The Work

The things I've built, and what they taught me.

A vegan brand grown from my kitchen table. A billboard over Los Angeles. A marketing platform inside one of the largest grocers in the country. These are the chapters I return to, the ones that shaped how I see everything else.

The BrandSmile Natural Products

A company that started in my kitchen.

I went vegan, couldn't find oral care I trusted, and started making my own. What began as a kitchen experiment became Smile Natural Products, a vegan, non-toxic brand with a cause built into it. I made the product, designed the packaging, built the supply chain that shipped thousands of orders across the country and into Canada, and wrote the story that made people care. By the time I stepped back, it had become a brand people recognized.

Brian Mays in the kitchen where Smile Natural Products began

Where it all started

The RecognitionIn the press

When the world started to notice.

The thing about a story well told is that other people start telling it for you. Cosmopolitan put the product in its pages, Intuit featured the company for building something sustainable, and Black Enterprise wrote a founder profile. None of it was bought. All of it was earned.

Cosmopolitan

"9 products for your best smile"

The Mint + Charcoal toothpaste named a top natural pick, with the antibacterial rinse in the print spread.

Intuit
QuickBooks

Intuit

Building something sustainable

Featured among the customers Intuit spotlighted for building a more sustainable future.

Read the feature →

Black
Enterprise

Black Enterprise

A founder profile

On building Smile, opening a retail space in downtown LA, and creating opportunity for entrepreneurs of color.

Read the article →

The ScaleSafeway & Albertsons

The same instincts, inside a giant.

I wanted to know whether the things I learned building a small brand held up at enormous scale. They did. At Eagle Eye I worked alongside Albertsons' leadership and cross-functional teams to integrate personalized marketing into their Oracle ERP, the engine behind the "for U" platform. The work helped lift national sales by more than five percent. A kitchen-table brand and a billion-dollar grocer turned out to ask the same question: do you actually understand the person you're talking to?

Safeway
+ Albertsons

Personalized "for U" marketing, integrated into Oracle ERP at enterprise scale.

+5% national sales

The ApprenticeshipWhere I learned the craft

Before any of it, I learned on other people's dreams.

Early on, I helped a community bank, a university athletics program, real estate firms, and local nonprofits find their voice. Long before I built my own brand, this is where I learned that good positioning changes outcomes.

A community bank

American Riviera Bank & Trust

Helping a local bank grow accounts, deepen relationships, and stand apart from the giants.

A cause I believed in

Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara

A partnership to grow awareness and community support for an organization doing real good.

girlsincsb.com →

The philosophy

Engage your community

The community-first idea underneath all of it: turn attention into belonging.

A few of the names along the way

Safeway / Albertsons UC Santa Barbara Athletics American Riviera Bank & Trust Village Properties Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara Intuit / QuickBooks

"Every one of these started the same way: a story nobody had told yet, and the patience to tell it well."

Brian Mays

Read my story