The story of Inspiration Co. doesn’t begin with a pitch, a spreadsheet or an entrepreneurial master plan. It starts with Doug and Ashley Waldbueser sitting on a bench in Holiday Park on an ordinary afternoon, talking about something they had both noticed: people seemed worn down in a way that didn’t match the sunshine around them. Somewhere in that conversation, Doug mentioned the Bible verses his mother used while homeschooling him, how those lines helped him stay steady through rough patches later in life. The idea came quietly. No fanfare. Just a thought: if a few words could lift him when he needed it most, maybe they could lift someone else. “If it worked for me, certainly other people could be uplifted by thinking positively,” he said, adding, “I just wanted to share with my community what actually was helping me.”
That small thought would eventually become thousands of meaningful interactions around the world and lead to the founding of Inspiration Co. by the Waldbueser family: Doug, Ashley, Grace, Derek, April and Carolyn. But back then, it was simply the beginning of a hopeful experiment. Doug and Ashley made bracelets by hand in their apartment, filling boxes in his parents’ attic and staying up late packaging orders. When they finally managed to rent a tiny garage space in FAT Village, it felt like winning a prize. “We thought we had arrived,” they laugh. It wasn’t glamorous, but it had a door customers could walk through, something their apartment didn’t offer. During the FAT Village Art Walk, the place filled with strangers reading messages, sharing stories, offering encouragement and walking away with bracelets. That night shifted everything. It was the moment the idea stopped being “ours” and became something people wanted to participate in.
Fort Lauderdale became the company’s true foundation long before national orders, airport kiosks or 63 stores across the country. Residents weren’t just buying the bracelets; they were passing them along. They gave them to friends going through hard times. They handed them out in waiting rooms. They offered them to strangers who looked like they needed something to hold on to. Doug’s father, Bill, still remembers the day a man experiencing homelessness approached him at a stoplight. He was wearing one of their bracelets. When Bill asked where he got it, the man explained that someone driving by didn’t have spare change but offered him the bracelet instead. The message engraved on it read “Created for Greatness.” That moment didn’t create the business, but it defined its purpose.
From the start, Inspiration Co. wasn’t just a family business, it was powered by the entire family. Doug and Ashley run the show, but the structure took shape around the strengths of those closest to them. April stepped in to guide marketing, visual merchandising and advertising, adding a recognizable personality to the brand. Grace became the steady force managing inventory, a role that grew more complex as stores opened around the country. Derek is the reason the stores look and feel the way they do; every visual detail comes through him. Lisa serves as the retail director, while Kenzie handles retail. Brandon ensures everything in accounting runs smoothly. Ashley handles the website, the store design, the online experience. And Doug holds the mission, the strategy and the reason behind everything.
The family didn’t assign roles based on convenience. They assigned them based on who they are. “Each branch of the company is led by someone in my family who has the talents to lead that department,” Doug says. “They were with me if we won or lost.” That early loyalty became the company’s foundation. While most startups spend years trying to form a leadership team, Inspiration Co. started with one built around a dining table. Family members didn’t quit during slow months. They didn’t step back when uncertainty crept in. They stayed because they believed in the mission and in one another.
Working with family can be difficult, and they’ll be the first to say so, but in their case, it also came naturally. “We were raised in a family business…it comes so naturally,” they say. Years of working side by side gave them a rhythm that carried straight into the company. Their 300 employees eventually became part of that rhythm too, blending into a culture where teamwork feels personal.
Creativity inside this family doesn’t come from polished brainstorms. It comes from life happening. One niece drives a Jeep decorated with rubber ducks. That random detail sparked Ducky Notes, a runaway holiday hit featuring small ducks holding tiny inspirational messages. “Those ‘Ducky Notes’ were selling like hot cakes last Christmas,” they say. Twice a year, the family gathers for what they jokingly call their “family ‘Shark Tank,’” tossing out ideas, laughing at the bad ones and occasionally landing on something brilliant, like the Oil and Stone natural perfume line. The process isn’t formal, but it works because everyone is invested. Everyone cares.
The heart of the company isn’t found in meetings, though. It’s found in the stories that come back to them. They still talk about one of their earliest reviews from a young woman who bought matching bracelets for her mother, her sister and herself. A week later, she buried her mother wearing hers. She and her sister kept the other two as a way to feel connected to her. “When we read that, we knew,” the family says. “This is bigger than we imagined.” It wasn’t about selling accessories anymore. It was about holding space for people in moments they might never forget.
As the business expanded, something unexpected happened: their children began absorbing lessons in real time. Lessons about hard work, problem solving, patience and stepping into challenges rather than backing away from them. “Give more than you have to, and take less than you have to,” Doug says, repeating the principle passed down from his parents, Bill and Carolyn. That idea sits quietly behind every bracelet they make.
Through all the growth (more stores, more products, more employees, more demands), Doug still leans on a phrase engraved into one of their bracelets: “God is in Control.” With leases, payroll for hundreds of employees, inventory oversight, design work, expansion and the weight of running a national retail brand, that message keeps everything steady. “I focus on what I can control: my attitude and my effort,” he says. The rest requires trust.
The bracelets now reach more than 70 countries. Earlier this year, two team members delivered 300 bracelets engraved with “Created for Greatness” to children in Ghana through Samaritan’s Feet. The idea, born on a bench in Holiday Park, now rests on the wrists of children halfway across the world.
And yet, despite all the growth, the company still feels like the small family operation it was at the beginning. They still make every bracelet by hand. On weekends, Doug and Ashley’s daughters help sell at the Fort Lauderdale Beach pop-up market. During the holiday rush, everyone (from the founders to the newest employee) packs orders together to make sure every package arrives on time.
Inspiration Co. is stepping into its next chapter with new products, partnerships and an expanded mission. They’re launching journals, home décor, fragrances, rubber ducks with messages, study guides and even natural supplements, each designed with the same intention that started everything: encouragement.
If you strip everything away (the stores, the inventory systems, the surprise viral products, the national expansion), you’re left with the same simple truth that started this entire journey: people need to feel loved. People need to feel important. People need to believe the best is still ahead.
“We don’t know what someone is going through,” the family says. “But we know one thing for sure about each and every one of them…they are loved and they are important. Life is working for them, not against them.”
In the end, Inspiration Co. is a retail success story, but its core has never changed. It remains a family offering hope in the form of a bracelet, a message, a moment. And everything circles back to that day in Holiday Park: one conversation, one idea, one spark of kindness that grew into something far bigger than they ever imagined.
