2023 Fellow Focus: Priya Iyer + Our Roots
Daughter of immigrants, visionary, doer,…2023 Fellow Priya Iyer of Our Roots shares more about her journey as a social impact entrepreneur.
What life experiences propelled you into the entrepreneurial space and made you decide to be your own boss?
Growing up in an intergenerational family - grandparents, parents, sister and I - in Kansas where we experienced racism and being othered. I also had the opportunity to learn from the strengths and assets of my community of caregivers. When I went through the process of being pregnant and postpartum for the first time, I realized that so many of the mental wellness systems that touch us - communities of color, immigrants, etc - erase these beautiful gifts that were passed down to us, and that we want to continue to pass down to future generations. I was frustrated and didn’t want to wait around for someone else to build a system that is more responsive to our needs. I wanted to be a part of shaping the world I wanted to see.
What do you enjoy most about being a founder?
What I enjoy most about being a founder is being able to get one step closer to shaping the world that I and our communities want to live in every day. Being able to interrogate systems that we often believe are static. I’ve always learned best by doing.
What do you wish someone had told you before you started your entrepreneurial journey?
Often, the level of underinvestment, need, or impact you’re having as you work with communities doesn’t translate into being able to raise the resources you need. You have to actively work to shape the story you’re sharing, elevate that story, and persist when many, many people will not want to invest in your vision for reasons that you’ll sometimes never know. My natural tendency would be to quietly do this work. I have had to learn how to keep elevating the stories of our communities in a way that feels authentic to me and to them.
The Kansas City Star - Op-Ed
“Racism isn’t just a societal problem. It can actually make us physically ill.”
How do you stay motivated?
I listen to the stories our clients share, and I make sure to offer to be a peer coach to at least a few of our clients at any given time to understand how to work with them to continue impacting their lives and those of their families. I spend uninterrupted time with my own family including my son and daughter, which reminds me of the world I want them to be able to live in. I reflect on the lessons my grandma and my broader community of caregivers gifted me.
Let's talk about your legacy. How do you hope your venture will make the world a better place generations from now?
I hope that we can embrace and elevate the narratives of mental wellness of different communities of color that get passed down at the transformational life stages of pregnancy and postpartum. I want to see that health systems that are shaped by and with us, that are culturally-reverent, are the norm and not a nice to have, and that inevitably this will lead to greater health and wellness for us and the generations to come.
What's your favorite book or podcast that you draw entrepreneurial inspiration from?
Our Stories: An Introduction to South Asian America. This book taught me a lot about the South Asian narratives in the U.S. (which often go untold or are papered over by the model minority myth), and how we have been in community with other communities of color to build and shape our lives here. It has also taught me a lot about the many shapes and forms of an entrepreneur.
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