#68 - Orchid Bertelsen: Horses, Business, and Building an Audience

Orchid Bertelsen spent the last 20 years building a career that took her from a law firm in DC to the Gucci sales floor, through digital marketing at Nestle, and eventually into private equity, where she now helps beauty brands grow profitably.

A first-generation Taiwanese American who grew up without a safety net, Orchid learned early that the path forward meant working harder than everyone else and getting close to the money.

After 30 years away from horses, she recently returned to the saddle at a historic equestrian club 10 minutes from her home in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and what started as a Christmas gift of six lessons has since taken over her entire personality.

FIVE KEY INSIGHTS:

• Finding your way back: Orchid rode from 10 to 14, competed on the B circuit in Illinois and Wisconsin, then stepped away for nearly 30 years. Her return started with a walk past the Grosse Pointe Equestrian Center with her kid in a stroller and one question: "what if?"
• Horses as a forcing function for presence: Managing an oversensitive 17.3-hand horse named Bo has a way of demanding you show up fully. For someone always attached to her phone, barn time is the one place she's not.
• Building content with a system: Through Orchid in the Saddle, she applies her marketing background to create content for returning riders. Batch film on barn days, script with ChatGPT, edit ruthlessly in CapCut to 30 seconds or less, and let the data tell you what to make next.
• The gap the equestrian industry is missing: There's a disconnect between who brands design for and who's actually buying. From boot calf widths to men's sizing to grooming bags, the middle market for quality products made for real people at real price points is wide open.
• Immigrant grit and the cost of an obsession: All three voices in this conversation are first-generation Americans, and the thread connecting growing up without a safety net, building careers close to revenue, and developing a full-blown horse obsession is very real and very relatable.

Orchid Bertelsen is proof that the horse world can pull you back in no matter how long you've been gone, and that returning to the barn at 43 with a half-lease, a TikTok account, and a marketing brain is its own kind of superpower. This conversation covers everything from building a content strategy on a barn budget to the very real gap in equestrian products for adult amateurs, and why the brands that figure that out first are going to win big. If you've ever thought about coming back to horses, or wondered whether your outside career could actually make you better in the saddle, this episode is for you.

Follow Orchid: @orchidinthesaddle on TikTok and Instagram

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