Heart & Soul

What Heart & Soul does

Heart & Soul is a privately held for-profit publishing company founded in 1993 and headquartered in Bowie, Maryland, United States. The company produces editorial content across four consumer lifestyle verticals — fitness, food, beauty, and health — serving readers seeking wellness-oriented editorial coverage. The company operates with a small team of 11-50 employees under founder-led leadership, with Susie Busch-Transou serving as Founder, Owner, and CEO since inception. Heart & Soul has maintained founder ownership and continuity for approximately three decades, indicating an enduring brand presence in its editorial niche.

The company's digital surface is minimal: the heartandsoul.com website currently displays only a verification/placeholder page rather than active publishing content, and no mobile app, API, social media profiles, or integrations are documented in the source material. There is no disclosed proprietary technology, content management infrastructure, or AI/ML tooling referenced anywhere in the available data. Core technology fields are empty across all source inputs (explicitly confirms no API exists), and there are no patents, trademarks, certifications, or compliance designations listed.

Heart & Soul's business model is not specified in the source materials — no pricing model, advertising structure, subscription terms, distribution partnerships, or revenue mechanics are disclosed. The company is privately held with no funding rounds, no parent company, no subsidiaries, no M&A activity, and no disclosed investors. Ownership commentary explicitly notes that no parent company, founder control dynamics, or investor information is evidenced beyond Susie Busch-Transou's role as Founder/Owner/CEO. Given the absence of disclosed monetization mechanisms, the company's revenue generation, customer base composition, and go-to-market motion are not determinable from available evidence.

Name

Heart & Soul

Website

https://heartandsoul.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1993

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Heart & Soul is a privately held publishing company founded in 1993 in Bowie, Maryland, producing editorial content on fitness, food, beauty, and health for lifestyle and wellness audiences, led by founder Susie Busch-Transou.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Bowie

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Core offering

Heart & Soul is a multimedia publishing company that produces editorial content across four lifestyle categories — fitness, food, beauty, and health — for individual readers. It also operates as a venue that hosts branded events (such as Black Wealth Events) for its consumer audience.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Heart & Soul fitness editorial
• Heart & Soul food editorial
• Heart & Soul beauty editorial
• Heart & Soul health editorial
• Heart & Soul branded event venue

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Recent moves1 record

Direct peers

• Black Enterprise: Black Enterprise publishes content targeting African American audiences across multiple verticals including business, lifestyle, and wellness. It shares Heart & Soul's niche audience orientation and multi-vertical publishing approach.
• Essence Communications (Essence Magazine): Essence is the most directly comparable peer: a long-running magazine publisher serving Black women with content spanning beauty, health, wellness, and culture. Heart & Soul occupies a similar editorial lane with overlapping advertiser audiences and target demographics.
• Upscale Magazine: Upscale Magazine covers fashion, beauty, health, and lifestyle for Black women. It competes with Heart & Soul for both readers and advertisers in the multicultural women's magazine category.
• Honey Magazine: Honey Magazine targets Black women with content on beauty, fashion, and lifestyle. It is a direct competitor in the multicultural women's health and beauty publishing space that Heart & Soul occupies.

Emerging players

• Blavity Inc. Blavity is a digital media company serving Black audiences with lifestyle, culture, and wellness content. It represents the digital-native evolution of multicultural publishing that Heart & Soul could either compete with or partner alongside.
• Essence Ventures (Beautycon, AfroTech event portfolio): Essence Ventures has expanded Essence's brand into events and experiential media targeting Black audiences. It represents a potential roadmap for Heart & Soul to diversify beyond publishing into events, content licensing, and branded experiences.

Broad incumbents

• O, The Oprah Magazine: O Magazine covers wellness, beauty, food, and lifestyle for women broadly. While it serves a wider demographic than Heart & Soul, it competes for the same health and beauty advertising categories and editorial attention.
• Self Magazine: Self is an established women's wellness, beauty, and fitness publisher. It shares Heart & Soul's editorial pillars and competes for the same category advertising budgets from health and beauty brands.
• Shape Magazine: Shape is a mainstream health and fitness magazine with broader audience reach. It overlaps with Heart & Soul's fitness and wellness editorial coverage and competes for similar advertisers in the health vertical.
• Women's Health Magazine: Women's Health is a major incumbent publisher covering fitness, nutrition, beauty, and wellness for women. It competes for cross-demographic advertiser dollars and editorial mindshare in the same content verticals as Heart & Soul.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat1 record

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/the-official-heart-soul-magazinetv-508084492601154

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Heart & Soul