Our Story
We've built something amazing...
Through
Love.
And we're honored to share it.
Meet the family behind Opu.
Built on a firm foundation.
My dad, Brian, served in the U.S. Marine Corps when I was growing up. My mom, Patricia, was a nurse who served others until her last breath.
One taught me discipline, grit, and how to keep going when life gets hard. The other taught me compassion, intuition, and how deeply caring for people matters.
Those two people shaped everything about who I became, and eventually, everything Opu would become too.
A Shark, an elephant & probiotics?
Long before Opu, I was working as a caregiver for children with special needs. During that time, I invented Ava the Elephant, a medicine dispenser designed to help children take medication without fear or tears.
That little elephant changed my life. I pitched Ava on the very first episode of Shark Tank, Barbara Corcoran invested, and over the next seven years I built and sold the company.
From the outside, it looked like a dream come true. But behind the scenes, my health was quietly falling apart.
Then cancer changed everything.
Not long after Shark Tank aired, I was diagnosed with cancer. The treatments saved my life, and I will always be grateful for that.
But the radiation and endless rounds of antibiotics took a devastating toll on my body, especially my gut. For years afterward, I struggled with severe digestive issues that controlled my life in ways most people never saw.
Doctors gave me no real answers. I started wondering if this was simply how I would feel forever.
My mom refused to give up on me.
She was a nurse, but more importantly, she was relentless when it came to the people she loved. She started researching everything she could about gut health, radiation damage, antibiotics, and the microbiome.
Eventually, she discovered something that wasn't widely talked about at the time: spore-form probiotics.
She believed years of treatments had stripped away the beneficial bacteria my body desperately needed.
She was right. The difference I felt was life-changing. That discovery became the seed that would later grow into Opu.
Then we lost her.
My mom later became critically ill while waiting for an organ transplant that never came.
Losing her shattered our family.
My parents had built a life and business together for decades, and after she passed, my dad couldn't continue running it without her. He closed the doors to the company they had spent 35 years building side by side.
We were grieving. Exhausted. Completely unsure what came next.
But even in the middle of all that heartbreak, one thing kept coming back to me.
What if we could continue her legacy by helping other people the way she helped me?
I asked my Dad...
What if we built something different?
Something that actually works.
Something you'd actually look forward to taking.
A delicious powder you pour straight onto your tongue.
No water. No mixing. Just open and go.
Proudly made in the USA.
We grew slowly. On purpose.
After experiencing rapid growth with my first company, I knew I wanted this business to feel different. With Opu, we chose the slower road.
One customer at a time. One conversation at a time. One story at a time.
Opu has grown up alongside my four children, who have spent countless afternoons at the office helping pack boxes, taste-testing products, and cheering us on through every stage of this journey.
Healing didn't end there.
After losing my mom, I honestly couldn't imagine my dad ever smiling the same way again. But years later, he met Rebecca, also a widow, who understood grief in a way few people can.
Watching them find love, companionship, and joy again after so much loss has been one of the most healing parts of our family's journey.
Today, she's a BIG part of the heart behind Opu.
This is bigger than probiotics.
From the very beginning, we knew we wanted Opu to create meaningful opportunities for people with disabilities through our community partner, Lionheart WORKS.
Working alongside individuals with autism has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. Their dedication, honesty, joy, and work ethic shape our company culture every single day.
Every order that leaves our warehouse carries more than probiotics inside. It carries purpose.
Then came
the golden ticket.
In 2025, we pitched Opu at Walmart's Open Call for Made-in-America brands. We carried years of work, sacrifice, grief, hope, and determination into that meeting. When they handed us the Golden Ticket, it felt surreal.
Your turn to feel better.
Maybe you've tried the gummies that didn't work. The pills you forgot to take. The advice that didn't fit your life.
I've been there. So have thousands of people who now pour Opu onto their tongue or eat our delicious chocolate squares every morning and feel, for the first time in a long time, like themselves again.