How Trinity Mouzon Wofford Balances Business, Family, and Community

Wellness had an image problem. That’s one realization that helped shape Golde, the brand Trinity Mouzon Wofford launched with a turmeric latte blend eight years ago. 

“There were $95 premium protein powders and there were items from the grocery store that felt really uninspired,” Wofford tells Well+Good. But there wasn’t much in between. 

Wofford grew up watching her mom manage a severe autoimmune disease, and originally planned to go to medical school after seeing the benefits of holistic solutions first hand. Instead, she and her partner (and now-husband), Issey Kobori, decided to start a business together, taking “the world of wellness and superfoods and [creating] a brand that felt really engaging and approachable.” And from that, Golde was born.

Almost a decade in, Golde now sells three turmeric latte blends—the original, plus a matcha and a cacao blend—as well as pure ceremonial-grade matcha, a coconut-milk-based vegan vanilla creamer designed to boost collagen, and “super-ades” designed to help with hydration, stress, and gut support (of these, Pineapple Debloat is the most popular). 

There’s also the Kardashian-approved Clean Green Face Mask and the Super Whisk, a cult-favorite frother. “I wanted to create products that were really exciting, reflective of the moment I was in in my own life, and that people really craved.”

As her company grew, her family did too. In the past few years, the Brooklyn-based entrepreneur had a baby, got married five weeks postpartum—her wedding, complete with vintage dress, was featured in Vogue—and recently welcomed her second child. 

"There's something really beautiful that happens when we become mothers, which is that we take one step back, and it just gives us an inch more perspective around the border of the painting that we've looking at."

Becoming a parent helped give her some of the much-needed perspective that embodies her business. In Golde’s growth phase, Wofford felt she “needed to take on a startup founder persona—work work work, being in back-to-back Zoom calls, just hustling it out as hard as I could.” But when she made transition into motherhood, she couldn’t put all the hours in the day into the business. 

“We're in this era right now where we are putting entrepreneurs up on pedestals, saying that the holiest thing you can be is very accomplished… and so the best thing you can do is to dedicate everything you have to it, right? Even on social media, we’re sort of saying—hey, I’m Trinity, and I’m the founder of Golde. That identity link is really, really tight.”

Wofford doesn’t think that’s inherently a bad thing—she loves her work and her company. “But I think that there's something really beautiful that happens when we become mothers, which is that we take one step back, and it just gives us an inch more perspective around the border of the painting that we've looking at.” 

She notes that her number one priority will never be the hours she clocked in a week. “That [realization] has been beautiful and freeing, and has encouraged me to be more dedicated and excited about the business,” she says. The added perspective has allowed her to think about how to build the business “in a way that serves me, my family, my community, and my customers in a really joyfully authentic way.”

But taking stock in priorities doesn’t necessarily mean slowing down. Case in point: New Golde products are coming soon, Wofford teases, and she just turned in her first cookbook manuscript. 

“Cooking has become the everyday practice that gives me a little bit of peace and space and connects me with my family. The point of the book is to say, hey, rather than trying to squeeze cooking out of your life with takeout and pre-packaged food, let's embrace it.” She wants folks to be able to "find achievable ways to cook nourishing meals" at home. 

The book is a collection of recipes, tips, and ideas. “It’s sort of a permission slip to say, take this moment and breathe and enjoy it, and actually sit around the table. I mean, God forbid you take a lunch break, right? The things are sort of taboo, but they shouldn’t be, and that’s the vision for the book.” 

It’s a philosophy that fits right in with Golde’s approach: Nourishing yourself in a wholesome way, Wofford says, versus gamifying health and earning points.

For example, she points out a lot of companies in the space market themselves to be very directly solutions-oriented: take this to get that. While Golde highlights the intended benefits of the superfood ingredients they use in their products, Wofford doesn’t agree with a quid pro quo wellness mindset. “There’s a pressure to suggest that consumers aren’t getting enough of something, and that if they don’t get it, they’re going to get sick. And then the basis of your interaction with the product is fear and scarcity. I couldn't get behind that.”

Instead, Golde continues to focus on better-for-you ingredients in a way that feels accessible. 

“A lot of these superfoods are rooted in long-time traditions like Ayurveda or Traditional Chinese Medicine, and I think it’s important to delineate that if someone has a serious health concern or they’re really looking to transform their well-being, there are hundreds of years of beneficial practice they can tap into.” 

Ultimately, with Golde, Wofford hopes people work these ingredients into their morning routines or afternoon rituals. “We really see Golde products as this great little treat in your day.”

Fitting for a CEO whose company centers on making wellness more accessible for her customers, she also works hard to connect with founders and demystify the process of starting a business. “I haven’t seen it all, but I’ve seen a lot of it. And I found that building a network of founder friends and being able to tap them when we’re going through things has been so important.” At first, she made a point to casually help people who reached out to her over DMs asking for advice. That scaled into more formal group coaching and sharing information about subjects like marketing and financial modeling publicly on Instagram. 

“I love and welcome these opportunities,” she says. “At the end of the day, business imitates life, so for me, there’s something lovely about learning what works in a business and finding that reflected back in the way I am moving through the world in general.”