What Started as Betrayal Became a Brand

Betrayal is a heavy word.

We don't use it because it makes the story more dramatic. We use it because that is how we experienced one of the most difficult seasons of our lives.

We had helped build a business. We had invested our time, relationships, energy, and trust into it.

Then decisions were made that effectively ended our place in the company we thought would be part of our future.

Suddenly, there was no clear job. No stable income. No clear next move.

We had children to provide for, bills that didn't stop, and one question that kept coming back:

Before Myriad, There Was Betrayal.

For years, business had been familiar territory for me.

I had spent around 15 years in sales across health and wellness and digital services, eventually helping build a startup alongside people we trusted.

That trust eventually broke.

What happened afterward left us feeling pushed out of something we had worked hard to help build.

There was anger. There was disappointment. There were questions we couldn't immediately answer.

But the hardest part wasn't losing a title.

It was realizing that the future we thought was secure suddenly wasn't.

When There Was Nowhere Else to Look, We Looked Up.

In the middle of that season, we attended a Sunday service at Victory Mabalacat.

We didn't go because everything was finally okay.

We went because we needed hope.

Somewhere in that season of losing what we thought we could depend on, our relationship with God became different.

Looking back, that was the bigger breakthrough.

Before there was a brand, there was a change happening in us.

Then We Prayed for an Idea.

One day, my husband and I were sitting at our dining table.

No big strategy session. No business consultant. No five-year plan.

We prayed.

We asked God for direction.

Specifically, we asked for an idea.

And one word kept coming to mind:

Literal soap.

We looked around and realized how much experience we had already gained from years of working around health, wellness, skincare products, manufacturers, and selling.

Then came another question:

Our own product. Our own formula. Our own brand.

That thought eventually became Myriad.

₱10,000. Zero Employees. And Then—Zero Sales.

Myriad didn't begin with a large investment.

We started with around ₱10,000.

There was no fancy office. No full marketing team. No large operation behind us.

We had experience, relationships with manufacturers, ideas we wanted to test, and a lot to learn.

Then came our first month.

Zero sales.

That's when we learned one of our earliest lessons: having a product does not automatically mean people will buy it.

Branding matters. Packaging matters. Communication matters. Understanding the customer matters.

So we adjusted.

And kept going.

Faith Wasn't a Shortcut Around the Hard Part.

There were moments when giving up would have been understandable.

For the first few months, my husband even considered working overseas so we could have something more predictable.

But in the middle of all the uncertainty, we experienced something we still find difficult to explain in purely practical terms:

Not certainty that everything would work perfectly.

Not a promise that business would suddenly become easy.

Peace that God was still with us while we did the work in front of us.

Faith didn't replace planning. It didn't replace learning. It didn't replace hard work.

It changed who we trusted while doing all three.

Then People Started Saying Yes.

Our first customers weren't strangers from some massive advertising campaign.

They were people close to us.

Neighbors. Relatives. Parents of our children's classmates.

Then the circle started getting wider.

More people tried the products. Orders grew. More products were added. A small physical store eventually followed.

Then Myriad began traveling farther than we expected.

Overseas Filipinos brought the products with them. International orders followed.

Japan became one of the first international destinations, followed by orders reaching other countries.

What started around a dining table in Mabalacat was suddenly reaching people far beyond it.

Somewhere Along the Way, Our Definition of Success Changed.

It would be easy to tell this as a story about proving people wrong.

But that isn't what we want Myriad to become.

We don't want betrayal to be the thing that defines the brand.

It may explain where part of the story began.

But it doesn't explain why we continue.

We believe Myriad is something God has allowed us to steward.

That changes the question from:

to:

Our customers. Our products. Our partners. Our employees. Our opportunities. Our reputation.

All of it matters.

That verse captures what we want work to mean at Myriad.

Excellence matters because the work isn't only about us.

Integrity matters because how we build matters just as much as what we build.

Serving people well matters because business is ultimately about people.

What Betrayal Taught Us

And Myriad Is Still Becoming.

The products are different now.

The packaging has evolved.

The business system has grown.

There are customers, resellers, partners, and people using Myriad in places we could not have imagined when we were sitting at that dining table.

But we still don't consider the story finished.

We're still learning.

Still improving.

Still asking God for wisdom.

Still trying to serve people better than we did yesterday.

Maybe the Thing That Broke Your Plan Isn't the End of Your Story.

We didn't know Myriad was waiting on the other side of that difficult season.

At the time, we only knew that we had to keep moving, keep trusting God, and be faithful with whatever was in front of us.

For us, one of those things was a simple idea: soap.

And God used that beginning to take our lives in a direction we never planned.

We don't know what the next chapter will look like either.

But we know who we want at the center of it.

Better Skin, Daily.
Myriad Blessings.