The Night Before I Started This Brand (A Letter to My Past Self)

A quiet reflection on self-trust, starting before you’re ready, and building something beautiful anyway

Jun 23, 2025

*Don’t wait for the full vision to land — just anchor in how you want it to feel. Photo by Thalia Ruiz via Unsplash.*

These are the tides beneath the surface.
The quiet thoughts, soft reckonings, & small wins that don’t always make the highlight reel.
Founder’s Notes are where I write from the in-between — building Coastelle Beauty with doubt in my pocket and vision in my chest.
If you’ve ever tried to bring something beautiful to life before you felt fully ready, this space is for you.

The night before Coastelle had a name — before a single bottle was printed or a subscriber hit “follow” — I sat on my bedroom floor, cross-legged and barefoot, wrapped in a linen robe still warm from the dryer.

The air smelled like vetiver and citrus. My desk was a collage of scraps: sticky notes, texture swatches, herbal oil samples. A cup of tea had gone cold. The light from my small lamp cast a gold spill across the paper, the laptop, my hands.

And my heart was louder than my fear.

So I did the only thing I could do:
I opened a blank document.
And I wrote a letter.

To you.
To me.
To the version of myself who hadn’t yet dared to call herself a founder.

A Letter to My Past Self

(written the night before Coastelle began)

Hey love,

I know you’re scared.

You’ve collected all the reasons why now isn’t the right time.
Why you’re too sensitive. Too soft. Too late.

Why you’ll never be that kind of founder.
But here’s what I want you to know:

You’re allowed to begin before you feel ready.
Soft starts still carry power.

You don’t need a pitch deck.
You don’t need the perfect tagline.
You don’t even need a full sentence.
You just need to move in the direction of truth.

Of beauty.
Of becoming.

I know you’re afraid that the world doesn’t need another brand.
But this isn’t about making noise.

It’s about creating calm.
It’s about crafting something intentional for women who are tired of having to perform in their own skin.

You’re not just making skincare.
You’re shaping ritual.
You’re offering softness in a culture of hard edges.

This is personal branding for the slow glow-up.
The sensitive ones. The recovering perfectionists.
The ones who want their ambition to feel like breath, not burnout.

And yes, you’ll question everything.
You’ll cry over a formula because it costs more to make it clean.
You’ll choose it anyway.

You’ll worry your ideas aren’t loud enough.
You’ll launch them anyway.

When You’re Starting a Personal Brand, Start With a Letter

Not to the market.
To yourself.

That letter, quiet and imperfect, became the soul of everything.
More than a mission statement, it was a mirror.

Not a pitch, but a promise.
And it still lives in my brand folder. Untouched.

The most honest thing I’ve ever written.

Because the most powerful thing you can offer the world isn’t a product —
It’s a presence.

If You’re Standing on the Edge of Something New…

Let it be messy. Let it be sacred.
Don’t wait for the full vision to land — just anchor in how you want it to feel.

For me, Coastelle is not just a skincare brand.
It’s a mood. A movement.

I want it to feel like:
sun-warmed stone, stillness before a wave, skin that exhales.

“Your brand doesn’t have to shout to be remembered.
It just has to feel like truth.”

Try This: Write a Letter to the You Who Wasn’t Ready Yet

If you’re dreaming something new,
write to the version of you who was still scared to begin.

Remind her that:

The beginning is allowed to be soft.
Not everything needs to scale overnight.
Small rituals build big worlds.
You already hold enough to start.

Then fold it into the foundation.

Soft starts. Brave hearts.
That’s how we build something that lasts.