These are ethically sourced tea blends with an energetic theme, clearing out old emotional junk, clearing your mind and inspiring love.  Hi, my name is Amy and I just started my tea shop, Blackthorn Hoodoo Blends  (BlackthornHoodooBlends.com)

When I decided I wanted to take my love of tea and many years of tea blending experiments to the public, Eleanor encouraged me to consider funding the start up costs of my tea shop through Fundly.  She stressed how easy Fundly made it to set up my campaign and all of the control that the site’s proprietary features granted me.  

Let’s back up.  

I started blending my own teas and sharing them with the people I love, six years ago.  After each new person experienced the flavors and emotions I put into each and every blend, I kept hearing, “You should go into business!”  but I kept my day jobs.

In February, after much soul searching and long conversations I decided to take a leap of faith and leave a stable but miserable and emotionally toxic job. It was the best thing I could have done.

I returned to my love of tea to soothe my soul and relieve the stress of the last few months.  A friend said that watching me blend tea was like getting to watch your favorite painter work because of the joy it brought me. It reminded me of the old saying about once you are doing what you love, you’ll never work again.  

So I sat down and began turning my favorite scented oil recipes into teas that conveyed the emotions I felt when smelling perfume and the stage was set.

My goal was to create tastes and flavors that transform people’s lives and bring magic to their worlds.  I created blends that I knew would lift the soul, inspire romance, comfort, and uplift.

I had the confidence and the business plan to create the tea line and business of my dreams. Now all I needed was start up capital.

Enter the amazingly helpful Eleanor again, with a reminder of how powerful crowdfunding is, and how unique Fundly is among the multitude of crowdfunding platforms and the stage was set.  

I started sourcing tea ingredients and packaging, developing interesting launch ideas, and set an easily attainable campaign goal for myself.  

Using the tools that Fundly gives to help encourage donations and interaction, I had my first two donations before I had even finished setting up the campaign.  Boy was I stunned!  

My original goal of $300 had me fully funded in the first 24 hours!  

I decided that bumping my goal up to $400 would allow me to start with a wider selection at first and inspire more friends and family to donate.  Boy did it!  

Friends, family and now complete strangers had taken up the cause of spreading the word on my campaign (http://fundly.com/help-amy-launch-her-tea-store) because they believed in me, and wanted my teas!

Fundly made it easy to understand how to make what I wanted to do happen.