The Dish #1: Aishwarya Iyer
The founder of Brightland Olive Oil on imposter syndrome, career pivots, and speaking to yourself with kindness.
The Dish is a monthly interview series where I speak to people about the ups and downs of building a life and career that you love. For our inaugural issue, I’m speaking with Aishwarya Iyer, the founder of Brightland.
Ahead of my bachelorette weekend, my friend Katie had Ben answer some questions about me as a fun little party game. In response to the question “what would Maria bring to a desert island?” he answered “olive oil, garlic, and pasta.” He was absolutely correct, save for one tiny detail: I would bring Brightland olive oil, specifically.
Brightland is a consciously-crafted olive oil company that was started by Aishwarya Iyer in 2018. It became an instant success, selling out in its first week and racking up a waitlist of 1,000+. Brightland has now expanded to include multiple varieties of olive oil (the Alive and Castelvetrano oils are my favorite), as well as vinegars and honey. Oh, and their Pizza Oil, which is the yummiest thing you’ll ever drizzle on your ‘za, *finally* relaunched a few weeks ago after being sold out for months.
With so much success right out of the gate, you’d expect Aishwarya to have always seen herself as an olive oil mogul. But she actually started her career doing public affairs and corporate communications for tech startups. And while the idea of creating her own olive oil brand piqued her interest, like a lot of us with dreams that fall outside of the realm of what we’re “meant” to do, she never actually expected herself to take the leap. Until one day, she did.
So, how did Aishwarya go from feeling like her career was one-note to creating the prettiest olive oil you’ll ever have on your shelf? She realized that we can contain multitudes.
Maria: So, we’ve just discovered that we’re both Pisces, the dreamers of the zodiac, which feels like a good place to start here. I have often found that I am able to dream really big, but when the rubber hits the road and I need to start working to get that dream off the ground, I get tripped up. Can you talk to me a little bit about when the dream of Brightland began, and how you grew that dream into a reality when you were in such a different career?
Aishwarya: I was in the tech world doing public affairs and corporate communications. I was just going about my merry way, started cooking more at home, and was intrigued by the care and the thought that people put into ingredients. Olive oil kept coming up for me as this lone ingredient where people weren’t really able to be like oh, *that* is the place to get the best olive oil even though they could tell me where to get the best cheese.
I was intrigued by this, and I just started researching it a bit more. This was in 2015, and to be honest, I just kind of filed [that interest] away for later. I was about to turn 30, and had built enough of a career at that point that I didn’t think I could do something else. It’s so easy to think this is my identity, I can’t contain multitudes. And I just figured that [olive oil] wasn’t my story to tell. I didn’t go to a fancy school, I didn’t see myself as a founder of a first-generation, direct-to-consumer brand. I’m not a chef. I didn’t really know if I had a place in this. It wasn’t even imposture syndrome. It was more my thinking how dare I have the audacity to think I could do this.
M: It’s so interesting to hear you say that. As a writer, I often worry about pigeonholing myself, and I hear from a lot of young women starting their careers that they feel they need to choose a brand and stick to it. But that can feel very limiting after a while! I wonder what it was that finally got you to think even if this is not my lane, I can pave my own path beside it?
A: So it was two things: Looking to the past, and then looking to the distant future. I looked back at my 13-year-old self and thought about her worrying about the people who would think this was silly. I wanted to reassure her. And then I fast-forwarded to my 70-year-old self and thought about, at that point, what will I regret that I didn’t take the leap on? And this [career change] came up.
I didn’t want to have any regret. At least you try, right? What’s the worst thing that could happen? I didn’t put my entire savings into Brightland and mortgage my house, but I did put a piece of my savings into [starting the business]. And I thought, well, if I lose it, that’s the worst thing that will happen.
If a friend came up to me and told me they wanted to do this, I wouldn’t [say], “Wow, if you fail, you’re going to look stupid.” I’d be like, “Wow, you’re so brave for even trying.”
M: It’s like instead of considering all of the ways things could go wrong, you considered all of the ways things could go right and why you should do this.
A: I also thought about, like, if a friend came up to me and told me they wanted to do this. I wouldn’t be like, “Wow, if you fail, you’re going to look stupid.” No, I’d be like, “Wow, you’re so brave for even trying. That’s amazing.” And so I think it’s also considering how we speak to the people we love, and why can’t we speak like that ourselves?
M: I’m so glad you mentioned that because I catch myself doing that all the time. I’ll often catch myself hyping my friends up when they’re applying for new jobs or moving into their own apartments, and I’m so hyped for them. But I do not support myself in that same way. I feel that’s so typical for women. We don’t see ourselves the way other people see us.
A: We don’t and it’s really a shame.
M: So going back to this idea of containing multitudes. Brightland has expanded so much in the past six years. I am curious about whether or not you think you’ve gone through different evolutions within the company and within yourself as you’ve fostered this growth?
A: Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, I was 32 when I started Brightland and I’ve changed so much — my own leadership journey, my relationship with spirituality, with time, myself, the language I use with myself. My relationship with food has changed. And my relationship with my phone has deeply changed, actually. I spend less time on it than I ever have, and I feel better than ever because of that.
M: Oh man, so much of my imposter syndrome comes from that damn phone.
A: It’s imposter syndrome. It’s too much clutter. I just don’t think we need to see that much content. I love when I’m able to sit still, be in the real world, and have clarity of thought rather than the clutter of what a person I met at a party two years ago ate for dinner. It just doesn’t matter. It’s not moving our own life needle forward.
I love when I’m able to sit still, be in the real world, and have clarity of thought rather than the clutter of what a person I met at a party two years ago ate for dinner.
M: Also the human mind was just not created to take all of that information in and be able to process it and empathize with it. It’s so overstimulating. But it feels like you’ve taken that idea of clarity into your brand ethos — these moments of returning to self and making something delicious. It feels very intimate, and I feel like that personal intimacy is really missing these days.
A: Well, thank you so much. We’re always trying to make sure the brand speaks to that. I also think the other piece, from a spiritual perspective, this one life that we are living is really short, and we’re extremely arrogant in the way we think that we’re around forever. We’re here for a very short period of time, so why not do what you want to do?
M: I’m curious about how you deal with Brightland’s growth. It feels like it’s been done very intentionally, and all the products kind of hang together in this beautiful way. How do you handle this idea of constantly needed to create more, more, more and balance it with that intentionality?
A: There are so many different ways to grow. One could be really building loyalty with customers who have shopped multiple times instead of putting new shit out into the world to capture everyone. How can we make things better for those loyal customers and make Brightland better for them? How do we reintroduce ourselves to them? I also think that recipes are a beautiful way to introduce products to people who may not know, like, what to do with a lemon olive oil or a champagne vinegar.
We’ve had moments where it’s ebbed and flowed. But for us, we’ve realized we don’t need to keep coming out with new things all the time. And if we are coming out with something new, let’s make it something really interesting or special.
M: So going back to your 13- and 70-year-old selves. If you had to check in with them again, now that you’re six years into the business, what questions would you pose to them? How do you see that evolving?
A: I’d ask the 13-year-old whether we placated the ego? [Laughs.] And I think she would say we absolutely did, on a good day. And on a bad day where everything is going wrong, she might be like, “You’re a dummy.” It never changes!
And then to the 75-year-old-self? I think she’s asking what are the other chapters? What are the other layers? The world has been cracked open. You can do anything.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.