Meet Adriana Karagozian

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Adriana Karagozian. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Adriana below.

Adriana, so great to be with you and I think a lot of folks are going to benefit from hearing your story and lessons and wisdom. Imposter Syndrome is something that we know how words to describe, but it’s something that has held people back forever and so we’re really interested to hear about your story and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

Overcoming imposter syndrome has been one of the hardest things I have faced as a business owner—and if I am being honest, it is something I have only truly begun to overcome recently. For years, I carried the quiet suspicion that perhaps I had somehow slipped through the cracks of legitimacy, that one day someone would notice I didn’t belong where I was standing. It is an exhausting story to carry. And like many stories we inherit, it took time—and a great deal of inner work—to understand that it wasn’t mine to keep.

Lately I have been doing deep personal work around healing what I call the wounds of success: the places within me that feared my own capability. Success can be confronting. When something you love begins to grow, when people begin to believe in your vision, there is a moment when you must decide whether you believe in it too. For me, that meant dismantling a lifetime of narratives that told me I wasn’t meant to stand on my own.

As a Middle Eastern woman, I was raised with the belief that success would ultimately belong to a man. Women, I was taught, found stability through partnership, not through their own ambition. And because I did not see myself reflected in society’s narrow definitions of beauty, I was encouraged to become resourceful in order to attract a partner who could provide the life I was not expected to build for myself. I didn’t realize how deeply those ideas had embedded themselves into my psyche until I began running a business of my own. The voice of doubt was not simply personal—it was inherited.

Divorce became an unexpected turning point in my life. In the midst of unraveling one chapter, another quietly opened. Doors appeared in the world of farming, and suddenly I found myself exactly where my spirit had always longed to be: close to the land.

I had spent years as a chef, deeply connected to food and flavor, but something inside me had always wanted to go further upstream—to the soil, the seed, the animals grazing in the pasture. As a child, I was fascinated by cows, gardens, and the magic of watching things grow. So when farming entered my life, it felt less like a career pivot and more like a remembering.

That is how my work at From Scratch Farm truly began to take shape. I often describe it as seed-to-supper. I am not just preparing meals; I am tending the earth that grows them. There is something profoundly grounding about placing your hands in soil and watching nourishment emerge from patience and care. When you grow something from the very beginning, you develop a reverence for the entire process of creation.

But loving something that deeply also brings fear. When your livelihood, your purpose, and your heart are woven together, the thought of losing it can feel overwhelming. For a long time, that fear fed my imposter syndrome. I worried that if I stepped too confidently into my work, the universe might take it away.

Eventually, I realized something important: no one was coming to rescue me from those thoughts. If I waited for someone else to validate my worth, my business—and my calling—would suffer. So I did something simple, but not easy. I chose to “man up,” as I like to say, and confront the narrative of inevitable doom that I had been carrying for so long.

I began sitting with the emotions that whispered I was not good enough or worthy enough. Instead of pushing them away, I listened. And in doing so, I discovered something surprising: beneath those fears was a quiet, steady knowing of my own value. The more I allowed myself to see the old stories as untruths, the more space I had to step into the authenticity of who I really am.

I also learned that being a business owner does not have to be a solitary journey. Yes, entrepreneurship can feel incredibly lonely at times. But community has a way of softening that loneliness. Sometimes it looks like sitting down for coffee with another business owner to ask questions about contracts or change orders. Sometimes it’s texting someone in your network to ask where to find a reliable plumber. And sometimes it’s reaching out to your community while grieving the loss of a beloved dog and allowing people to show up for you.

Those small moments remind me that none of us are meant to build our lives entirely alone.

Believing in yourself, I have discovered, is not about forcing a positive attitude. It is not a motivational slogan or a trick of mindset. It is something much deeper. It is the act of remembering who we are beneath all the stories we were given. It is the slow unraveling of the defenses we built to survive and the illusions our minds created to keep us small.

When we begin to release those layers, something beautiful happens. We rediscover the truth of what we are capable of.

And from there, like a seed in good soil, everything begins to grow.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

As I began untangling the quiet narratives that had shaped my sense of worth, something else became clearer to me as well: the work I was building through From Scratch Farm was never just about gardens, food, or even business. It was about a philosophy of how we live with the Earth and with one another.

I believe deeply in a world where food still comes from the ground beneath our feet rather than from a cardboard box on a shelf. A world where we understand the origin of what nourishes us. Where ingredients are respected, where abundance is shared, and where nothing that the Earth gives us is treated as disposable. In that world, excess harvest does not rot in a field or spoil in a refrigerator. It finds its way to a community center, a neighbor’s table, or a family that might otherwise go without. Access to fresh, healthy food should never be treated as a privilege reserved for the fortunate. It is a fundamental right tied to the dignity of being human.

That belief guides nearly every decision I make.

For a long time, I also noticed a strange divide in how people think about land. On one side was luxury — the beautiful backyard, the outdoor space designed for comfort, gatherings, and beauty. On the other side was sustainability — the idea that caring for the Earth required sacrifice, austerity, or a rejection of aesthetics altogether.

I never believed those two worlds needed to exist apart from each other.

To me, true stewardship of the land is not about choosing between beauty and responsibility. It is about understanding how the two can coexist. A thoughtfully designed space can nourish the land, feed the people who live there, and still feel elegant and welcoming. Education plays a powerful role in that shift. When people learn how ecosystems function, how soil supports life, and how biodiversity strengthens the land, something changes. The backyard stops being decoration and becomes participation.

