Our story
We met on vacation in the Philippines, while we were both living in Beijing, China. Jeff, a vegetarian since the age of 17, had worked for a NASDAQ-listed venture capital firm in Silicon Valley and an international law firm in Beijing, then co-founded a (non-vegan🤢) fast casual restaurant chain in Shanghai. Jun became a vegetarian at the suggestion of a Buddhist monk around the time she met Jeff, and had worked as a software developer and then a procurement manager at the central headquarters of one of China’s big four banks in Beijing. After briefly running a vegan bar/cafe in Beijing, we relocated to the United States, where we fully committed to vegan diets. We also became foster failures, adopting the third member of our family — Goblin.
Over the course of five years stateside, we dealt with two lawsuits, over a dozen real estate transactions, countless home repairs/renovations, our fair share of medical treatments, and myriad other issues requiring third party services. Wherever we have lived or visited, we used apps to find great vegan restaurants and eateries. If only there was a similar app through which we could have found vegan lawyers,1 real estate agents,2 escrow officers, inspectors, accountants, contractors, handymen, dentists, doctors, veterinarians, etc. Not only would we love the bulk of our personal and professional expenses to support the vegan community, but we also just trust vegans more!3
They say the best startups are born out of frustration. While there are already terrific resources available for finding vegan restaurants , we wanted to create a tool that would help us find and support vegan-owned businesses and fellow vegans in other industries as well.4 Unable to find such a tool, we created Vowned as a labor of love. To learn more, please check out our other posts: What is Vowned and Development Roadmap.
Footnotes
- One of our opposing counsels claimed to be a vegetarian, which made it a bit harder for us to hate him.😒 ↩︎
- We were able to hire one vegan real estate agent, whom we met at a vegan potluck (we made lentil soup with Tofurkey sausage, and he made a glass noodle salad). ↩︎
- At various points in our professional careers we have both negotiated for a living, and consequently developed a healthy mistrust of humans, so trustworthiness is our primary consideration when hiring and buying. ↩︎
- E.g., we were thrilled to have met the vegan owner of a local comic book store when he set up a booth at Vegas Vegfest. ↩︎
