On this episode of The Brand Blueprint, Dana Ammons sits down with Michelle “Dr. Michelle” Cromwell, Ph.D., Founder of Soeur Du Sol™, a traditionally rooted functional beverage brand created for health, menopause wellbeing, midlife clarity, and women navigating powerful life transitions.

Dr. Michelle shares her journey from higher education executive and strategist to professional herbalist and founder. She opens up about her personal pivot, her time learning from traditional healers in Benin, the creation of Soeur Du Sol™, and why midlife should be associated with transition, wisdom, and joy — not “the end.”

In this conversation, we cover:

• Why Dr. Michelle says midlife is about “unadulterated joy”
• How Soeur Du Sol™ was born from ancestral wisdom, science, and lived experience
• The story behind products like Where Is My Mind and Unbreak My Heart
• How customer feedback helped reshape the brand’s hero product
• Why the brand is moving strategically into B2B, wellness, hospitality, and medical partnerships
• The importance of Local First AZ, Seed Spot, and founder accelerators
• What wellness founders need to get right early
• Why Soeur Du Sol™ is raising support to exhibit at 3 major beverage expos

Support Soeur Du Sol™:

Donate to the crowdfund: [insert crowdfund link]

Visit: www.soeurdusol.com

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to The Brand Blueprint

00:50 Introducing Dr. Michelle Cromwell and Soeur Du Sol™

02:05 Rapid Fire begins

02:23 “Never coffee. Always tea.”

02:55 Dr. Michelle’s bitter tea ritual

03:37 3:30 AM mornings, yoga, tea, and sleep discipline

06:03 What midlife should mean: transition and unadulterated joy

07:35 The word to stop associating with menopause: “the end”

08:38 Teacher inspiration: Dr. Keisha Ewers and the wisdom stage

09:41 Describing Soeur Du Sol™ in three words: “Traditionally rooted magic”

10:29 Leadership lesson from higher education: strategy and the long game

12:00 What she had to unlearn as an academic founder

13:05 Founder life in one word: courage

14:04 The origin story: Reiki, healing arts, and higher education

15:06 What Reiki is and why hospitals use it

16:12 A turning-point conversation with Adriana Ayales

17:33 Leaving the VP role to become a professional herbalist

18:30 From consulting to Benin: connecting with traditional healers

20:05 Learning about herbs connected to menopause wellbeing

21:14 The “menopause bubble” and the message she could not ignore

22:02 Founding Soeur Du Sol™: sister of the soil

23:28 Seed Spot, market research, and the first product idea

24:10 Misdiagnosis, brain fog, and perimenopause

25:09 Where Is My Mind: functional beverage inspiration for mental clarity support

26:08 Why Soeur Du Sol™ is more than “just tea”

27:12 Two customer segments: the newly awakened and the sleeping genius

27:53 What 100 women said they needed most

28:44 Unbreak My Heart: TCM + West African herbal inspiration

29:20 Product validation through sip-and-see events

30:12 Why Unbreak My Heart became the new hero product

31:50 Building a real company: DTC, B2B, and partnerships

32:23 Why B2B is the next strategic move

33:00 Beverage expos: NOSH, BevNET, and hospitality opportunities

33:43 Tea options in hotels, spas, and premium spaces

35:21 Why traditional retail is not the primary strategy

36:02 The Tea Taxi concept for offices and meetings

37:47 Accelerator lessons: not all accelerators are equal

38:45 Local First AZ and scaling through food production support

39:16 Commercial kitchen, U of A testing, and shelf-life validation

40:20 Why wellness founders cannot cut corners

41:26 Founder advice: get in touch with your why

42:43 Advice for wellness founders: science and ancient wisdom

44:10 Where to connect with Dr. Michelle and Soeur Du Sol™

45:10 Advice for women considering a founder leap

46:07 Start small, find a trusted mentor, take baby steps

47:05 Closing reflections and where to watch/listen

This week’s Funding Friday is about fit, not volume.

In this episode, I break down three current opportunities and the kind of founder each one is actually built for:

NAACP x L’Oréal Inclusive Beauty Fund

A strong immediate-fit opportunity for beauty founders and operators, with applications open through April 23, 2026.

🔗 https://naacp.org/find-resources/grants/inclusive-beauty-fund-grant

Breva Thrive Grant

A current option for revenue-generating businesses with measurable community impact, with the Q2 cycle open through April 30, 2026.

🔗 https://www.breva.ai/thrive-grant

Famous Amos Ingredients for Success

A strong national opportunity for early-stage Black-owned businesses, open through June 1, 2026.

🔗 https://famousamosingredientsforsuccess.com/

This episode is also about the bigger founder lesson:

stop applying like every opportunity is interchangeable.

