What started as a stay-at-home mom’s blog in Chatham has grown into a Central Illinois-based digital business reaching millions of people each month.
Kasey Schwartz, founder of AllThingsMamma.com, began sharing family stories and recipes in 2009 while raising her children. Today, the site features about 1,700 recipes, from breakfast casseroles and Buffalo chicken dip to no-bake desserts and family favorites. At its busiest around the holidays, All Things Mamma can attract as many as 10 million visitors in a month.
Schwartz taught herself the technology needed to build the website and gradually transformed the blog into a full-time business. What began as a side project eventually surpassed her home-daycare income, allowing her to build a team of five to 10 people working remotely in photography, writing, social media and other areas. Many are moms who, like Schwartz, wanted flexible work while raising their families.
The food-content business hasn't been without challenges. Changes to Google and Pinterest dramatically reduced traffic, while artificial intelligence is reshaping how people find information online. Schwartz responded by auditing and updating older content, expanding social media promotion and embracing AI as a business tool. She says AllThingsMamma.com has since recovered its traffic.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, Schwartz's advice is simple: don't let fear of change stop you. Learn from your business community, seek help when you need it and keep moving forward.
Transcribed by AI with human review for readability and accuracy.
Randy Eccles:
This is Community Voices on 91.9 UIS. I'm co-host Randy Eccles. We are joined today by someone you may know but may not realize is from Central Illinois, Kasey Schwartz. You're affiliated with All Things Mamma. What is All Things Mamma?
Kasey Schwartz:
It is a recipe site that's here in Central Illinois, started in Chatham. I share easy, everyday family recipes and I've been doing so for the last 17 years.
Randy Eccles:
That's a good amount of time. There must be a few recipes there.
Kasey Schwartz:
I have a few. I have about 1700.
Randy Eccles:
How do I start using this site?
Kasey Schwartz:
You can go there for anything that you would want every day for your family, or whether you need something for one person and it's just yourself. I have recipes for that all the way up to a larger family event. Some of my top recipes are breakfast casseroles, easy desserts, and no bake desserts. Buffalo chicken dip is one of my top recipes of all time. It's amazing. Also, a waffle recipe and a breakfast casserole. Those are all great recipes that people come to find every day.
Randy Eccles:
Are you aggregating recipes that you found?
Kasey Schwartz:
My story goes back to when I started a blog to talk about my kids. I would share recipes and things that they loved every day as an outlet because I stayed home with them. It was back when blogs had just started in 2009. There weren’t many out there yet. As time went on, I would share more of my family recipes because that's what people loved and that's what they would come for. Some are summer recipes like pasta salad. Then I put my own twist on it and come up with recipes that way as well. That's quite a few.
Randy Eccles:
I would guess that you have grown the audience over the 17 years. Tell us a little bit about that journey.
Kasey Schwartz:
It started out as me doing everything. I didn't know how to run a website, but I taught myself. So I went to YouTube, started adding things and doing all the tech stuff myself. As the time went on and everything grew, I started to hire a little bit of help. We now have tech people. I have photographers now and writers that also help me out because it's turned into something much larger than I ever expected.
Randy Eccles:
All this is out of Chatham.
Kasey Schwartz:
Yes, it is. Out of my office, right off of my kitchen.
Randy Eccles:
You have the URL AllThingsMamma.com. That's where people can go to find things. Is there an app? Are there other ways that you can get all things Mamma? How's the brand extended?
Kasey Schwartz:
It's everywhere. Anywhere that you would go on social media or online, you can find me. If you type All Things Mamma into Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing, anywhere that you would go, I'm going to pop up. We are on Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Lemon 8, FeedFeed, wherever you go, you'll be able to find us.
Randy Eccles:
This is a competitive area to be in. There are a lot of folks in food, in recipes. What's the niche that's working?
