About Us

Who we are

Most of what Americans buy day to day flows to a handful of the biggest companies on earth, where the profit collects at the very top while the people who pack the boxes and drive the trucks live paycheck to paycheck. We don't think that's how it has to work. A company is a team — and when the team does well, everyone on it should do well, not just the owners.

So the store is built around that from the start. Right now, it's just me — there's no team to share profits with yet, and I'm not going to pretend there is. But the commitment is set, in writing, from day one: when For Better Lives can support employees, they'll earn a real living wage — in Austin that runs about $22 an hour, roughly three times the federal minimum — and share in the profits they help create.

We're privately held, and we will never sell or go public — this isn't a business being fattened up to sell. It's built to last, and to keep its word.

Make no mistake: this is capitalism done right, not something else. A fair wage, a real share of what we build together, and the old American promise that hard work pays — that's about as red-white-and-blue as it gets. Some of the most beloved companies in the country are employee-owned; rewarding the people who create the value is a proud American tradition that has become all too rare.

We're also honest that the country drifted from this. For fifty years the deal has tilted further and further toward the top, until the distance between the richest and everyone else looks less like the America people remember and more like the places jobs have been 'outsourced' to. We think a gap that wide is bad not only for the workers on the short end of it, but for the whole country, its politics, and its future. Every order you place here is a small vote for a different way — one where a company can pay people fairly, compete on price, and still hand you good products.

Where it's from

We work hard to find good American-made products, and we carry them whenever they're the right call on cost, quality, and availability. Cutlery from Iowa, cutting boards from Vermont, glassware from Ohio, soaps and cottons from North Carolina — and when the best option comes from outside the USA, we say so plainly. Every product's origin is labeled clearly, American or not, so you always know exactly what you're buying and where your money goes.

Our shelves are still filling out — the selection is limited today and growing all the time. If there's something you'd like to see us carry, please tell us. We're glad you found us.