Raised by a single parent with a chronic health condition, Golde founder Trinity Mouzon Wofford saw firsthand how difficult it can be to get the right medical care. When Wofford was a teenager, her mom started seeing a holistically focused clinician and experienced a huge improvement in her symptoms. “It was really like night and day,” Wofford says. “So that really inspired me and made me feel like, ‘Okay, this is what I want to do.’” She saw an opportunity to help other people in her mom’s position who needed comprehensive medical care to treat all of the aspects of a chronic condition.

Wofford was on the premed track in college and fully intended to go to medical school to pursue holistic medicine. But then, something happened that made her stop and question if that was really the best way for her to help people improve their wellness.

“All was well until I found out from my mom that she actually had to stop seeing that doctor because she just couldn’t afford it anymore,” Wofford shares. “And so that really kind of forced me to pause and consider what exactly it was that I wanted to do, in wellness and this piece of accessibility played into it.”

Around the same time, she started to consider her own role as a consumer in the wellness space. She ultimately found that there wasn’t much out there that aligned with her values. She describes feeling caught between the no-frills approach to wellness she was taught growing up, and all the flashy new offerings in the booming wellness industry. “This next wave of offerings that felt so prestige that it didn’t really align with my values, and I certainly couldn’t afford it,” Wofford says. She didn’t see a brand out there that felt like it fit for those who wanted to try adding more wellness-focused products to their routine in an affordable, accessible way.

So, she made one herself. Golde is a wellness and beauty company that sells plant-based products (think: turmeric lattes and probiotic digestive enzymes) and is focused on making wellness and self-care accessible, fun, and easy to incorporate into your lifestyle. “We really try to meet our consumers where they’re at,” Wofford says.

How Golde Was Born

After graduating from college, Wofford fell into a marketing career at a tech startup in New York. She loved it, but still kept coming back to her wellness-focused dreams. “I was definitely that friend or coworker who was recommending various herbal remedies to you, depending on how you were feeling, so I knew I had to get back to that somehow.”

In 2017, she founded Golde with her high school sweetheart. He grew up in a family business, which she credits for giving them a window into entrepreneurship—for allowing them to see what could be possible if they put in the work. “That sort of sowed the seeds of possibility,” Wofford says.

They decided to take the leap and start this business. Both stayed at their full-time jobs. “We launched Golde with around $2,000 in savings between the two of us.” They were 23, with no industry connections or investors. “We taught ourselves how to design the packaging. We taught ourselves how to do product photography. We were blending up the first versions of our turmeric latte blend in our Brooklyn apartment.”