Kasey Schwartz:
One of the competitive edges that I have is that I've been around for so long. Because I've been doing this for the last 17 years, I do pretty well. I have a great audience that recognizes me, recognizes my recipes. Now video is so huge, so a lot of times when a video starts, people recognize me. I also have an e-mail list of about 60 to 100,000 people. Depending on the time of year, we have visitors that come to All Things Mamma million a month, all the way up to 10 million a month around Christmas time. Just depends on how much people are cooking.
Randy Eccles:
If you're trying to get ready for Thanksgiving or anytime like that.
Kasey Schwartz:
Huge, huge.
Randy Eccles:
You started something off relatively small and it's grown. Sometimes folks can say, “Oh, I don't want that to grow anymore. How have you faced this growth path?”
Kasey Schwartz:
When I started out, I used to be the executive director for the Carlinville Chamber of Commerce. I love business, love to be creative. I used to run the Carlinville Christmas Market and a lot of the events -- Super Summer Weekend. Then I wanted to stay home with my kids.
I started in home daycare there. My husband worked in Springfield, and we thought, why not move? We found a home in Chatham. It's an easier drive for him.
The website gave me an outlet. Over the next maybe 8 years, I did it on the side while I did daycare, while my kids were little. It worked out. I had two more in that time. I have three kids, Ella, Andrew, and Sydney.
As it grew, I knew that it could become a business. I could see how the industry was changing, talking to them and about what they were doing. I was starting to work with brands to do reviews about their products, or they would send you products and they pay you to talk about them. I thought, “I'm going to go all in. I am going to grow this business the most that I can and do that full time.”
It started to happen to where that income overtook the daycare income. I quit doing daycare and I just went all-in. Then I hired one person to help me with social media. Then that person turned into two people with social media, which turned into a writer that would help me occasionally, which turned into a photographer that would help me occasionally. It gradually grew to where I have, depending on the time of year, 5 to 10 people that help me out with All Things Mamma.
Randy Eccles:
Do they mostly work from home?
Kasey Schwartz:
They work from home. They're from all over the United States and even other countries. I have people that help me with photography and graphic design and things like that.
Randy Eccles:
Food photography is not an easy thing.
Kasey Schwartz:
I'm okay with giving that up. I enjoy every portion. Anything that has happened on All Things Mamma, I know how to do and I can do. But photography is competitive. If something's not beautiful and looks appetizing, it's not going to do as well. There are people that are amazing at that. Those are the photographers that I have. But some of the photography you see on All Things Mamma, I've done. There's a bit of what I've done and then I have a couple photographers that I work with regularly as well.
Randy Eccles:
Have you had to build out an office at the house or convert the garage?
Kasey Schwartz:
I got lucky. The house we moved into when we moved to Chatham had an office. It's not little, it's a normal-sized room right off the kitchen with doors on it. However, I have remodeled my kitchen since then.
Randy Eccles:
Has it been upgraded to the professional level?
Kasey Schwartz:
I don't know if it's professional level, but it is a nice, pretty kitchen that I love to work in, and it works well. I live in an older home. We went ahead and updated our kitchen to what I needed.
Randy Eccles:
Do you have recipes for people who have convection stoves? I hear it's different to cook that way.
Kasey Schwartz:
Yeah, any way that you want to cook, air fryer, convection, slow cooker, instant pot. All our recipes on All Things Mamma usually have something on there that tells you how to make them that way.
Randy Eccles:
Do you have the function on the site where you can say, “I've got these few things that have been straggling in my pantry, what can I cook with them?”
Kasey Schwartz:
I don't have a slider, but really if you type in beef or chicken or whatever ingredients you want to look for, if you just type that into the search, you'll find something.
Randy Eccles:
What's been the most surprising part so far on this journey?
Kasey Schwartz:
How large it has grown. I knew that it could be something that would support my family but being able to support so many other families from the contractors that work with me has been huge. Most of them are all moms who work at home that want to stay home with their kids. Some are young, some are closer to my age that have older kids at this point. This is what they do as their full-time work. Being able to do that and help support them and also support my family along with my husband has been such a blessing.
