During a nine-month herbal apprenticeship, Em Dewey came up with the signature product that launched her small business, Garden of the Moon. “I realized through everybody getting excited about what I had created: ‘I think I have something here that might not just be for me,’” she describes.

Her popular Inner Seasons Teas are a set of “four teas crafted to support the female fertility cycle, one tea for each of the four phases within the monthly cycle,” she explains. Supporting women’s health, particularly hormonal health, has long been a focus for Em throughout the process of starting a small business.  

“For the past decade I’ve been a holistic health coach and went through certification for that. It’s just been a passion of mine,” she says. But selling products versus services was a big shift. “Having a product-based business was a totally different ballgame for me,” she says.

Though it was intimidating as an entrepreneur, Em is a person who listens up when the universe delivers. “I feel like there was a mailbox in my head and God, Spirit, or whoever just dropped it in, and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m supposed to go do this thing,” she laughs.  

The entire concept for Garden of the Moon is mission-driven and “divinely guided to say the least,” she says. It was in 2019 that the business first took shape, though on a very part-time basis. “I had it as a side thing and didn’t pay too much attention to it,” Em recalls.

But then life happened. As other parts of her world fell apart, like her job and travel plans, it made room for her to step more fully into Garden of the Moon. That inspired her to expand her product line to around 20 products, showcasing them at loads of events, and in her spare time, co-creating a deck of oracle cards and personal journal called The Sacred Cycles that were published by Hay House.

“But 2022 was sort of me floundering around and trying to do all the things and be all the things for everyone,” she remembers. The ensuing burnout was real, and she admits, “it was not a good year.” She realized she needed to return to the goals she had when was first starting a small business. “I was really working on getting myself back to baseline with my health and renegotiating my relationship with my business,” she describes.

With that in mind, she joined the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship (HGC) Business Lab. She says through the program, “I was finally able to kind of like have my holy moment of: ‘You didn’t start this because you wanted to serve everyone. You started this because you wanted to serve women and the female fertility cycle. This is the mission that you were given.”

Since then, a return to basics has changed everything. “Thank goodness for Business Lab because I was on the verge of just saying, ‘I’m not doing this anymore,’” she says. Instead, over the last year, Em has emphasized coming back to her roots.

Garden of the Moon has undergone a rebranding process with new packaging to denote Em’s old and new way of being in her business. The original set of teas remain at the core, with just a few other complementary products, including the oracle deck and journal.

“I will keep blending teas for myself, but I’m not going to try and promote all this stuff,” she says. Though the clarity feels good, there have been plenty of ups and downs. “It’s been a very slow year sales wise just because of reassessing everything,” she says.

She also participated in HGC’s Pitchfork Challenge, during which local entrepreneurs create and practice a compelling pitch for small business funding in the amount of $10K. The Challenge culminates with a pitch competition, and a panel of judges assess the pitch itself, as well as the current standing and future viability of the business. Though Em’s pitch was impressive and well-received, one of her peers ended up landing the funding.

“I’m a very emotional, emotional being,” she notes, so she wondered in that moment if it was a sign. But soon after, her new label proofs arrived, she nailed down additional funding from another source, and she was able to still see all the wheels in motion. She also felt grateful for the continued self-awareness the pitch experience brought her.

“I’ve been having to kind of come back to center, realizing that I am most impactful when I am super niched down, like when it’s almost so narrow that it’s scary. It’s absolute clarity,” she describes.

With that, she has also been able to identify her entrepreneurial strengths and weaknesses and work with them more effectively. For instance, since marketing has always felt challenging, she hired a content strategist. “I’m so excited about working with her because I just see this getting to the level that I’ve envisioned for this for a long time,” she says.

Storytelling, education, and community are all part of that vision, and that’s the magic Em plans to tap into. “I want this to be a touchstone for women because this is something that’s changed my life so drastically,” she says.

Now, she knows that starting a small business doesn’t mean doing it all on your own. “One of the biggest takeaways I got from seeking out Hannah Grimes was that having other people in your corner, at least for me, has been an absolutely crucial part of the business equation as a solopreneur,” she says.

The resources and cheerleading she drew from the Business Lab changed everything, and for her, one of the best parts was feeling like “no question you have is a dumb question.” Almost always, someone else in her cohort shared with relief that they had been wondering the same thing.

“I wish that more people knew about these resources. I had no idea this stuff existed in the first two years of my business,” Em says. But once she became part of the HGC community, she understood: “There are actually people out there that want small businesses to succeed. What a mind-blowing thing! I think people will be shocked when they realize what’s out there to help them.”

Written by Caroline Trembly, founder of Owl & Pen. Photos by Little Pond Digital.