We had the good fortune of connecting with Shelbie Flegal and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shelbie, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
We started off with a son with awful ezxcema. None of the fancy creams or steroids would help his skin. We were also in the middle of a pandemic, trying to live more sustainably and just provide for our family in a time when things were incredibly unstable. We had a flock of chickens, 2 diary goats and a large garden. We were raising our own meat from the chickens, collecting eggs, growing and preserving vegetables and now we had these new goats who could provide us with diary. A quick google search reviled all the things you can do with goats milk. A healthier alternative to cow’s milk to drink, cheese, Carmel, whipped cream and soap!
We instantly thought the soap would be a great way to potentially help my sons skin and utilize another resource we had on our small homestead. After A LOT of trial and error and teaching myself the skill of crafting soap, we developed a recipe that completely fixed my sons skin. We no longer had to invest in fancy creams or medications, we just used a soap that we created from milk from our homestead.
We thought, what if people would buy this? we made our first batch of about 800 bars of soap and sold our within a month during Christmas of 2021. From that point up, we came up with a business plan, created the LLC and a logo and never looked back!
Over the last 13 months we have grossed over 75k in sales and are now in 6 retail locations across northwest Ohio. We also provide custom soap for special occasions as well.
We are honored that people love our soap as much as we do. Our customers really appreciate the natural, earthy feel to our soap. We never use any artificial chemicals, preservatives or palm oil. We create a bar of soap using 100% goats milk from our herd of Nigerian dwarf goats and a combination of oils that gently cleanses your skin. Clean natural ingredients are always the most important thing to us.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am a firefighter/paramedic and K9 handler for Springfield Township Fire Department. I have been in this field since I was 18 and have loved it ever since. The homesteading became a hobby as a way to decompress after long shifts. I love my schedule at work, I work a 24 hour shift and then I am off for 72 hours. So my professional career gives me plenty of free time for my business. I enjoy the time of attending trade shows and marketing my product to new customers. Springtime is always fun because we get back into the habit of milking the goats and birthing the baby goats, so as chaotic as it gets it is a wonderful time.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Im really not much of a go out on the town person. Most of my friends from our of town love coming to the farm to visit all the animals.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
From Goat to Soap is a FAMILY business at its heart. My mother and I started it together when my husband did his first deployment overseas with the Army National Guard. When he came home after a year, he jumped right into it with us. My husband’s parents help watch our three young children when we go to trade shows, and my dad has helped build a lot of infrastructure for us, all the way down to the first soap molds we ever used. We also have made some amazing connections with other small businesses in northwest Ohio and across the country.
I became a part of the Northwest Ohio Small Business Mentorship program and when Jerrika Brown with the Brown’s Agency took my under her wing and has helped my leaps and bounds by learning the small business management side of things. I quickly learned there is more to a soap business than just making soap.

Website: [email protected]

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flegalfamilyhomestead?fbclid=IwAR23p5AymoV36tgPqC00mEum9PIdkyXybVks9J2DPQhRcARty_dKnmwtF4s

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flegalhomestead/

Other: @flegalfamilyhomestead

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutMichigan is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.