That is the heart of what I try to create through From Scratch Farm.

My work centers on designing biodiverse backyard environments that are not only beautiful but purposeful. These spaces are built around the people who will live with them — their diets, their needs, their rhythms of life. There is no pressure, no judgment, and no rigid expectation of what someone “should” grow. Instead, the goal is awareness. When someone begins to understand their land, their soil, and their food in a new way, they begin to reclaim a relationship that modern life has largely forgotten.

From that awareness, something larger becomes possible.

The vision behind From Scratch Farm has always been collaborative. I believe deeply that none of us hold all the knowledge alone. Farmers, chefs, gardeners, builders, and neighbors all carry pieces of wisdom that become far more powerful when they are shared. Through community and collaboration, we become better stewards of the Earth, better neighbors to one another, and ultimately better versions of ourselves.

This coming year represents an exciting step forward in that vision. We are partnering with local businesses that share the belief that luxury and sustainability should not compete with one another. Instead, they can work together to create spaces that honor both craftsmanship and ecological responsibility.

We are also beginning an apprenticeship program designed for young adults who want to build meaningful careers without necessarily following a traditional academic path. There is enormous dignity in skilled work, in learning how to care for land, produce food, and build systems that sustain communities. By offering certification and hands-on education, we hope to create opportunities for people who feel called to this work but may not see a clear entry point.

At the same time, we are working toward expanding our headquarters so we can host workshops, gatherings, and educational events that bring people together around food, land stewardship, and shared learning. And if all unfolds as planned, we hope to begin franchising the From Scratch Farm model by the end of the year, allowing this philosophy to grow beyond our local community.

At its core, the mission of From Scratch Farm is very simple.

We design beautiful and purposeful outdoor spaces that are built around the lives of the people who inhabit them — their diets, their needs, and their personal capacity to engage with the land. Through thoughtful design, enriched soil health, and biodiversity, we help people grow nutrient-rich food directly within their own outdoor environments.

We are not a landscaping company focused on turf lawns and ornamental gardens. Our work exists to bridge the gap between the farm and the grocery store, reconnecting people with the source of what sustains them, which is why we also create intentionally designed catered food experiences, either for large events or the cozy privacy of your own home.

Ultimately, our vision is grounded in something profoundly hopeful: a belief that we can feed the world with fresh, affordable food simply by teaching people how to grow it themselves.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back on my journey, there are three guiding principles that have shaped the way I move through business and life. They are not strategies I learned from a textbook or a seminar. They are truths I discovered through experience—through trial, humility, and the slow wisdom that comes from tending both land and life.

The first is this: nothing is absolute.

Early in my journey, I heard many versions of the same sentence: You can’t do that. Sometimes it came from people who were genuinely trying to protect me. Other times it came from people who simply could not imagine a different way. But one of the most important skills I have developed as an entrepreneur is learning to question absolutes.

When someone tells you something is impossible, what they are usually telling you is that they don’t know how to do it.

Business, much like farming, rewards curiosity and persistence. If a crop doesn’t grow the way you expected, you don’t declare the soil useless—you ask better questions. Was it the season? The sunlight? The timing of the seed?

Entrepreneurship works the same way. There is almost always another path, another method, another door that has not yet been tried. My advice to anyone early in their journey is simple: remain curious. If you hear the word “never,” treat it as an invitation to explore. Innovation is often born the moment someone decides that the rules are not as rigid as they appear.

The second lesson is that everything in life is both/and, not either/or.

For a long time, I believed I had to choose between identities. I thought I had to be either practical or visionary, either emotional or strong, either a creative chef or a grounded farmer. But the truth is that the most meaningful work happens when we allow those identities to coexist.

My life today reflects that philosophy. I grow food in the soil, but I also create meals from it. I run a business, but I also nurture a calling. I am both deeply independent and supported by a vibrant community. None of these things cancel each other out—they enrich each other.

Learning to hold the tension of both/and thinking is a powerful skill for any entrepreneur. The world will often try to force you into binaries: success or failure, risk or safety, logic or intuition. But real growth lives in the space where those ideas meet.

You can be cautious and bold.
You can be grounded and imaginative.
You can be learning and leading at the same time.

For those just starting out, give yourself permission to be multidimensional. The parts of you that feel contradictory may actually be the very things that make your work unique.

The third lesson—and perhaps the one that surprised me the most—is that other businesses in your niche are not your enemies. They are your greatest allies.

It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that business is a competition for limited resources. That mindset can make entrepreneurship feel isolating and tense. But over time, I discovered something much more powerful: community creates abundance.

Some of the most valuable insights I have gained have come from fellow business owners who were willing to share their experiences openly. Sometimes that looks like meeting another entrepreneur for coffee and talking through the logistics of contracts or pricing. Other times it is a quick text asking for a recommendation for a contractor, a supplier, or a professional service.

In my world—especially within the farm-to-table, or what I lovingly call seed-to-supper, ecosystem—collaboration strengthens everyone. Farmers, chefs, artisans, and small business owners are all contributing to the same living network. When one of us grows stronger, the entire system benefits.

For those early in their journey, my advice is to lean into relationships rather than competition. Ask questions. Offer help when you can. Celebrate the successes of others. When businesses support one another, they create something far more resilient than any individual effort.

In many ways, these three principles mirror the rhythms of the land itself. The earth rarely works in absolutes. Growth is rarely linear. And no ecosystem thrives in isolation.

Entrepreneurship, like farming, is ultimately about tending something with patience and care—trusting that if you continue to nurture the soil, the harvest will come.