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  • 15 June, 2020

    Making Wellness and Entrepreneurship Approachable with Trinity Mouzon Wofford

    Taylor Simmons

    Meet Trinity Mouzon Wofford, a Brooklyn-based entrepreneur, who co-founded Golde in 2017. Wanting to bring good vibes to the wellness industry, Trinity and her now fiancé Issey use natural ingredients such as turmeric, cacao and matcha to create products good for both your insides and outsides. Typically found in their natural state (turmeric as spice, cacao as chocolate and matcha as tea), Golde has given these ingredients a second life as latte blends and face masks, both meant to be a part of your daily routine.

    We sat down with Trinity, wearing our Rosalie Caftan in Light Blue Vine, to talk about her interest in wellness, her desire to make wellness more approachable and the many ways in which she demystifies entrepreneurship for those in it or thinking about it. P.S. She also wore our Caftan for this feature in The Cut!

    Where did the idea for Golde come from and, once you had the idea, what was the process to launch? 

    The idea for Golde was born from my own experiences as a consumer in the wellness space. I was feeling caught between the sort of "crunchy granola" stuff I grew up with in New York's Hudson Valley and the ultra-luxe offerings that were becoming more commonplace.

    I started the business with my now-fiancé, Issey, while we were both still at our full-time jobs. We didn't really have any resources to put into it, besides maybe $5K between the two of us. Issey taught himself how to do packaging design and product photography, and I took the lead on figuring out sales and marketing. From there, we really just took it one day at a time.

    Had you always been interested in the wellness industry?

    I first got really into wellness through my mom. She has an autoimmune disease that she started seeing a holistically-minded physician for, and saw this incredible improvement in her symptoms. That inspired me to pursue a career in holistic care, so I was pre-med at NYU. All was well until I found out from my mom that she had to stop seeing that doctor because she couldn't afford it. I abandoned my plans for med school, frustrated by the lack of accessibility to holistic care, and sort of fell into a marketing career in New York. I absolutely loved it, but I knew I wanted to come back to wellness somehow. That's the mindset Golde was born from in 2017.

    As a relaunch, Coco Shop is interested in the idea of taking something old and making it new again. Your hero ingredients have been used for centuries in different capacities. How did you choose them and decide to transform them into daily wellness and beauty routines?

    I think up until now "modern wellness" has felt either woo-woo or totally out of reach. For us, it's about taking these superfood ingredients and making them approachable to the everyday person. When it comes to the cultural heritage of things like turmeric and matcha, we're really sensitive to not claim ownership of that narrative (although Issey is from Japan!), but to guide our audience around an experience with the product.

    You’ve created a series called Office Hours to demystify the life of an entrepreneur. Why was that important for you to begin?

    When I first started Golde, I was learning everything from square one. I realized that so much of entrepreneurship was opaque, and while young people had more and more interest in starting their own businesses, there were no guides that felt honest and authentic. I think the biggest myth of entrepreneurship is that its some sort of box to tick to prove you're successful. Starting a company is not for everyone, and that's okay! I wanted to shed more light on the realities of being a founder so that people could honestly assess whether it was a path they wanted to go down.

     

    Editor's Note: On June 9th, in addition to Office Hours, Trinity announced she would begin Mentor Mondays, mentoring a founder for 30 minutes every Monday on their growing business. Truly sought-after time!

     

    Is there anything that makes you feel personally renewed and ready to take on what’s next?

    I like to stretch, go for walks, listen to jazz (shoutout WBGO!). Anything that gets my brain off of work is usually a good thing.

    For anyone new to Golde, is there a product you usually suggest one tries first?

    Right now, I'm loving our Cacao Turmeric blend in coffee. If you're a coffee drinker, this is a really easy start! It turns your coffee into a mocha-spice kind of flavor.