Randy Eccles:
Is it relatively flexible for you or are you working all the time?
Kasey Schwartz:
No, it's flexible at this point because I run everything.
I'm also the face; I still do all the videos. You'll see me a lot on social media. I also plan all the content. I'm the editor. I am doing finances. I'm still in it day-to-day. However, I can get away from my desk, which is what I wanted to be able to do to help to raise my family.
I have one in college currently. She's going to be a junior, one that's going to be a freshman in college. They're both leaving the same weekend and I don't know how I'm going to do this. I also have a freshman. They're very active. That's what I wanted to be able to do. I wanted to be able to go to school parties. I wanted to go to the baseball games, the doctor's appointments. I'm still able to do those things.
Randy Eccles:
Have we stopped lettuce recipes due to recent illnesses?
Kasey Schwartz:
I'm still eating lettuce. But I am looking local. A lot more farmers’ market produce. I go to the Apple Barn.
I also have a little shop that has expanded out of All Things Mamma. It's in Carlinville. I have always wanted to have an extension of All Things Mamma. To be a place that people could go to, to carry the products that I use every day, to be able to meet me, and just get out from behind my desk. Now that my kids are older, I'm able to do that. I had been looking in Chatham and Springfield for a storefront to do that, to also have my studio and run everything out of but also have a little retail section.
During that time, my sister opened a store in Carlinville on the square called Apothecary Market -- as I'm looking. I was helping her because she was new to the promotion world and marketing and always having a love for Carlinville where I used to help grow the businesses there. I always wanted to have a business on the square, but it didn't make sense with me living in Chatham. She said, “Why don't you come in with me? Why don't you bring all the products that you were going to do in your shop up there? You can still open that later or whenever you're ready and find a spot. But in the meantime, why don't we do this together?” So that's what we did.
Randy Eccles:
So, a prototype in Carlinville?
Kasey Schwartz:
It's going on in Carlinville. It's called Apothecary Market and Kitchen now because you can get kitchen products. Also, we sell a lot of Illinois, West Virginia, and Midwest natural care products, because I'm originally from West Virginia. She also has a refillery where you can come in and refill your bottles with natural products. It's been amazing. I have loved it so much.
Randy Eccles:
You've gone through a lot in developing both a blog and a brand. What advice would you give somebody trying to start and grow a business?
Kasey Schwartz:
One of the things that I've learned the most is connecting with people in your business community and learning as much as you can from them. Also being in contact with someone that is at least at your level but maybe knows just a bit more than you do. One of the things that is scary once you're starting a business is to make that first hire. Someone that does know a little more than you. Whatever that pain point is that you're doing every day, that maybe you can't figure out quite right, take the leap. Even if you're hiring someone, part-time to come in and consult with you on what to do one time, or on an ongoing basis. That is when my business really started to grow. It's scary to think I'm going to have to pay someone to help me. But I don't think you have to jump right in and hire someone full-time. If it's an hour a week or five hours a week or a month, this is going to really be a place that you can grow.
Randy Eccles:
You started off with the blog. There's a lot of video happening now. There are big changes going on in the digital technical area, SEO or search, as AI increases. AI is swallowing a lot of content and not sending people back to the sites, it’s just giving the results. Is that impacting all things Mamma.
Kasey Schwartz:
It's been a huge impact. Last year when Google made some changes, we were hit with about a 70% traffic drop. Within the next month, Pinterest got knocked down about 60%. We had a huge traffic cut, which is scary. We had to pivot and change.
The last data I heard was that with AI, we have seen more changes in the last eight months in internet traffic than in the last eight years, which is huge. We're having to pivot and change.
