Companiesandme

People often ask us "Why do you make your Kombucha with Yerba Mate tea?" and my typical response is "because it's delicious," but I rarely get into all of the details of why Yerba Mate is so special. Grown in the sub-tropical rainforests of Argentina, Brail and Paraguay, yerba mate has long been revered as the “drink of the gods”.  The Pasteur Institute and the Paris Scientific society concluded "it is difficult to find a...

There are many clear and compelling benefits to purchasing recycled paper and yet some level of debate still exists in the marketplace about its benefits versus virgin fiber. To help you navigate this debate, we are hosting a webinar on Tuesday, March 9th at 11am PST featuring Susan Kinsella, the Executive Director of Conservatree.  Susan is an expert on environmental paper and environmentally preferable product procurement issues.  In addition, we have compiled a short list of...

It's hard for me to believe that the vision of Companiesandme is finally being unveiled today. That vision is to curate the rich stories of companies around us, and to bring us closer to the people behind them. As we unveil the site, I find myself completely inspired by the type of people who have taken the time to share their stories and engage in a real conversation with you. There aren't many places where...

How I fell into tea? Many people ask me how I got into tea. Actually, the question is not so much how did I get into tea but rather how I got into tea after getting into art after getting into engineering. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio after my family immigrated from Baghdad, Iraq when I was five. My father was a doctor who worked around the clock raising his children, putting them through...

At Joie de Vivre, our mission is to create opportunities to celebrate the joy of life. Every day I get to do this through our Golden Gate Greeter program, which pairs hotel guests with local volunteers who give them a free insider’s tour of San Francisco. The tours are conducted on foot or using public transportation so there’s no separation from experiencing each neighborhood. Exploring San Francisco with a native is like hanging out with...

Although the more drawn out story of Linden Street Brewery has chapters in far flung parts of the globe, it is right here in our own backyard that the true gold was to be found---gold in the form of a long lost brewing tradition just begging to be unearthed and brought back to life.  A golden glow, faded for nearly 50 years, that need only a little polishing and love to realize a new era...

People often ask me why I named my company Joie de Vivre. It's an unusual name for an American company, to say the least. It's French. It's hard to spell and to pronounce.  The name came to me when I was 26 and working as a real estate developer, my first job when I graduated from Stanford Business School. I was young and my future by all external indicators was bright, but I wasn't happy....

My husband Todd and I started Happy Girl Kitchen because we had an innate desire to preserve. Preserve something perfect that would otherwise go to waste (or in our case, compost). While sourcing ingredients from local farms, we noticed that there was a huge amount of the harvest that was pristine, but would not make it to a customer in time to be enjoyed. Our preserves could capture this otherwise neglected harvest. Word got out...

I'm particularly interested in just how attached people are to the bags they carry -- men as well as women. From frumpsters to fashionistas, just about everyone has something to say about their bag -- how it looks, how it works, where they got it, and where they've been with it. It's also amazing how people personalize and embellish their bags with patches, pins, pens and bobbles. The bag is a remarkable blend of function,...

Starting NUMI was a major decision beyond just starting a business; it was about lifestyle, place of living, the way the mind works, and many more intricacies that weren't even clear to me at that time.  My sister and I had the idea in late 1998 on a trip our family took to the Grand Canyon, but I was still living on my farm in Europe and couldn't even imagine living in the US and...