Lezette Young: A Brand Born Before the Business Plan
Some entrepreneurial journeys begin with a carefully mapped business plan. Others grow from a simple idea that people refuse to stop talking about. Lezette Young’s journey with ChulaVie falls into the latter category. What began as sangria made for a friend gradually revealed the potential for something larger: a premium spirit brand built on taste, experience, and a fresh interpretation of a familiar drink.
Lezette brings an unusual professional perspective to entrepreneurship. Since 2020, she has served as a Senior Manager, Global Compliance at QIAGEN, managing contributing to global compliance initiatives within a company working across molecular diagnostics, applied testing, academic research, and pharmaceutical development. Her work spans anti-bribery and corruption, data privacy, third-party risk management, transparency reporting, risk mitigation, and compliance training.
Alongside this demanding career, she has built ChulaVie, a premium woman-owned and Black-owned spirits brand. Entering an unfamiliar industry while continuing to work full-time and funding the business herself has required patience and a willingness to learn as she goes. The response to her original recipe gave her the confidence to take that leap. Friends and early taste testers genuinely enjoyed what she had created and encouraged her to introduce it to a wider audience.
Their reaction helped Lezette see the recipe differently. It was no longer simply something she enjoyed making. It had the potential to become a brand.
The experience has also reshaped the way she thinks about starting something new. Building ChulaVie taught her that complete certainty does not have to come before action. Sometimes progress begins with taking the first step, learning what is needed along the way, and continuing to believe in what is being built.
From a Friend’s Glass to a Premium Brand
ChulaVie was never part of a long-standing plan to enter the beverage business. Its beginnings were far more personal. Lezette was making sangria for a friend who loved it, and the enthusiastic response encouraged her to keep experimenting with the recipe.
She spent nearly two years refining it, sharing different versions with a small circle of trusted taste testers and making adjustments until she felt the drink had developed its own identity.
As Lezette began studying the market more closely, she saw room for a different interpretation of sangria. She wanted something elevated and sophisticated, with the wine remaining central to the drinking experience rather than being overshadowed by excessive sweetness or artificial ingredients.
That idea shaped the vision for ChulaVie. Lezette wanted to create a premium sangria that could be enjoyed easily while still carrying the character of something carefully crafted. The intention was not to complicate sangria, but to give consumers a more refined way to experience it.
Rethinking What Sangria Can Be
Lezette identified a familiar perception surrounding sangria: it can often be associated with heavy sweetness, fruit juice, and added sugar. Rather than following that convention, she saw an opportunity to preserve more of the wine’s character while retaining the lively and approachable qualities that make sangria enjoyable.
ChulaVie was created to sit between those two experiences. It is a premium, wine-forward sangria with 16% ABV, no artificial sweeteners, and no added fruit juice.
The distinction is important to Lezette because she wants the product to feel equally at home in different settings. Someone should be able to enjoy ChulaVie casually without feeling that the drink is ordinary, while it should also feel appropriate when poured for a celebration or special occasion. That balance between accessibility and sophistication has become an important part of the brand’s identity.
Learning the Realities of Distribution
Creating a product was only one part of Lezette’s entrepreneurial learning curve. Getting that product into the right places presented a very different challenge.
Distribution has been among the most challenging demanding aspects of building ChulaVie. The alcohol industry comes with extensive regulatory requirements, but Lezette quickly discovered that it is also deeply dependent on relationships. Emerging brands must earn access to distributors, retailers, restaurants, bars, and other on-premise opportunities, and those connections rarely develop overnight.
Her circumstances have added another layer to that challenge. Lezette continues to maintain her full-time career while building ChulaVie and financing its development with her own resources. As a result, decisions around both time and money have tomust be deliberate.
Rather than allowing those limitations to push her toward hurried decisions, she has treated them as lessons in patience and persistence. Her focus remains on protecting the quality of the product while gradually building the relationships and market presence necessary to support the brand she originally imagined.
Quality, Experience and Representation
ChulaVie rests on three ideas that matter deeply to Lezette: quality, memorable experiences, and representation. As the founder of a woman-owned and Black-owned beverage company, she is conscious of the limited representation of women and Black entrepreneurs within the alcohol industry. Building ChulaVie therefore carries meaning beyond bringing another product to market. Lezette wants to create something people genuinely enjoy while also demonstrating that there is room for more diverse founders, perspectives, and brands within the industry.
Her approach is grounded in a simple belief: convenience should not mean accepting less. ChulaVie is ready to enjoy, but Lezette has been careful to ensure that ease does not come at the expense of thoughtfulness or quality. The wine-forward character and restrained sweetness reflect that philosophy.
At the same time, she wants to elevate sangria without losing what makes it appealing in the first place. Sangria has always had a social quality, something shared around tables, conversations, gatherings, and celebrations. ChulaVie builds on that familiarity while presenting it through a more polished, premium lens.
Lezette hopes the brand earns its place on the shelf on the strength of the product itself. She also hopes its presence sends another message: people who have traditionally seen few founders like themselves in the industry can still imagine a place within it.
Growing Without Losing the Original Idea
Lezette listens carefully to customers because their responses provide valuable insight into what resonates, what they would like to see next, and where ChulaVie might improve. Yet she is equally cautious about allowing every new trend to determine the brand’s direction.
A new product, partnership, or business opportunity has tomust make sense within the ChulaVie experience. Innovation has value when it strengthens the brand, not when it simply follows what happens to be popular at the momentnow.
