Join Us In Celebrating Ten Years
Thrive’s leadership team reunion in Costa Rica, summer 2022. Celebrating the end of peak COVID, our friendship, and the achievement of meaningful “leave it better” milestones.
Ten years ago this month, a remarkable team of entrepreneurs, ethnobotanists, skincare experts, and rural farmers from the USA and Costa Rica came together to start Thrive Natural Care.
Don Juan. Our founding farmer partner. He and his sons have taught us as much or more than we’ve taught him. Incredibly hard working, pragmatic, passionate about his plants and family. And yes, the rumor is true: he talks to his plants. Because he believes (and the data seem to agree) that it makes his plants more potent and helpful to our customers when they use Thrive.
This Labor Day weekend, we want to invite you into our anniversary celebration, with a 15% discount on our entire line of suncare and skincare products. Because your support of our products and mission have been essential in helping us to, well, thrive.
Rafael Ocampo, one of Thrive’s ‘fathers’. Leading ethnobotanist, passionate about his farmer neighbors, plants, and leaving things better than he found them. We love you Rafael!
Our founding vision was of a better model for skincare—and for business. Our ambition (perhaps ‘obsession’ is more accurate) was to build Thrive, from the ground up, into a successful, inspiring, regenerative business that helped to restore your skin, our planet, and rural farmer communities. “Leave it better” became our model and mantra.
Minipiloto. Small Pilot. Thrive’s path to figuring out a lot of complicated stuff, on limited budget, while minimizing risk and maximizing our learning. We started with 25 plants. Yes, single plants. In 2013. Here’s the proof.
Now, to be clear, there were a million ways Thrive could have crashed and burned. (In fact, more than two-thirds of new businesses fail before reaching their tenth year). In our first decade there were hurricanes, triumphs, droughts, laughter, tears, disagreements, friendship, learning, and, best of all—proof that a regenerative model really does make for better skincare. Really does heal our planet. Really does boost the livelihoods of rural farmers. A few data points:
- Our suncare and skincare products have been chosen as “best of” and “recommended choice” by New York Times Wirecutter, Vogue, Allure, Amazon, USA Today and others
- Our regeneratively-grown superplants, according to independent studies, deliver 17x antioxidants vs traditional vitamin E; 20% more anti-inflammatory actives, and (our favorite stat) 86% of Thrive users report improved skin
- Thrive’s regenerative farms are now 40% healthier than nearby conventional farms (confirmed by 20 ecological indicators measured quarterly)
- Our farming partners in Costa Rica have increased their annual income by 300% since we began.
Doña Gisel (front) and Julio (brown shirt). Our heroic farmer partners at Coopecuna, a women-led cooperative that has become one of the leading regenerative farms in Costa Rica. We remain in awe of their tenacity, hard work, honesty, creativity, and passion for leaving our planet a better model for farming.
Today, if you asked us: “despite all the work (and stress), would you do it again?”, we’d yell a resounding “YES!”.
But we didn’t get here on our own. We’re incredibly thankful to our partners, allies, friends, investors, and above all—to our customers. You believed in us. You fell in love with our suncare and skincare products; shared Thrive with others. You provided the support and encouragement for us to succeed in the (admittedly) crazily ambitious project we call Thrive.
Putting a distillation unit on site at Coopecuna means that the families will be able to process and sell plant oils. Moving up the value chain is an important way to build stronger farm communities
In the meantime, we’ll share with you some of our favorite photos from our first ten years. Enjoy and Leave it Better…
Thrive’s first leadership team retreat with the fitting theme from our host, “Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut that held its ground.”
Hamelia patens seedlings at our 3rd farm partner in Costa de Pajaros, ready to be planted.
Thrive’s extended farmer family getting together to celebrate and share ideas during the holidays.
Thrive and our partner farmers measure over 20 variables to insure we are leaving the farms better than we found them. Counting the number of earthworms in a section of soil is a great indicator of soil health.
