Original article in Rochester Magazine by Steve Lange
Columnist Steve Lange interviews Jeanna Liu, a 2003 Century grad and recent founder of Cowbell Plant Co.
So are there times when you “can be a little bit dramatic, act a little bit erratic?” How did you possibly find those lyrics?
What’s the next line? “That’s just the way I am.”
Yes! So those are lyrics from a song of yours — under the name Max Mellow — I found on Spotify. Really cool stuff. Thank you so much. I recorded that song, (“Better With You”) during COVID. It’s part of my many personalities, I suppose.
(Trying to speak Mandarin): Wǒmen zǒu ba! (Let's go!) (Actually speaking Mandarin): Wǒmen yào qù nǎlǐ? (Where are we going?).
Wǒ bù dǒng (I don’t understand). You said “Let's go.” I asked where we were going.
Oh. Give me a few sentences on each of these places you have lived. Shanghai. I was born there. Shanghai in the ‘80s was essentially a third world country. We had no hot running water.
Detroit, through second grade. First port of call into the States, I went to an all-Black elementary school, which was so interesting. I didn't speak any English.
Palo Alto, Calif., through sixth grade. My parents (former Mayo researchers Chiping Qian and Wanguo Liu) started working at Stanford. I loved Palo Alto.
Rochester. Rochester was middle school and high school, and it was a very different environment. But reflecting back, it was a very wholesome place to grow up.
It must have been tough when you moved here. Did you find anyone to help you through that? Sue Nielsen was my sixth-grade teacher at Kellogg. I think she’s retired now. But there is one thing that I remember vividly. It was the first month that I was here. She came with me after school to my house because she wanted to know about me and my parents. She was so invested and cared so much. And my parents worked 10, 12 hours a day. So they didn’t come home until like 8 o’clock at night, and Mrs. Nielsen just stayed there the entire time, waiting for them to get home. I get a little emotional thinking about it now.
I get a little emotional watching you tell it. OK. Tell me about the dream you had as a 6-year-old. When I was 6, I had a dream that I would die by the time I was 35. It was so incredibly vivid. ... And hence, all of the travel and the adventure and all of the places and all of the things have been me just trying to live as many lives as I can. Then the pandemic rolled around, and I was turning 35, and I said, “This is it. My premonition is coming true.” That's when I decided to write and produce the album. And I released that the day before my birthday. But, I’m still here.
Then you graduated from high school, and MIT, and then spent 15 years in mergers and acquisitions on Wall Street, at least. I really enjoyed that. It took me all over the world.
What was the moment when you realized you wanted to be your own entrepreneur? A lot of it had to do with the pandemic, which gave a lot of people some existential wake-up calls. When you work with startup founders and entrepreneurs for long enough, you also get the itch to start your own thing. During the pandemic, a lot of people became plant parents, right?
Sure. And you traveled for weeks at a time and had to keep your plants watered. Yes! So many people realized the importance of bringing nature into their homes, of biophilic living, when we were all quarantined indoors. When people started traveling again, all their plants started dying. That created a moment where I said, “Hey, I've been trying to MacGyver ways to water plants for the decades. Maybe I can bring that to market.”
Can you describe Cowbell Plant Co. in a few sentences? Cowbell Plant Co. is a next-gen plant care brand for modern, busy plant parents. Our flagship product is the Cowbell self-watering system, which uses physics and biology and chemical processes, including capillary action.
For the name, Cowbell, I read where you thought it had a nice ring to it. Ba-dum-bum. You took my punchline.
Sorry. Right. So, Jeanna, I'm interested. Why the name Cowbell? It had a nice ring to it.
That’s a great one! Okay. Last question. Are there some times when you “pick a fight for nothing, disappear without a warning?” “That's just the way I am.”
Steve Lange is the editor of Rochester Magazine. His column appears every Tuesday.