That thinking also influences how Lezette approaches growth. She is less interested in expanding at the fastest possible pace than in creating a business capable of supporting growth when it arrives. Distribution decisions, retail and on-premise partnerships, production capacity, and product consistency all have to develop together.
Her original vision remains the reference point for those choices. ChulaVie was created to elevate the sangria experience through something premium, approachable, and thoughtfully crafted while building a brand centered on possibility and bringing people together. As the company evolves, Lezette wants new ideas and opportunities to deepen that identity rather than pull it in another direction.
Leadership Built Through Learning
Building a company in an industry she had never previously worked in changed Lezette’s understanding of leadership. She could not enter the beverage business, assuming she already had all the answers. She had to become comfortable asking questions, listening to experienced people, seeking guidance, and adapting when new information challenged her assumptions. That willingness to learn has become one of the principles guiding ChulaVie.
Integrity is another. Lezette understands from both her professional background and entrepreneurial experience that trust carries considerable weight, particularly in an industry where relationships influence so many opportunities. Genuine connections cannot simply be treated as transactions. They have tomust be developed over time and supported by credibility.
Resilience has taken on a practical meaning as well. To Lezette, it is not about avoiding setbacks. It is about learning from them and continuing to move forward when building the business becomes difficult.
At every stage, she returns to the reason ChulaVie began. Growth is important, but not at the expense of the product, relationships, or the values behind the brand. That perspective has allowed Lezette to build with ambition while remaining connected to the simple beginning that started it all: creating something people enjoyed enough to ask for again.
Creating Space for Collaboration
ChulaVie remains a founder-led, one-woman operation, which means Lezette carries many of the responsibilities herself. Yet she has never viewed entrepreneurship as something that has to be done entirely alone.
When a particular area calls for expertise, she brings in graphic designers, marketing professionals, and industry specialists who can add value to the brand. Their perspectives allow her to see ideas from different angles while strengthening areas that may fall outside her own expertise.
Lezette values that exchange of ideas, while remaining closely connected to the vision and standards she has established for ChulaVie. As the business grows, she hopes to build a wider team around that same approach, bringing together people who can contribute their skills, challenge ideas constructively, and help the brand become better.
Listening Without Losing Direction
Customer feedback has become an important part of how Lezette thinks about ChulaVie’s future. She pays attention to what customers enjoy, what they would like to see, and what retailers and industry partners are observing in the market.
Those insights help her identify opportunities, but they do not automatically determine the direction of the brand. Lezette believes there is a difference between listening and simply following every request or trend.
She considers customer feedback alongside market information and the original purpose behind ChulaVie before making decisions about products, partnerships, and growth. That balance allows the brand to evolve while retaining the qualities that make it distinctive.
Using Technology to Compete Smarter
Technology has given ChulaVie ways to build awareness and create connections that might otherwise be difficult for a young brand to access. Digital platforms allow Lezette to communicate directly with customers, introduce people to the brand, connect with potential retail and industry partners, and keep pace with market changes.
Her approach to innovation is practical. Rather than adopting technology simply because it is new, she looks at how the right tools can help the business operate more efficiently, strengthen relationships, and create opportunities.
As ChulaVie continues to grow, that ability to use technology thoughtfully gives the brand another way to compete in an industry where established players often have greater resources.
Lessons in Resilience and Self-Belief
Building a company in an unfamiliar industry has taught Lezette that resilience does not mean having all the answers. It means continuing to move forward while learning what is needed along the way.
Her experience as a black woman entrepreneur in an industry where both remain underrepresented has also made her aware of the additional work required to establish credibility, develop relationships, and create opportunities.
She has learned to trust her own judgment without closing herself off from advice. That balance has become an important part of her leadership.
Her message to aspiring founders is straightforward: begin before everything feels completely ready. Obstacles are inevitable, but they do not have to become reasons to doubt a vision. Every challenge can bring another lesson and, in time, make an entrepreneur stronger.
Turning Passion into Something That Lasts
Lezette believes passion is a powerful starting point, but it has to be matched with intention. A founder can care deeply about an idea and still need to understand the market, know the customer, learn the business, and develop a realistic path toward growth.
Her own experience with ChulaVie reinforced that lesson. She did not have all the answers at the start, butwhen she started. She learned by doing, mademaking mistakes, asking ed questions, seekingsought guidance, and continuing to movecontinued moving forward.
Perfection was never a prerequisite for beginning. What mattered was remaining committed while staying willing to adapt.
She encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to listen carefully to customers, recognize opportunities, and give sustainable growth the time it requires. Passion may provide the initial push, but persistence, consistency, and adaptability determine whether an idea can become something lasting.
Leaving Something Behind
Purpose-driven entrepreneurship, in Lezette’s view, reaches beyond financial results. ChulaVie represents a quality product and the memorable experiences that come with sharing it, but it also represents something larger for its founder.
As a woman and Black entrepreneur in an industry where both groups remain underrepresented, Lezette understands the significance of simply building and being visible. She wants ChulaVie to demonstrate that a founder does not need to come from a traditional industry background or begin with an extensive network to create something meaningful.
Her message to fellow entrepreneurs is rooted in that experience. Pursue the vision, remain grounded in the reason behind it, and accept that meaningful impact is often built gradually.
Success, she believes, is not measured only by how far an entrepreneur travels. It can also be seen in the people inspired along the way, the opportunities opened for others, and the example left behind for those who come next.