Meet Priya Mulvihill of You Again

Today we’d like to introduce you to Priya Mulvihill.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I grew up in a suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana. My parents are first-generation immigrants from India and came to the US in the 80’s for higher education and to build a family here. Born to an Accountant and an Engineer, my brother followed the engineer path and I followed the Accounting path. I received both my Bachelors and Masters in Accounting & Finance from Indiana University and earned my Certified Public Accounting License. I spent the first half of my professional career (thus far) in public accounting before I decided I was more interested in learning about startup companies. Through this time, I also developed a strong passion for health and fitness. I was an endurance athlete – long distance runner, and if I wasn’t working crazy hours, I was training, racing, or creating healthy recipes. This passion inspired my shift to work in Senior Management for health-focused companies like RXBAR and Your Super, building out the finance teams. The entire time, I had an itch to create my own company. During these years, my strong passion for health and fitness turned into an unhealthy obsession and ultimately an eating disorder. I was overtraining and under nourishing to the point where I lost hormone function and my bones began to deteriorate.

In 2016, I was racing in the Boston Marathon, with a goal time of 3:10, when I snapped my tibia mid-race and had to drop out two miles short of the finish line to be rushed to the hospital. This was that cliche “wake up call.” I realized I was pushing my body too hard to the point where I was literally breaking it. I eventually sought specialized eating disorder treatment but continued to try every fad diet to still meet my distorted body image goals. Finally, I turned to holistic medicine and Ayurvedic nutrition. Ayurveda is one of the oldest medicines to date, originating in India. The practice approaches the mind and body holistically to identify the root cause of ailments and imbalances. This resonated with me. I began to better understand my body, what I needed to fuel and heal and how ancient superfoods and ingredients can be powerful enough to naturally rebalance your hormones. I began incorporating these ingredients into my cooking and baking and over time, my fear of food and sweet treats turned into my passion project. I created cookies, brownies, and all kinds of desserts with real and functional ingredients, stripping out processed flours and refined sugars and sprinkling in superfoods like Ashwagandha and Maca. Eventually, these creations turned into You Again baking mixes.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In July 2020, I decided to step away from my stable job to pursue You Again full time. While I knew that I needed to take this leap of faith for many reasons, I even still have that tiny piece of doubt that follows me around. Starting your own company is fun, exhilarating, rewarding, and motivating, but there’s also a lot of pressure. The truth is most companies do not succeed, and I was privileged to work for the ones that have. Once leaving these companies, I’m realizing how hard it is and how much there is to learn! I’m grateful for my finance background but I’m wearing the Supply Chain, Marketing, Sales, and R&D hats too, which is probably the biggest challenge. I’m also grateful for the many successes we’ve already had in our early days and accept every obstacle and challenge as a stepping stone to our continued success. My husband is the silent partner behind the business and he’s been incredibly motivating and supportive and if it wasn’t for him, I would have never taken the leap!

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about You Again?
We’re on a mission to bring Ayurveda to Everyone by purposefully integrating functional ingredients into delicious and nutritious snacks and desserts. We believe in personalized nutrition and have crafted our customizable products to bring you back to your best self. You Again offer functional superfood baking mixes, free of refined sugars, processed flours, gluten, dairy and additives. Each cookie mix is based on the Ayurvedic principle that foods with purpose can be blended to balance your energies and your life! Our first three products are plant-based cookie mixes, Oat Ginger Raisin, Mint Chocolate, and Chocolate Chip. We created Oat Ginger Raisin with the oat-like texture, a zing from the ginger and turmeric, and hidden adaptogens like Maca, Chaga, and Lion’s Mane known to boost vitality and focus. Our Mint Chocolate mix has a decadent chocolatey taste, thanks to the mood boosting raw cacao, but is cooling from the Peppermint. We sneak Spirulina and Cordyceps into the mix which are known to support stamina and energy. Our popular Chocolate Chip mix is a gooey chocolate chip cookie with a relaxing and calming effect from Ashwagandha, Reishi, and Holy Basil. I’m really proud of our brand and how we want to show up in the market. We know that Ayurveda and Adaptogens are still new to many, but at You Again, we want to introduce Ayurveda to Everyone in simple and easy to digest way.

We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
I’m still learning! I launched You Again during the crisis, in June 2020. I knew it would be tough and I received push back from friends and family that it may not be smart to launch during the pandemic, but truthfully, some of the most successful companies today started during the hardest times so I was up for the challenge. Honestly, the crisis motivated me to leave my full-time job to launch this business. It’s made me appreciate what we have and realize that if you’re passionate about something, there’s no reason to wait, you just have to start. There will always be a million excuses and it’ll never feel like the right time to make a change or start a company, but at the end of the day, if you’re not waking up every day loving what you’re doing, then really, what are you doing?

Contact Info:

• Email: hello@youagain.co
• Website: youagain.co
• Instagram: @youagainfoods

Image Credits
@paigebabilla MarketBrand