We are so proud of our amazing CEO, Lynn Rollé, for winning in the Woman-Owned category of the Spirit of Small Business Awards, put on by the Pacific Coast Business Times.
Check out this exclusive video below, first aired at the Spirit of Small Business Awards ceremony:
FULL ARTICLE
Spirit of Small Business Awards | Pacific Coast Business Times – Summer 2016
FAMILY TURNS LIFESTYLE CHANGE INTO SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
By Supriya Yelimeli
Special to the Business Times
Foreign names like Maca, Cacao and Goji roll off the tongue for Lynn Rollé, whose personal mission to help her son has led to exotic places.
Lynn and her husband Reno were living in Florida in 2006 when their son was first diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Although she had worked in health care industry for years, Lynn decided to stray from traditional medicine to treat her son’s condition.
Coming form a family of farmers, “natural things were always a part of my lifestyle,” she said. Thus she began a year-long process of research and formulation, looking toward whole plants to combat the effects of ADD.
Lynn discovered “superfoods” such as Acai and Matcha and had been used in ancient civilizations for centuries, and began implementing them in her family’s diet. She began to see positive results and in 2007 created BōKU Superfood to help families facing similar difficulties.
In the depths of the recession “people were hurting and losing health insurance,” Lynn said, and she saw a boom in business from people who needed affordable health care. She decided to keep costs low for consumers by selling products online instead of through health food stores.
While she searched ingredients, however, “money never really even came into the equation,” she said. BōKU sources its food from Peru, Brazil, the Himalayas and Madagascar, among many other locations, and today delivers to 65 countries including the United States.
Lynn doesn’t market her products as medicinal, but rather as components of a healthful diet. The online store sells Golden Berries from Peru for snacking, a variety of protein powders to add to meals and smoothies, as well as “super bars” and trail mixes.
Although she only attended one year of community college, “I was definitely born with a good amount of common sense,” Lynn said, and she has seen her company soar in popularity in the last 10 years.
BōKU is now an official partner of Spartan Race, along with big names like Reebok, Panasonic and Cliff Bar & Company, and Lynn was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur in 2014 and 2016 alongside Jessica Alba with the Honest Company.
Reno, who Lynn describes as her top salesman, stood on stage with the president of Peru in 2009 when the two traveled to the country during a “buying mission,” and the Rollé children have plans to join the company after graduating college.
BōKU is a Ventura based company with 16 employees, aside from Lynn and Reno, and it operates on $5 million to $10 million a year. The co-founders are proud of their innovation, and Lynn has plans to expand into new markets, inspired by her 15-year-old giant Schnauzer to create superfood for pets.
Lynn has seen herself grow as well, and now feels more powerful in what she describes as a male-dominated industry.
“Especially in the beginning some men…they didn’t know how to take me, they thought I was naive,” she recalled.
Her main priority remains the health and well being of her family, and she believes the rest of the world will benefit from whole food alternatives to medicinal healthcare.
“The world needs and loves these types of products,” she said, “I would love BōKU to be a household name.”
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The beautiful award we now proudly display at the BōKU Headquarters!
Feeling very official with all of our signed certificates! We even had one signed by a congresswoman! 
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