Part I :: Before It Was a Business
There wasn’t a big plan. Not even a business. Just two friends creating memories over moments of doubled-over laughter.
It started almost nine years ago, right around my 40th birthday.
At the time, I was in a really consistent rhythm—5:15 a.m. workout classes three mornings a week, with a group of women who showed up in a way that felt rare. It wasn’t just a class. It was a community. The kind where you know each other’s lives, not just each other’s names.
For the first time in a while, I was making health and nutrition a priority. At home, I had been making energy bites for my family—simple, peanut butter and oat-based, made with clean ingredients that felt good.
During a conversation with a close friend, workout buddy, and neighbor, I casually mentioned that I was thinking about doing something with these bites for Christmas in Strafford and asked if she wanted to join.
Christmas in Strafford is a long-standing holiday tradition that brings people together in our little town. Local artisans and makers open their homes for visitors to shop and socialize. It’s creative, rooted in connection, and something I’ve always been proud to be part of.
She didn’t hesitate… she was all in.
That was it.
No business plan. No expectations. Just an idea that felt fun and worth exploring.
From that point on, we quietly started building something. This was in April and the event wasn’t until December.
We didn’t tell anyone, just our immediate families. We had these little “secret meetings” by the pool and late night texts back and forth, as we eagerly shaped what this could become.
For me, as a brand designer, it was never going to be just putting treats in a Ziploc bag and calling it a day. We named it. We designed it. We packaged it. We built a feeling around it. But more than anything… we gave it a mission.
It was never just about chocolate or a healthy indulgence. It was about creating an experience where women felt seen, supported, and celebrated—not competing, but lifting each other up.
That was the mission. The bites were the vehicle.
We didn’t know how to temper chocolate. We didn’t know how to coat or enrobe bites. We just knew we didn’t want to cut corners—we wanted to use real ingredients, real chocolate, and do it well.
We figured everything out as we went. And we learned… a lot. We went all in for those seven months leading up to the event.
About a month before Christmas in Strafford, we decided to create a little buzz so that people knew what we were up to. We chose 25 women—some from our early morning workout class, others from our community—and gave them a box of our bites with a note inside about our mission.
Some we delivered in person. Some we left on doorsteps. We sent text messages with a photo that simply said, “you’ve been honored.”
I still remember watching women read those notes. Some of them cried. Some of them laughed. It wasn’t about the bites. It was about what they represented.
And almost immediately, people started asking: How do I order? Can you make more? Do you ship? We didn’t have a website. We didn’t have a system. We weren’t even planning to sell outside of that single event.
But within weeks, we were taking orders, we created an online form, and somehow… we were shipping. Before Christmas in Strafford came around, we had already sold out once and had to replenish in time for the event.
That was the moment I realized that we may have stumbled upon something bigger. We talked about what it could become, but there was no real plan. It just felt exciting. New. A little all-consuming in the best way possible.
We layered NaughtyGood into our existing businesses and family lives—late nights, in-between moments, one day at a time.
Orders continued to come in. People kept asking for more. And instead of stepping back to map it all out, we just stayed in it… seeing where it could take us.
And that’s really how it began.
No business plan.
No strategy.
Just something that felt aligned for each of us… and the women who supported it.
Looking back, I can see that I’ve always been drawn to building things that carry meaning. Even before this, I had poured that same energy into something entirely different—something deeply personal (more to come on that another day).
And maybe that’s what this really was.
Not just a product.
Not even just a business.
But another way of creating something meaningful…and sharing it with others.
» Check out Part II (coming soon) to learn about the ups, the downs, and the in-betweens of NaughtyGood Bites. »