Mei Lin transformed her passion into a successful startup, the hurdles she faced in raising capital, and the importance of customer love and feedback. She emphasizes breaking down big ideas into manageable milestones, reminding us all that every great venture starts small. Tune in for valuable insights into fundraising, marketing, and the importance of building authentic relationships in business.
You can listen to the podcast here on Spotify and Apple Podcast.
Here are a few moments from the podcast
Mei Lin shares how her definition of entrepreneurship completely changed after entering the startup world.
“I really just discovered it by doing. I started my career out in New York when I was 21 years old and happened to honestly fall into the startup scene in New York City and immediately just fell in love. I actually find it so creative and so that really satisfies the part of me that formerly thought I was going to be an artist for the rest of my life. Getting to just be creative and solve problems every single day has been the most gratifying thing and the thing that I have loved to do for my entire career.”
She explains how the idea for Hearth Display came directly from the everyday challenges families face trying to stay organized.
“Whatever it takes just to run a household and have that coordination of care across multiple stakeholders is such a difficult process. And so it just became clear that we've adopted tech in every different part of our life... And so it was crazy to me that way back in 2020 and even still today... there wasn't one technology solution, one platform for the family that they could live their lives on and coordinate all the chaos of family life in one place.”
Mei Lin talks about how she validated the Hearth Display concept before fully committing to the business.
“We decided to just put together a couple of the most basic ads you can think of and put them on and run a couple of Facebook ads... we threw like $100 behind some Facebook ads and got like several hundred responses to a survey we put out there via Facebook ads and started to have phone calls. And actually some of those people that we had early conversations with... are actually still customers today.”
She opens up about the reality of fundraising as a female founder building a hardware startup.
“People don't like hardware. People don't like women founders. You know, the challenges and the barriers are absolutely real. And so we weren't able to get funding when we first went out and took our first attempt at that... We ended up scraping together across like 20 investors, 100K of angel funding. And that's what we used to run this mini pre-order campaign.”
One of the biggest mindset shifts in her fundraising journey came from realizing she was offering investors an opportunity — not asking for permission.
“I felt like I was like begging for money and asking for money and that puts you in the wrong headspace for sure about your business and the opportunity and confidence in yourself... And so getting to reframe that and having somebody say that to me was so important for our journey.”
Mei Lin explains why customer love became one of the biggest growth drivers behind Hearth Display’s viral success.
“We've really, our focus has been on creators, not necessarily influencers... real families who would use Hearth... And so very quickly from starting this program, we've gone viral so many times... some of our videos have had almost 10 million views just going organically viral on Instagram reels or on TikTok. And that just has to do again with customers love the product.”
She also shares one of the biggest lessons she’s learned as both a founder and a mom.
“I never get to the end of the day and have checked off everything on my list. And so I have to know what the highest impact things are... Sometimes there's only one thing that I need to get done today. And knowing how to manage that and how to really focus on the most important thing... If I get this thing done, I can go to bed and know that the rest of the list will be there for me tomorrow.”
You may also like
- Meet the Investors Funding the Next Generation of Women Founders
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- Why Your Personal Brand is Your Greatest Business Asset
Connect with Mei Lin Ng:
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Updated on: May 26, 2026
Guests
Mei Lin Ng
Hosts
Stephanie Cartin
Co-founder of Socialfly and Entreprenista.
Stephanie Cartin is the co-founder and CEO of Entreprenista, an all-in-one platform – which includes a private community & business membership called The Entreprenista League that's made up of over 2,000 women founders at all stages of business, a weekly newsletter received by 60,000 readers, two podcasts, in-person educational & networking events, and an award program – that women founders at all stages can turn to for everything they need to grow.
Stephanie is also the co-founder of Socialfly (acquired by Truform Media Group in 2024), Markid, and Pearl Influential Capital. She has won countless awards, including the SmartCEO Brava award, which recognizes the top women CEOs in New York, and a Stevie Award for Women-Run Workplace of the Year. She has also appeared in Bloomberg, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Refinery29, and more.
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