We were lucky to catch up with Robin Boykin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Robin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.

Growing up in a working-class community, I got a first-hand view of how underserved communities are often overlooked on virtually every level: socially, economically, medically, nutritionally, and of course in terms of education. This of course compelled me to be personally invested in the well-being of those overlooked communities.

My mission for UENDURE Tea Co is to bring more awareness to the underserved communities. They can adopt healthier lifestyle choices, such as replacing soda and artificial beverages with organic teas. In addition to teas, I have collected extensive information that is available to share on how natural remedies which come from the earth can easily replace chemicals used by doctors to ‘treat’ symptoms. Those chemical ‘meds’ do not heal the body and eradicate the disease.

It’s my mission to educate on self-care and share the knowledge that everything you consume can affect your long-term health and well-being.

I had been personally involved in supporting the community for over 20 years. In the 90’s I became a volunteer and board member for several local non-profits in support of underserved families within the inner city. When I purchased UENDURE I was able to increase my support by donating a portion of UENDURE’s monthly sales to these two organizations: L.I.F.E.Houston and Best Buddies.

I recently partnered with a local environmental artist to increase awareness of the relationship between art, business, sustainability and community: https://www.harambeeartgalleryhtx.com/communi-tea.html

Lastly, I have also partnered with another woman-owned tea enterprise in Kenya because of her commitment to pay woman farmers a living wage. Being involved in Fair Trade mission across the world was a dream come true for me.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

To know me is to know that I’m obsessed with health…not only mine, but the health of anyone who is around me. This obsession really took off for me as a result of my personal experience with a major health episode over 15 years ago.

I called it my ‘Phantom Illness” because I was passed around from one specialist to another, and still came up with no specific diagnosis. I would have thought it was all in my head, except for the fact that I was covered in red abrasions from head to toe. Was it Lupus or some other autoimmune disorder? They couldn’t say. So much for modern day medicine.

Enter alternative healing! After an exhaustive search for answers, I found myself sitting in front of Dr. Dang. He had practiced Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for many decades with great success. Within a few short moments of examining me, Dr. Dang was able to diagnose my disease with uncanny accuracy. After finishing my ‘prescribed’ tea made of special herbs I was completely healed which of course made me a true believer! So long, Western medicine and hello Holistic healing! Here’s what I learned from Dr. Dang: your body can heal itself with the right tools.

How did I become the owner of an organic tea company? When passion and business collide, it’s a marriage made in heaven. Ever since I can remember, I have always been an avid tea lover, but I never realized back then that many teas possessed amazing healing properties.

After my success with Dr. Dang I was committed to learning everything I could about natural remedies. I spent the next decade-plus learning all I could about holistic health and natural remedies so much that my friends and family jokingly refer to me as ‘Dr. Robin’.

I was exposed to the world of entrepreneurship almost by accident. While working for a Fortune 500 company, a friend asked me to be the Business Development Manager for his technology company in my spare time. In that role, I attended lots of business workshops, expos and events with other small business owners.

So when the opportunity to purchase a tea business came in 2018, I jumped at it. And that’s how today’s UENDURE Tea Company came to be my very own medicine cabinet.

Since becoming owner of UENDURE Tea Company, I have passionately developed tea blends that help address many chronic ailments. This country is in need of so much healing, emotionally, physically and spiritually, and I feel that with the right combination of nature’s gifts from the earth, many of these ailments can be treated naturally. We really can reverse so many chronic ailments with lifestyle changes.

My biggest accomplishment as a business owner is the knowledge that my passion for helping to bring natural healing has made such a positive impact on the lives of my customers. I receive many emails and cards from my customers thanking me for taking a personal interest in them way beyond that of just a financial transaction. I am most proud of the way my customers trust me enough to share their deepest health secrets. I believe that is because they know I am personally invested in their well-being. The more I know about what’s ailing them, the better I am equipped to find them a remedy.

Case in point: Most recently I received a very heartbreaking email from a customer who was the victim of sexual abuse from childhood through her teen years.

The reason she shared her experience with me was because of my response when one of my tea products did not help resolve her health issue.  After I refunded her purchase, I asked if I could send her a different tea which was ‘off menu’ at no cost and that I believed would help boost the effectiveness of my detox tea. I also told her that if that didn’t work, we would keep trying until we found something that would.

When I followed up with her a week later, she wrote back immediately saying she was in tears because I most likely and literally saved her life. Her condition was so extensive that nothing had brought her any relief from chronic pain she suffered because of the abuse.  The SA had damaged her system so severely that she could not expel waste and she feared it would lead to a septic situation. 

She also stated that it took a stranger (me) to take a genuine interest in her well-being to the point that she was not ashamed to share the secret she’s been living with ever since she can remember. By the time I finished reading her email, I was crying myself.  Her letter validated the fact that I am truly living my true purpose.

After doing a bit of research I learned that there are 48 million childhood sexual abuse victims who may be dealing with the exact same life-threatening damage without knowing there is a potential remedy that does not involve surgery.

Thanks to her email, I now carry that supplemental tea in my store so customers can have access as well as anyone else with severe issues. I am working with a dear friend who is also a survivor and runs a nonprofit agency for SA survivors.  Our shared mission is to reach as many victims as possible nationally and globally, who are most likely suffering from the same physical damage, in hopes to make this tea and other information about natural remedies widely available.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

I purchased the business that I currently own. When I caught the entrepreneurial bug, I began to do lots of research on what the best route would be to become a business owner. First, I investigated buying a franchise, but that required a very substantial amount of money. So, then I settled on finding a business that was already established, Next I decided on an online/e-commerce business vs. brick and mortar which comes with lots of overhead costs.

After a lot of research, I was fortunate to find a reputable company called Empire Flippers. They operate like an online business brokerage firm. If you have a business you want to sell, they will vet your company and crunch the numbers with you to determine the value, including how many multiples you can expect to get.

As a prospective buyer, I would put a deposit down to gain access to the full details of any business I was interested in pursuing. If it looked like a promising investment, I then arranged to have a Q&A session with the seller.

I chose to purchase an organic tea business because it resonated with me on a personal level. Tea was the very thing that cured me from a mysterious illness that had attacked my immune system several years ago. Traditional Chinese Medicine was my last resort after Western medicine could not help me. The remedy was a tea mixture that was made for my specific ailment.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

One of the awesome elements of purchasing a business through a broker is that you can literally go through a checklist of features and platforms where you want your brand products to be sold. When we (my husband invested with me) purchased our tea company, it was already selling on Amazon and had over 10K followers on the Facebook business page. It also had accounts on Etsy, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, eBay, as well as a YouTube channel. Some would call it a ‘Business in a Box’. From there, I worked to develop and expand the brand by creating new organic tea blends that appealed to a larger customer base and others that are geared more towards wellness, I also added quite a few new sustainable accessories.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://uendure.com
• Instagram: @mind_body_and_tea_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uendure
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/uendure-tea-co
• Twitter: @UendureTea
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1t4onnh6GxObkevEnm6wJw
• Other: My customers are extremely important to me and I make sure they feel appreciated with every transaction. My company enjoys a BBB rating of A+ with a loyal customer base. UENDURE also sells all of our products through local retail partners. One of the great aspects of this business is the networking opportunities it presents each day. Through connections, business relationships and word of mouth, my company has garnered a lot of attention and diverse clientele. Through a networking relationship, I have become the sole supplier of teas and accessories for a local vacation property. My private label service allows me to help new business build their brands as well. My goal is to. continue to expand my brand to other wellness products such as Yoga & Fitness gear and Ayurvedic herbs.

Image Credits
image credit by @jengerbelle – IG