This Started on a Vision Board

In 2016, I put six businesses on a vision board.

Because apparently having one idea has never really been my thing.

Sipsy was one of them.

At the time, I didn’t have all the details figured out. There wasn’t a perfectly curated website waiting in my head. No packaging lined up on a shelf. No five-year rollout strategy.

Just six ideas and a very strong feeling that I could make something out of them.

Fast-forward a few years:

Three came to pass.

Two more are currently in the making.

And these days, instead of constantly asking myself “What else can I start?” I’m spending more time asking a better question:

What deserves more of me?

Because I’ve learned something about ideas.

Having one is easy.

Okay, maybe particularly easy for me. 😂

Building one into something that brings you joy, makes money, survives your changing mind, and still feels like you years later?

That’s different.

Sipsy was one of the ones that stayed.

The idea showed up in 2016.

By 2020, Sipsy existed.

In 2021, I started working on giving her a proper home online.

And somewhere between the vision board and the website and everything that’s happened since, I’ve changed.

My taste changed.

My ideas got bigger.

I got clearer about what I wanted—and probably even clearer about what I didn’t want.

But the core of it never really changed.

I wanted whatever I built to feel like me.

Not Founder Me.

Not Professional Me.

Not What I Think A Luxury Brand Owner Is Supposed To Sound Like Me.

R.I.

All of her.

And that’s a lot of personalities to fit into one room.

I’m spicy.

I’m poised.

I’m cultured.

I’m introverted.

I’m extroverted.

Yes, both. Mind your business. 😂

I’m analytical enough to research something to death and inquisitive enough to immediately find three more things to research while I’m doing it.

I like beautiful things.

I like things with a little edge.

I want to know where something came from, who made it, why they made it that way, what they eat it with and whether somebody’s grandmother is somewhere arguing that everybody else has been doing it wrong.

And underneath all of that?

I’m a girl born and raised in the Bronx.

Let’s be clear. 💪🏾😂

That matters.

The Bronx taught me that culture doesn’t have to be explained before you experience it.

You hear it.

Smell it.

Eat it.

Walk past it.

Grow up beside it.

Somebody introduces you to something that didn’t exist in your house, and suddenly it’s part of your life too.

Maybe that’s part of why I’ve always been so curious about food.

So I’m fine-tuning now.

That’s probably the best word for this chapter.

I’m not trying to become somebody completely different.

I’m looking at the things I’ve built—the ones that worked, the ones that brought me joy, the ones I still find myself thinking about years later—and asking:

What could this become if I gave it the version of me that exists now?

Not 2016 me.

Not 2020 me.

Me.

Right now.

I don’t know if that means the vision board worked exactly as planned.

Actually, knowing me, I’m fairly certain it did not. 😂

But three became real.

Two are still cooking.

And the ones that made me happiest?

I’m not done with them yet.

Not even close.

— RI