Why It Took Me 18 Years to Make a Founder Video
And what I’ve learned about the power of storytelling.
After 18 years of building businesses, creating products, and pouring my heart into entrepreneurship, I finally did something I’ve never done before: I filmed a founder video.
It’s wild to admit that. For someone who has always loved reading and listening to biographies—who is endlessly fascinated by the winding paths people take, the strokes of luck, the hustle, and the inevitable bumps along the way—it never occurred to me that my story might be something people want to hear.
That realization hit me during a marketing course I took recently. The instructor kept emphasizing: people don’t just buy your product—they buy into you. Your story. Your why. Your grit. I had a bit of a lightbulb moment. Here I was, always digging into other people’s journeys, admiring the way they overcame doubt or followed a hunch—and yet I’d never shared my own.
It wasn’t that I was hiding. I just never thought it mattered.
But when I finally sat down to do it—to tell the story of how I started, how Domo Tea came to be, and all the twists and turns that led here—it felt oddly emotional. Because the truth is, this brand wasn’t built overnight. It’s been shaped by years of experimentation, a few bold leaps, some hard lessons, and a whole lot of resilience. It’s been shaped by motherhood, by working late after putting my kids to bed, by learning how to trust my gut and read the spreadsheets. It’s been shaped by community, creativity, and a stubborn belief that we could make something better—for ourselves, for others, for the planet.
So yes, it took me 18 years. But I finally pressed record. And I’m proud of what came out.
If you’re reading this and you’ve been hesitant to share your own origin story—don’t wait as long as I did. People connect to people. And your journey, however messy or nonlinear it’s been, might just be the thing that inspires someone else to start their own.
Here’s to showing up—and to the stories that get us there.