About Us
Hey there! I'm Melissa and I'm the founder and lead creative here. :)Dream Forward Co. is an online boutique that features items created by small town creatives from all over the USA. Our items consist of hats, shirts, paper goods, and jewelry that help you share the story of what makes you...YOU.
After five and a half years in the social selling arena, I was tired of working my butt off to fill the pockets of someone else. I wanted to be in control of what I offered and how I offered it to my customers. After a late night brainstorming session with a business bestie, Dream Forward Co. was born.
On November 23, 2020 we launched our Dream Forward Co. exclusive items and in the Fall of 2021 we attended our very first market. Life was good, until it wasn't. :( I started a new job, joined my small town's town council , and my dreams were put on the back burner. I made the extremely hard decision to close Dream Forward Co. in January 2022 to try to focus on my new job and my new responsibilities in my town.
Little did I know that signing up for something that I thought was going to be a positive experience ended up being such a toxic one. Since then, my life has been consumed of drama I didn't want involved in, small town politics that I wanted no part of, and a mental health struggle to survive.
In 2024 I started attending therapy to try and repair and recover from the past couple of years of trauma and toxicity. In doing so I rediscovered a dream I had put aside.
During a therapy session my therapist asked "It sounds like you do a lot of things for a lot of people but what do you do for yourself? What is something that makes YOU happy and you set time aside each day to do for yourself?" And after a long pause I said, well I used to have fun designing shirts and hats for people. And she said "So what did you stop doing that?" And my answer to her was "I don't know." And since that question was asked to me on that cold April morning, I decided that if I didn't have a good enough answer on why I stopped, then I probably shouldn't have stopped to begin with.
During 2024 I went back and forth on if I wanted to relaunch this dream of mine. I struggled with things like imposter syndrome and worried about over-saturation with hats and shirts. I also don't want to fail...again. That sucked. BUT..at the end of the day I realized that this is for me. It's to force me to carve out time to do something that makes ME happy and in doing so, I hope it also makes you happy. It doesn't matter what others are doing or thinking because they're not me. So, here we go. We're gonna do this thing and we're gonna do it for real this time. And we're not going to let anyone ,or their negativity, stop us.
And Remember....to always Dream Forward, Never Backwards.