Life & Work with Roxanne Kaiser of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Roxanne Kaiser

Hi Roxanne, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Growing up, school was always really challenging for me. I was the girl who went to tutoring after school for geometry & algebra, needed to do extra homework at night with my dad to understand math & science problems and struggled with focus on a daily basis.

Throughout high school, I remember everyone truly doubting my ability to get into a good college & making something out of my life. My parents ALWAYS believed I could do more (although at times, they were a little worried lol) but my friends thought I was too focused on being social > school/seriousness.

My whole life, I have ALWAYS run head first into any challenge. I was HORRIBLE at Math, so I put myself in math tutoring. I was great in literature & history, so I put myself in my high school Engineering club to strengthen my weaknesses in math/science.

I was always fearless. Fearless of failure, fearless of not being ‘good enough’ and as cliche as it sounds, my fearlessness stemmed from my parents. I grew up in an immigrant hoousehold, where my parents litreally worked for every single thing my sister and I had. Having a mom from Iran has always made me think “if my mom could do it, I literally have no excuse not to”.

When graduating highschool, I decided I wanted to go to The Georgia Institute of Technology. GT was/is known for their superior engineering and computing Colleges which are the largest and among the highest-ranked in the nation. Despire being horrible at math, for whatever reason, this was the ONLY school I was going to go to (this deep desire likely stems back to how I always run towards my weaknesses). I wanted a top notch education. I wanted to prove to myself and others that I could get into GT. I wanted to make my parents proud, and I always wanted to be DIFFERENT. At the time, being a girl & going to GT was against the norm and to me, going to GT would mean breaking the boundaries of what it means to be a “Georgia Tech Woman” graduate.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road has been SUPER bumpy. Roadblocks, potholes & more.

Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. One day you have enough money to buy a new car, and the NEXT day, youre in the negatives. I specifically remember one struggle in particular where my business partner and I had just invested a LOT of money in re-branding PastedNip and our merchandise boxes. We wanted a new, fresher look and although our budget was TIGHT, we decided to re-brand for the betterment of the business.

We ordered 20,000 units of our newly designed boxes. Every, single box came scratched – we did not have any contract in place for replacing items if damaged and every new box had to be replaced/recelyced. Not only did we loose money on every box, but we had to order new boxes from a new manufacture and physically take the product OUT of the old box, build the new box, and place the product inside the new boxes. This was a HORRIBLE experience. We lost money and a lot of time and not to mention, this happened right when we received our first big box order.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
After graduating from Georgia Tech, I worked in the Supply Chain IT Consulting world for 7 years. I was traveling 2-3 times a week, every week from East to West Coast. My life was on the road (no seriously, one year I spent 301/365 days in a hotel).

In 2020, everyone moved to remote work and because of my GO GO GO lifestyle for so many years in consulting, I felt like I had SO much time on my hands. Instead of catching flights, getting in ubers, moving hotels, traveling to another country ‘alternative traveling’ or going to client dinners- At 6PM, the work day was just ‘over’ and I was starting to not feel fulfilled.

This is when I started my first business, PastedNip. I felt like I had SO much creative juice flowing through me. I had spent years in the Tech world – working with retail software systems and felt like the CREATIVE, FUN, FORWARD and FASHION-Roxanne was totally suppressed. Thus, PastedNip was born!

Pastednip is a braless alternative brand built from the bootom-up. From branding, to sourcing and product manufacturing, PastedNip was completely bootstrapped and created by my (then) partner and I. After 1 year of business, PastedNip entered its’ first Nation-wide big box store and is located in over 5,000+ boutiques. Because of the impact ive made in creating a well-known braless alternative brand, I have participated in multiple speaking engagements and workshops, specifically around women in business. PastedNip has continued to grow year after year and has extended its product line from 1 SKU to 8.

I will never forget my first tradeshow – where we made somewhere around $400 and I was SO excited because in my head, WE HAD A BUSINESS!

3.5 years later – PastedNip contiues to grow. When I hear and talk to random women in public, they mention how incredible their pasties are and whenever I follow-up with “what brand are you wearing’ and they reply with ‘PastedNip’ — this is my most prideful moment of being the founder of PastedNip. Knowing that I have created a product that is trusted, loved and worn by thousands of women.

My life drastically changed in August of 2023! I was on Netflix’s The Ultimatium Season 2 & as my presence grew on social media and Netflix, so did my anxiety. I decided to open up more about my anxiety and panic to my community, realizing I was really looking for people who related to how I was feeling. I heard back from so many people in my DMs. 

After this, I decided to create PROXY- a safe, judgment-free space to talk about anxiety, panic, and mental health.

With this platform growing over the past few months,I decided to create FEELPROXY LLC, better-for-you gummies. I wanted to help other people who felt anxiety & panic because I desperately knew how horrible it was to feel this way.

In September of 2024, I began to work with a USA based co-man to create ingredients for 4 health & wellness gummies. This is what has led me to discover the world of plant medicines, and how plants have been used to help with anxiety, stress and panic attacks for centuries. From there, I developed gummies using plant medicine ingredients rather than lab ingredients, AKA herbal botanical active ingredients instead of pharmaceuticals.

Proxy Wellness is truly a passion project. I have found such a love for both companies I have started. PastedNip being a company that encourages and empowers women to feel confident in their own skin, and Proxy, a company completely focusing on the mental-well being of EVERYBODY.

As PastedNip continues to grow, and Proxy begins to grow – I want to continue being a dynamic woman serial-entrepreneur . I have always had a knack with turning vision into reality and as my businesses grow, my goal would be to continue to inspire and empower women to chase their dreams FEARLESSLY.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
YES!! I LOVE the Calm App. Ive had a subscription since 2017 (I got the app when I first started having major panic attacks). I was always alone in hotels and I used the PANIC SOS mode to help calm my breathing down when traveling. I use this app to sleep every night. No seriously – I just looked at my STATAS and I have 603 hr and 41 mins of ‘mindful minutes’!!

I also LOVE Guy Raz’s podcast ‘How I built this Podcast’. I listent to it all the time.

I think my favorite thing about listening to incredibly successful entrepeneurs on his podcast is hearing founders stories. Its INCREDIBLE how relatable most of the stories are, in that – most were built from the ground up, founders had no money & they always felt defeated. I get so inspried hearing how these incredibly accomplished entrepenuers all started from the bottom and also work their asses off to make it to the top. Sometimes we forget (seeing all their success in the moment) how it was all built!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/Roxanne_Kaiser
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rickyrox_/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Rickyrox_
• Other: https://www.pastednip.com