The stronger filter is:

category fit

founder fit

proof-of-business fit

use-of-funds fit

For help narrowing the right opportunities and building a stronger application narrative:

📩 dana@valugrowthpartners.com

🌐 www.thebrandblueprint.biz

A lot of founders think they understand profitability because they know their selling price and their product cost.But real-life margin pressure usually shows up in the places founders don’t fully account for:• shipping • returns • discounting • marketplace fees • customer acquisition • operational friction • manual founder labor In this episode of The Brand Blueprint, I break down why “paper margins” and real-life margins are often two very different things — and what founders should be pressure-testing before they scale.For strategy support:📩 dana@valuegrowthpartners.com🌐 www.thebrandblueprint.biz

This week’s Funding Friday is about more than “three opportunities.”

It’s about how founders should think about the organizations behind the funding and what those opportunities are really designed to do.

In this episode, I break down:

CO—100 / U.S. Chamber

Why this is really about recognition, credibility, and visibility — not just money

🔗 https://www.uschamber.com/co/co-100

Comcast RISE

Why this is more about strengthening the business than just writing a check

🔗 https://www.comcastrise.com/

IFundWomen

Why ecosystem positioning and repeated access can matter more than one-off application wins

🔗 https://www.ifundwomen.com/grants/apply-for-grants

If you want the full funding tracker or support thinking through what actually fits your business:

📩 dana@valuegrowthpartners.com

🌐 www.thebrandblueprint.biz

Special appreciation to ALT Finance for helping support capital access conversations across The Brand Blueprint ecosystem.

Growth sounds like good news — until it starts exposing the parts of your business that were never built to carry more pressure.

In this Week 3 Market Signal Update, Dana Ammons breaks down one of the most important questions a founder can ask: what breaks first when you scale?

From margin erosion and fulfillment strain to visibility gaps and the founder becoming the bottleneck, this episode explores why growth is not just expansion — it is pressure. And pressure has a way of revealing whatever was already weak in the business.

If your business is growing now, or you are trying to prepare it for growth, this conversation will help you ask better questions before scale becomes expensive chaos.

Listen now, share with a founder in growth mode, and follow The Brand Blueprint for more founder strategy and market insight.

What does it really take to turn a frustrating everyday product into a premium brand people actually want to keep?

In this episode of The Brand Blueprint, Dana Ammons sits down with Deirdre Bird, Founder and CEO of Dri Umbrellas, to talk about how a broken umbrella, a documentary on ocean plastic, and a relentless founder mindset turned into a growing product brand built around durability, design, and sustainability.

In this conversation, we cover:

• the origin story behind Dri Umbrellas
• why Deirdre chose quality over cheap price points
• what it took to source and verify ocean-bound plastic
• lessons from manufacturing, retail outreach, and product-market fit
• how Dri is expanding through wholesale, retail, hospitality, and compact umbrellas

This is a strong episode for founders building physical products, premium brands, or mission-driven businesses.

Learn more about Dri: dri.earth

Instagram: @dri_umbrellas

LinkedIn: Dri Umbrellas

Retail / gifting / partnership inquiries: info@dri.earth

#BrandBlueprint #DriUmbrellas #FounderStory

Today’s Funding Friday is about alignment—not chasing every grantlink you see.
I’m breaking down 3 opportunities and the founder profile each one fits, so youcan apply with clarity and stop wasting cycles on misaligned programs.
Opportunities covered:1) HerRise MicroGrant (HerSuiteSpot + Yva Jourdan Foundation) — $1,000monthly microgrant for under-resourced women founders (including women ofcolor). Great for practical business needs like equipment, software, marketingmaterials, and website work. Applications due by 11:59 p.m. on the last day ofeach month (per program site).
2) NAACP Powershift Entrepreneur Grant — $25,000 grant + resources forBlack entrepreneurs (currently not open; keep on your watch list and prepearly).
3) Warrior Rising — entrepreneurship support for veterans and immediatefamily members, including business planning, funding education, and help withstartup costs at the right time (process-based; not a guaranteed immediatecheck).
Links:
HerRise: https://www.hersuitespot.com/herrise/
NAACP Powershift:https://naacp.org/find-resources/grants/powershift-entrepreneur-grant
Warrior Rising: https://warriorrising.org/faqs/
Want help building a funding strategy that matches your stage and your businessmodel?

Email dana@valugrowthpartners.com.

Most founders do not need investors yet.

They need clarity.

I keep seeing founders jump straight to, “How do I raise?” before they can clearly answer:

• what actually drives revenue

• which channel is really working

• where new capital would actually go

• what breaks first if the business grows

That is not an investor problem.

That is a clarity problem.

Capital amplifies what already exists. If your model is working, money can accelerate it. If your model is fuzzy, money just makes the confusion more expensive.

Tristan Walker said you build a business by solving a real problem for a real customer — not by chasing capital.

So before you ask who can fund you, ask what proof would make someone want to fund you.

If you want help pressure-testing that, reach me at dana@valugrowthpartners.com.