The Daring Well Podcast - Holistic Health & Wellness, Mindset, and Personal Growth · Rita Mercer, Wellness, Mindset & Mental Health Expert

From Burnout to Wellness: Journey Behind Scent Expresso – A Daring Well Story with Dan Hartshorn

·33 min·2 clips

Dan shows a patented universal adapter that lets him swap rosemary and eucalyptus oils in seconds.

1. The Daring Well Podcast episode centers on Dan Hartshorn and Flow Greens, with scent espresso as the main product topic. 2. Rita Mercer hosts Dan Hartshorn, who is one of the co-founders of Flow Greens and describes himself as a father, reader, and startup builder. 3. The episode asks how burnout, family pressure, and product engineering shaped the creation of a shower-based aromatherapy device. 4. Dan says he spent about 15 years in the "messy middle" across recruitment, startup growth, acquisition, and integration. 5. He says his earlier company, Amita, was "the world's first wireless smart thermometer" and that he joined after crowdfunding. 6. Dan says he was part of Amita's journey from zero to "over 100 million," which he presents as one of his proudest roles. 7. He says the burnout that helped inspire Flow Greens lasted about two years. 8. He links that burnout to the acquisition process, where he had to keep normal business operations running while answering multiple requests. 9. He says the integration phase added more pressure because the work moved across different time zones and communication channels. 10. Dan and Rita connect that pressure to modern life, where Slack, Teams, text message, email, tweets, and Instagram keep people reachable. 11. Dan says his co-founder Webb used hot baths and essential oils to decompress, and that routine shaped the product idea. 12. He says the idea became specific when Webb was in a hotel room without a bathtub and could not use her usual rest-and-recharge method. 13. Dan says scent espresso was designed to bring aromatherapy into a shower so people could get respite "anywhere instantly." 14. He says aromatherapy can reduce stress, and he mentions cortisol as one of the measurable links. 15. Dan says he used a eucalyptus-based shower that morning to decongest and clear his airways. 16. He says scents like lavender, chamomile, citrus, tangerine, and eucalyptus can trigger relaxation, invigoration, or memory. 17. Dan spends much of the interview in a practical, explanatory mode, moving from personal story to product design details. 18. Rita asks direct follow-up questions about burnout, engineering, Kickstarter, and how the product mounts to a wall. 19. People interested in startup wellness products and practical aromatherapy may like this episode. 20. People wanting a light celebrity chat or pure theory may skip it.

As heard by us

A burnout to wellness founder story grounded in product design, memory, and day to day strain.

Dan Hartshorn's story starts in a pressure cooker: a young baby, work he liked, and burnout that never really stayed in the background. The episode follows how that stretch helped push Flow Greens and the scent espresso idea forward, with Rita Mercer moving the conversation…

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Why you'd press play

If burnout has made your routines feel brittle, this founder story may land.

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