JOHN SHEARER
It's a warning tirelessly reiterated: never go into business with a friend.
But turn on Netflix’s hit show Get Organized with The Home Edit and two walking contradictions grace the screen: Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin. The dynamic duo finishes each other’s sentences, laughs in perfect harmony over their countless inside jokes, and has an effortlessly magnetic energy that has captured the hearts of fans nationwide, including plenty of big-name celebrities (Hi, Reese Witherspoon).
Shearer’s and Teplin’s success in business is as undeniable as the bond they share. The organizing experts have created a signature style that proves organization can be both functional and design savvy (think color coding, unified containers, and soul-soothing aesthetics). Through their custom organizing services, Shearer and Teplin are transforming homes across the country (both on and offscreen) using form, function, and fun to create dream spaces for everyone from everyday clients to famous faces among the likes of Drew Barrymore, Tyler and Hayley Hubbard, Kelsea Ballerini, and Khloe Kardashian, to name a few. Along with being the stars and executive producers of the Emmy- nominated Netflix show, the duo has a line of organization products sold in over 25 countries and a continuously growing product line at Walmart. In addition, they have authored two New York Times bestselling books and have started their own magazine.
But what about that cardinal rule of not mixing friends and business? Well as hard as it is to believe, the pair technically didn’t start off as friends. They started as two strangers with a shared business idea simply meeting for lunch.
“Joanna famously once said that our secret is that we were never friends and I was like, ‘Whoa, what?’” Shearer says with a laugh. “But what she meant is that we started this business as people who wanted to be in business together and we were able to establish our friendship after we established our business. I think it makes it that much stronger. We became really strong partners in this business and then our friendship and our sibling-like relationship that followed is just our great, good fortune.”
When both women moved to Nashville sight unseen for their husbands’ jobs, they had no idea they would meet, let alone start a business together. In a perfect twist of fate, Shearer told a friend about her idea to start an organizing business. Coincidentally, that friend was also friends with Teplin, who previously had an organizing company in San Francisco, moved to Nashville a year prior, and was looking to reboot her company here. Although at the time Teplin had no interest in finding a business partner, she agreed to meet Shearer for lunch. They sat down at the Frothy Monkey in downtown Franklin and left four hours later as business partners.
“I had many of my own businesses in the past and never had a business partner; it just never dawned on me as an option. But the second I met Clea I was like, ‘Oh, one hundred percent this will absolutely work.’ I was in love with her from the minute I met her,” says Teplin.
“It was definitely a love at first sight lunch,” Shearer agrees. “It was that immediate. We just dove right in and we opened bank accounts the next day together. That very night we came up with the name for our business, got our social handles, and designed our logo; we just dove right in with not a minute to waste.”
As their friendship continued to blossom after that 2015 meet-up, so did their new company’s success. But The Home Edit reached incomprehensible heights when Reese Witherspoon found Shearer and Teplin on Instagram and asked her production company, Hello Sunshine, to get in touch.
“I actually pulled my car over. I was like, ‘You’re going to have to repeat this, but first I have to pull over. I need actual proof that Reese even knows who we are. This is crazy,’” Teplin recalls with a laugh. “Then it only got better from there. Reese ended up acquiring our company. It’s an amazing fairytale, the whole thing,” adds Shearer.
Although they had already mastered launching a business together, the growing popularity of the show and their business beyond the cameras meant navigating an entirely new level of success and recognition. Luckily, they have each other to experience it all with.
“This life is so rewarding and so unbelievable but it’s a lot. Even just processing the breakneck speed at which we moved and all the different projects we take on and the different verticals of our business, to do it by yourself would just be awful,” says Shearer. “I can’t imagine having done this without anybody, but especially without Clea,” Teplin agrees. “And I think that’s part of what the success of it is—the friendship and the fun that we’ve had together. It just keeps refueling itself.”
But during their biggest year to date, at the height of their success, Shearer faced a devastatingly shocking turn of events when she was diagnosed with breast cancer after finding a lump in February. Shearer found herself fighting to even get a diagnosis after she informed her OBGYN and was told there were no openings for appointments on the calendar for months. Fortunately, Shearer listened to her intuition and her body and reached out to her primary care doctor for a mammogram right away. It’s a decision Shearer credits with saving her life.
“As women we have to prioritize our health; no one is going to do it for us. I was under 40 with no history of breast cancer or any female cancers in my family and I felt something. I did a self-exam and I had to fight and advocate for myself to get screened and if I hadn’t, I would be in a much worse situation,” says Shearer, who is currently undergoing chemotheraphy. “Prioritize your health, advocate for yourself, and if you think that there’s something wrong with your body, if you feel something, if you see something, say something. It’s just critical. It saved my life.”
Throughout Shearer’s fight against cancer, her friendship with Teplin has grown into something even more meaningful with Teplin at her side every step of the way—not only as a friend, but as a steadfast support system.
“Joanna, from minute one, was so supportive. She was like, ‘Listen, we’re going to get through this together. I’m not leaving your side. I’m going to take care of you, whatever you need.’ I knew I loved her before, but it’s really cemented. I’ll say the same thing about my husband [photographer John Shearer]. I feel like I’m married to two people—like John and Joanna are morphed into one. They both have really taken care of me in this process.”
From their highest of highs, to the most unexpected of hurtles, Shearer and Teplin’s friendship knows no bounds. It’s what’s helped them build a brand that far surpassed anything they could have foreseen on that first lunch date. And with nothing but success in sight, they look forward to what’s next and will continue to do it all together.
“We’re very lucky. Luckiest people in the world. We have a lot of exciting stuff in the works,” says Shearer. “Most exciting for me, though, is being done with chemo. I will throw myself the world’s biggest party anyone has ever seen.”
And she’ll do it with her best friend by her side.