A Scientist, a Skincare Brand, and a Leap of Faith
Octavia holds a master’s degree in biomedical science. She formulates every product in her skincare line herself. She knows exactly why each ingredient is there, what it does to the skin barrier, and why it matters. For the construction worker washing their hands at the end of a shift or the healthcare professional doing it fifty times a day.
For ten years, Touch of OShea – her clean-ingredient, plant-based therapeutic skincare brand – existed alongside a full-time career. A passion project. A hobby that she always imagined would become something more.
Then, in February 2025, she was laid off.
“I made a judgment call,” she says. “I prayed a lot and made a judgment call that instead of trying to get back into the cycle to find another job… I made a decision by faith to pursue my brand full-time.”
2026 was the first year she gave Touch of OShea everything. And everything, it turned out, wasn’t quite enough on its own.
Busy, But Not Productive
The transition was harder than she expected. She’d gone from working inside a company with thousands of employees to being the only one. The anxiety crept in. So did the overthinking.
“So much that I thought I knew… I really didn’t know as much as I thought,” she says. “There’s a lot of anxiety. There’s so much overthinking.”
She came across GeekPack on the Verizon Digital Ready platform, through one of our training sessions she heard Julia say that you can be doing a lot of work and it still not feel productive.
“When she said that, I was like, that’s exactly where I am,” Octavia says. “I just needed help with putting the systems in place.”
She signed up for the 6 Revenue Moves in 6 Weeks cohort.
The Time Study That Changed Everything
One of the first exercises in the cohort asked Octavia to look, honestly, at where her time was actually going.
What she found was uncomfortable. She was spending the vast majority of her days on maintenance work – making sure the website was current, keeping up with social media, handling order fulfillment and production, running to the post office. Revenue-generating activity? Almost none.
“It was like, oh my god, I cannot believe you’ve been wasting so much time.”
But instead of letting that feeling take over, she caught herself.
“The program is not intended to be like a way for you to start judging yourself,” she reminded herself. “The program is to find areas of improvement, make those improvements, and move forward – not dwelling on everything that you realize you haven’t been doing right.”
The revelation shifted things for her. She’d been running hard. She just hadn’t been running in the right direction.
The System That Made It Click
The cohort introduced Octavia to Ruby, the AI accountability tool built into the program, and with it came a simple but powerful framework: one thing to commit to every day. One thing every week. One thing every month.
For Octavia, the daily commitment was showing up for her customers – replying to comments and questions, and posting at least one story each day. (She’d learned that Instagram and Facebook treat stories differently from regular posts, and she wanted to use every method available.)
The weekly commitment was bigger – and bolder.
“I committed to at least once a week finding a grant that I could apply to,” she says.
Grants had always felt like something she meant to get to. By making it her Tuesday ritual – blocking two hours every week to search – she actually did.
By the time the six weeks ended, she had submitted seven grant applications. Three vendor and activation events were confirmed on her calendar through January: a major tattoo convention in Philadelphia (her brand has a dedicated tattoo care line), a community wellness day at her church in Virginia, and a City of Philadelphia small business event.
“I was like, this is it. Everything just kind of felt like it was falling into place.”
And after the cohort ended?
“I’ve continued. I still make Tuesdays the day each week now. It kind of creates those habits that you are going to continue following.”
From Owner-Operator to CEO
The grants did something Octavia didn’t expect. Every application asked the same core questions: Why did you start? What are you building? What are you most proud of?
“Writing those things out… it calls upon you to sit back and take a quick inventory of how far you’ve already come,” she says. “It helps you to go from that owner-operator mindset to looking at my business as a CEO.”
She went back through her photos – 2016, 2017, all the way to now. A decade of building.
“It’s like we have done so much in the last ten years.”
The confidence boost was real. So were the results. By the end of the year, Touch of OShea had hit a revenue milestone it had never reached before. She’s also overhauled how she communicates with customers – setting up segmented text message groups in Klaviyo based on purchase history, so that communications are targeted and intentional rather than blasted to everyone.
“I didn’t even know the difference between maintenance work and revenue work before the program. That was super duper impactful.”
Not Doing It Alone
One of the things Octavia didn’t anticipate was how much the community would matter.
“When you run a business, it can feel very isolating,” she says. “You can be around other people who have never run a business and get all kinds of advice from people who’ve never done it.”
The cohort put her in a room – even a virtual one – with people who got it.
She watched others in the comments wrestling with the same questions that kept her up at night. She encouraged a member who was feeling overwhelmed at the start. Others wrapped around her in return.
“I was seeing so many other people asking questions that plague my brain often,” she says. “It helps you to see – this is not just my issue.”
What Comes Next
The future, in Octavia’s words, is “extremely bright.”
She’s already applying to more programs. Interviews are lined up for opportunities she couldn’t have imagined pursuing a year ago. She’s not just looking for vendor events anymore – she’s actively pursuing retail partnerships, shelf space, new ways to put Touch of OShea in front of the customers who need it.
And 2027? She has a plan to double her revenue. Not a wish – a plan.
“I feel more confident in my leadership ability as a growing CEO. And I know that that’s going to turn into larger success for my business.”
She’s also planning to hire her first part-time staff members next year. A new chapter – and one she’s finally ready for.
“I’m now more excited about learning how to be a better business owner as opposed to saying, ‘God, there’s so much I don’t know.’ It’s like that glass half empty versus half full concept.”
