Finding Gold in a Cup of Tea

Liam Trotzuk and his Goldholly co-founders might consider themselves accidental entrepreneurs. Although Trotzuk and Jeffrey Chung have been friends since their high school days at Collegiate in NYC, and Trotzuk and Andrew Little met while studying at Brown University, none of them initially envisioned pursuing the startup path. Each had pursued their own career path, from Trotzuk’s turn in strategic planning at JetBlue, to Chung’s work in the arts and innovation at Sotheby’s and Artsy, to Little’s time in sustainable finance at UBS and Blackrock.

Andrew Little, Liam Trotzuk, Jeffrey Chung

But when Trotzuk’s hobby interests introduced him to the yaupon holly plant, things began to change—and click.  Even though Trotzuk wasn’t explicitly sure he would start a business from scratch, he had been interested in discovering a product that could do good for the consumer as well as for the planet.

Once he began college, Trotzuk became a big consumer of caffeinated beverages. “I liked the boost and the energy from coffee, tea, and yerba maté. I also became interested in the traditions and origins behind coffee and tea; it’s fascinating to me that tea is the second-most consumed beverage globally, after water. While I was at JetBlue I traveled so much, and I’d make that exploration part of my travels. I loved going to places to try local caffeinated beverages, like trying single origin coffee in Ethiopia and oolong tea in Taiwan.”

Concurrently, Trotzuk was exploring an interest in native plants and sustainable agriculture. “Back in 2020, during the height of Covid, I built a native plant finder app, just for fun,” he said.

“I’d always wanted to work in sales, but I have a hard time selling something I don’t believe in,” Trotzuk added. “Some people can do that—I can’t. I need to rationalize the value to make that kind of pitch. And I was always looking for that opportunity.”

While in Austin, TX for an airline conference, Trotzuk visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, a massive botanical garden comprising only native plants. It was there that he stumbled upon yaupon holly—America’s only native plant containing usable, functional caffeine.  Teas and coffees are widely grown outside of North America.

Yaupon Holly Branch

“I assumed this was already a burgeoning if not booming industry,” said Trotzuk. “I figured others were already selling it—and there are a few, but they are really focused on their state specific origin, with one in Texas and the other in Florida, two of the primary places it grows.” 

Trotzuk began to consider what would be necessary to take this plant from a regional curiosity to a nationwide staple. In 2023, he began to brew and share yaupon, with the inkling that this might present an interesting business opportunity. “I shared it with Jeffrey and Andrew, separately, and they both agreed there was a potential opportunity here.”

The three decided that they wanted to see if they could popularize the plant, branding and distributing it in a way that would break into the US tea market, where dried tea (the kind you find in tea bags) is a multibillion-dollar market. The team landed on the name Goldholly for a few reasons. “This plant is an incredible, and incredibly underutilized resource growing throughout the American south,” said Trotzuk. “We wanted to emphasize that something domestic can also be a premium product. We also liked the addition of “gold” because the tea makes you feel bright and energetic.”

“Even just one percent of the US dried tea market is $20 million,” added Trotzuk. “We decided to take a shot at it—and that’s ultimately how we found I-Corps.”

Trotzuk shared how the three of them got started exploring local resources. “When we incorporated, we knew we’d be headquartered in NYC, where we were living,” he said. “Almost immediately, we realized there are such great resources in New York, from agricultural expertise at Cornell Cooperative Extension, to manufacturing expos in the Hudson Valley. The whole state has so much to offer, but NYC especially holds a wealth of human, actual, and research capital. And NY I-Corps quickly stood out.”

The Goldholly team considered their concept to be a standard consumer product, rather than involving a proprietary scientific process. But after speaking with Ariella Trotsenko, director, NYC Innovation Hot Spot, and Cira Cardaci, NY Hub executive manager, they learned that I-Corps also offered spots to entities not affiliated with a research institution.

Participating in the January 2025 Regional I-Corps cohort offered the team great insights. “It wasn’t a pivot as much as a confirmation of lessons we had only heard anecdotally,” Trotzuk shared. “Before the cohort, people who don’t know the industry would tell us things like ‘Just go into Whole Foods,’ but that is very sought-after shelf space. We had a self-imposed mandate not to talk to the end consumer during the I-Corps cohort, but to focus on the buyers/intermediaries that purchases and resells products to grocery stores. We learned a lot of lessons about how challenging it is to get into a physical retail space.”

“During I-Corps, we gained insights you can only get by talking to people—it’s not something you’re going to find out with a Google search or from AI,” he said.  “You need to hear from people in the space, and I don’t know if we would have gotten those learnings if we hadn’t done I-Corps.”

Goldholly partners with farms in the South, in Texas and Florida that use only rain to water the organic plants, working with them to purchase the plants, dry, mill, and roast the tea. The dried tea is then sent to Philadelphia, where a co-packer/manufacturing company puts it into teabags and boxes.  “The machinery for that is expensive and breaks easily,” Trotzuk said. “Doing that in-house as a three-person, bootstrapped company would not have made sense.”

“We then ship the product to Poughkeepsie, NY, where we work with Mid-Hudson Works, founded by former IBM executives to create jobs for veterans and people with disabilities, to handle logistics and shipping,” added Trotzuk. “It was important to us that, along with the headquarters for our founding team, we kept a critical piece of our operations here in New York State.”

Following their I-Corps experience, the Goldholly team has participated in numerous events organized by or connected to the NYC Innovation Hot Spot. “The annual Hot Spot Network Meeting was a great way to connect with other entrepreneurs,” said Trotzuk. “We also went to some great Hot Spot learning sessions, including one on insurance for small businesses. Even though it was geared towards companies in the life sciences sector, it was still valuable. We also went to the storytelling workshop, which was fantastic. Overall, the NYC Innovation Hot Spot does a great job of providing networking opportunities and making you aware of resources to pursue.”

The three friends remain the only full-time employees, with Trotzuk as CEO, Little as chief of strategy and Chung as chief of innovation. Goldholly’s product is now available to order via their web site, as well as Amazon, Instagram and TikTok, with plans to be on Temu soon. The product is currently available at five retail locations. “We’re hoping to slowly but surely scale up retail, while primarily focusing on ecommerce, as that enables us to secure higher margins and speed up cashflow,” said Trotzuk. “And given that interest seems to be national rather than regional, online provides a better way to reach a broader consumer audience.”

Trotzuk believes their biggest challenge is just how tough it can be to start a business while educating your target consumer. “We have to build customer awareness,” he said. “People haven’t heard of yaupon. Once you get it on their radar, they love the novelty and want to try it. But it can be hard to figure out the best way to educate them – whether it’s getting them to watch a video or testing out text on packaging – and if you aren’t careful, that can get expensive.”

“Our focus now is to grow sales and keep talking about the benefits—that it’s grown locally, it’s good for the environment, and offers great flavor that you can’t find in any other caffeinated beverage on the market.”