Right now, if you go to All Things Mamma, we're working with AI because AI is huge. It helps me so much in my business. Things that used to take me hours a month -- to analyze data and analytics and financials and things -- I can do in 10 minutes for the month. That's something that can help your business. In my 17 years’ experience, I have seen where they scare you with these things they're going to do, and then it will even out. We'll all figure out how to pivot and change, or they'll realize this is not a good idea, and they'll switch to a way that isn't so scary.
Randy Eccles:
How are you overcoming the drop in search?
Kasey Schwartz:
I had a site audit with Kasey Marquis. If you have a website, he's amazing, especially in the food world, but he can do any type of website. We looked at a lot of the things that would maybe slow our site down. What should we do to change that? We analyzed that type of data and then we went back over the past 17 years’ worth of posts. We refreshed, we updated, we pushed it out to social media. What happens is when you have a website like this in search, when you post something on your website, let's just say Buffalo chicken dip, I post that on my website, but then I'm going to also go out and I'm going to share it in all the ways. Social media on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Lemon 8, all those things. We’re going to try to have somebody else share it. Those all send signals to Google that this is important. It's going to push you back up in search, especially when you've been around as long as I have. That's what we've been doing. We have gotten our traffic back and more since then.
Randy Eccles:
You've got this incredible site of recipes, All Things Mamma. What is the trend we're seeing right now with food? What are people looking for?
Kasey Schwartz:
I try to post healthy recipes, but that is not what people come for. They come for anything that is sweet, delicious, cheesy, amazing. Right now, we're in summer, so it's all no-bake desserts, poke cake recipes, dump cake recipes. I don't know if you've made a dump cake, and it may sound silly, but it's so easy. You just take a box of cake mix, so yellow, chocolate, whatever, your favorite pie filling, so let's just say cherry, you put that in a 9 by 13 dish, put your cherry pie filling down, top it with a dry cake mix, pour it over the top with one butter, and bake it at 350 for 30 minutes and you have a cake.
Randy Eccles:
You're not mixing it up?
Kasey Schwartz:
No, you're not. You're dumping it in the pan and you're baking it, and it becomes cake. People love it. I have all kinds of those on All Things Mamma.
People are still eating breakfast casserole. People are still coming for that, even though it's summer. All my breakfast casseroles, I have like 25 or 30. They're amazing. All the cheesy goodness, fattening stuff, that's what people love. It might be my audience, but they come from Google also.
Randy Eccles:
You do have healthy stuff.
Kasey Schwartz:
If you want a healthy chicken recipe, I have you. But if you also want something that's really going to comfort you, I have that as well.
Randy Eccles:
We're talking with Kasey Schwartz of All Things Mamma. Kasey, is there any wisdom you've learned you'd like to leave us with?
Kasey Schwartz:
Talking about business, you should just keep on. Don't listen to all the things that people are saying. Of course, you have to be educated about what's happening in the world around you. Don't let fear paralyze you -- of all the changes that are happening, or that can come. Keep your head down and keep going. That also works in life with all the things going on around us as well.
Also, local businesses that you shop in or use for your services -- don't forget those people because that is the backbone of our community. Even though I'm a national brand, I also have a ton of people local that follow me that I am so grateful. I will be in Target and people be, “Hey, aren't you All Things Mamma?” I’m in my workout clothes. People that I see at school, “Hey, I made this. It’s now my family recipe.” Don't forget those people and go out and support them as well.
Randy Eccles:
We appreciate you joining us here on Community Voices. We're talking with Kasey Schwartz of AllThingsMamma.com. You can find lots of recipes there, as Kasey has told us about. It's beautiful to see local folks do well -- people from Central Illinois not only figure out a small business to start with, but one that grows. Congratulations on making all that happen. Is there anything else you wanted to say before we wrap up?
Kasey Schwartz:
Come visit. Make sure if you do see me in public or like or share one of my posts that you message me and say, hey, I heard you on Community Voices.
Randy Eccles:
Kasey, thanks for joining us.
Kasey Schwartz:
Thanks for having me.
