Kelly Hubbell on Mental Load, Invisible Labor, and Building Sage Haus

As a child, Kelly Hubbell watched her mother quietly carry the weight of an entire household. She did it competently, selflessly, and without complaint—but at a cost. Years of relentless pace took their toll, and Kelly’s mother developed a chronic illness, passing away at just 63.

That loss planted a question Kelly couldn’t shake: Why are so many capable, brilliant women pushed to the point of burnout in service of everyone else? Determined to imagine something different, Kelly began paying closer attention to the invisible labor holding her own life together.

The wake-up call came one year after the birth of her second child. Alongside her full-time job, Kelly realized she was spending nearly 20 hours a week managing her household—effectively working a second, unpaid, and largely unseen job. Hiring a house manager changed everything. The mental load lifted, time reappeared, and the impact was undeniable. 

Today, as founder and CEO of Sage Haus, Kelly is on a mission to make that kind of support accessible to other families. The only nationwide placement service dedicated exclusively to house managers, Sage Haus helps parents build sustainable support systems that protect their energy, reclaim their time, and challenge long-standing assumptions about who carries the load at home. In the process, the company is helping normalize long-overdue conversations about mental load and invisible labor.

Learn more about Kelly’s journey—and the meaningful work she and her team are leading—in this interview.

What are some of the most meaningful impacts your work has had so far?

We’ve watched families reclaim not just their time, but their entire lives. Parents tell us they're less resentful in their relationships, more present with their kids, and finally have space to focus on advancing their careers, nurturing friendships, or just breathing again. In just one year, we went from two people helping five families a month to over 30 team members supporting more than 40 families monthly. The demand for this work is absolutely there.

Families aren't struggling because they're failing; they're struggling because traditional solutions (a nanny, a cleaner, even a 50/50 partnership) still don't address the invisible labor and mental load that women disproportionately carry. One of the biggest shifts we've created is normalizing that conversation. Most parents don't know house manager support even exists, or they assume it's reserved for the ultra-wealthy. By educating families that this type of help is real, accessible, and designed specifically to lighten the mental load, we're breaking down decades of stigma around asking for support.

The ROI that families experience goes far beyond getting 10 to 20 hours back each week. They're showing up as the parents and partners they want to be, valuing their own time the way they've been taught to value everyone else's, and modeling for their kids that rest doesn't have to be earned by doing it all first.

How have you grown as a leader since starting your company? What experiences have contributed to this growth?

Coming from a corporate background, I experienced firsthand how workplaces say they support working parents, but often don't follow through. When I applied for a promotion at a previous company where I had the longest tenure and highest sales on the team, my boss literally asked me, “Are you sure? Don't you have three kids?” As a leader, I never want to create that moment for anyone else.

Building Sage Haus has given me the opportunity to create the workplace I always wished existed. Our team is 100% moms who truly understand the invisible labor our clients are experiencing. We've built a culture where Mondays and Fridays are meeting-free days, we have mandatory rest weeks around the holidays, and family always comes first. If someone needs to step away for an hour to get their hair done or bring their kids on a call or cancel because of a sick child, that's not just accepted—it's expected.

The biggest lesson I've learned is that trust and flexibility don't hurt productivity. In fact, they fuel it. We have a 100% match rate and are growing rapidly because our team operates from a place of feeling valued and supported. Creating a workspace that actually works for parents is good business just as much as it’s good ethics.

We dare you to brag: What achievements are you most proud of?

We're the only nationwide placement service specializing exclusively in house managers—and we're absolutely crushing it. Our growth has been wild, which is a direct result of trusting incredible moms to steer the ship and creating a work environment that actually adapts to parents instead of just tolerating them.

What's astonished me most is the range of people who've reached out. A-list celebrities, high-profile actresses, major influencers, people I assumed had every resource imaginable—they have all organically found me on Instagram and asked for help building their village. And while, yes, that's exciting and I absolutely want to brag about it, the deeper win is what it reveals: everyone needs this support, no matter what their life looks like from the outside or what we assume about their circumstances.

I'm also incredibly proud that our demand has always outpaced our capacity, which tells me this conversation is resonating. We're not just placing house managers; we're normalizing an entirely new category of support and shifting the narrative around what modern parents deserve. Watching that ripple effect and knowing we're part of rewriting the rules is the real flex.

What’s been the hardest and most rewarding part of your entrepreneurial journey?

Leaving my safe, high-level corporate job to go all in on Sage Haus. My husband and I both work full-time, and I had a position I'd worked incredibly hard for and poured my heart into. What started as helping friends and family find house managers turned into light consulting work, and when I realized there was real demand for this, I had to make a choice. With three kids depending on me, walking away from consistent income that set my family up for success to start a business from scratch felt terrifying. The numbers weren't there yet to support the leap and the income wasn't there to justify the risk, but I trusted the vision so deeply that I bet on it, anyway. That decision to fully commit was what accelerated everything, and it proved that sometimes, the boldest move is the right one. Now, I get to wake up every day doing work that genuinely changes families' lives while showing my own kids what it looks like to build something you believe in.

How do you celebrate successes along the way?

As an entrepreneur and perfectionist, there's a part of me that's constantly focused on what could be better rather than what's already working. When you work for yourself, it's hard to clock out. But since reducing burnout is the core mission of what we do at Sage Haus, I've had to train myself to remember that applies to me, too, and that everyone on my team wins when we're celebrating successes instead of just chasing the next milestone.

One of my favorite ways we've built this into our company culture is our Slack “snaps” channel, where any time someone achieves a win (big or small), we call it out and everyone gets to celebrate that person. In our monthly all-hands meetings, we dedicate time to focusing on the wins and highlighting how each part of the team is invaluable to what we're building. It's taken intentional work to shift from relentless self-critique to genuine celebration, but creating space for that has made us stronger as a team and as a business.

How would you describe the journey you’ve had in a few sentences. And would you do it all over again?

I'll never pretend entrepreneurship is easy. In a lot of ways, it's been more stressful than any other job I've had in my life, including motherhood. It's also been the most rewarding. If I were to do it all over again, I'd remind myself to celebrate the wins sooner, be softer with myself, believe in my vision even when the numbers weren't there yet, and remember there's no such thing as setting your goals too high. Most importantly, I'd tell myself what I tell every client: you can't do it alone, and leaning on your village isn't a weakness. It's what makes everything possible.

What’s next for you and your company?

We want to keep growing, keep normalizing asking for help, and stay deeply embedded in the conversation about modern parenting and mental load. We're committed to helping more families access the support they deserve, educating people about why house manager support exists and how attainable it actually is, and nurturing the incredible company culture we've built. Honestly, we're just getting started, and I can't wait to see how far this goes.