William’s Mill Origin Story

From America to Finland

The William’s Mill origin story didn’t begin with seasoning. It started decades ago in America with a kid selling candy at school, and eventually led to a new life, a Finnish family, and a flavor company on the other side of the Atlantic.

I’ve been starting businesses for most of my life.

I just didn’t always call them businesses. When I was about 10-years old, I figured out that I could buy large bags of candy, break them down, and sell the pieces to other kids at school. The teacher was not part of the business plan. A little later, I started mowing lawns around the neighborhood, and eventually I had enough yards that I started paying other kids to help me. I discovered inventory, markup, labor, and subcontracting before I was old enough to drive. I didn’t think much of it at the time. It was just how my brain worked. See a need, figure out how to do something about it, make a little money, and keep going.

I’ve Never Been Very Good at Having a Boss

After university, I worked at a television studio for about three years. That was really the only traditional job I ever had for any meaningful length of time. Then I left and started freelancing. Graphic design, video, web work, whatever I could build with the skills I had. Later in life, I earned a living as a commercial pilot… working for myself, of course.

Over the years, I built businesses of my own. I learned how to take an idea, turn it into something real, make it work, and move on when the time was right. I’ve started businesses and closed them and I’ve started businesses and sold them. Not every decision was perfect, but I came away from each venture knowing more than I did before.

By the time William’s Mill came along, starting a business wasn’t new territory. It was familiar ground.

“I Could Live in That”

Years ago, after one of the rougher stretches of my life, I was designing wraps for cars and large trucks. It wasn’t exactly the American Dream. One afternoon I was standing outside work in the Texas heat, looking across the parking lot at an old Ford E-350 van, and I had a thought: I could live in that.

Not that exact van, obviously. That would have created some awkward conversations with the owner. But the idea stuck. I became completely absorbed in the VanLife movement. I joined Facebook and Reddit groups, studied van conversions, planned routes, and even built a 3D model of the van I wanted to turn into my home. In my head, I had already built the thing: bed, storage, small kitchen, solar power, everything I needed to work as a graphic designer and web developer while traveling across America.

Starting Again

So, I began selling everything I owned. There wasn’t some movie montage where inspirational music played while everything magically came together. I took graphic design work where I could find it. I drove for Uber for a while. I walked everywhere after getting rid of my car.

Somewhere in the middle of all that planning, I got a friend request from a woman in one of those VanLife groups. She lived in Finland and said she wanted to follow along with the trip through my photos and videos. Her name was Mira.

What started as someone cheering on my travel plans from the other side of the world slowly became daily conversations about everything—not just the van, but life, family, what we wanted, and where we thought we were going. I was preparing to disappear onto the American highway. She was in Finland with a house full of children and responsibilities. Somehow, we met in the middle.

For almost a year, I kept planning that van. I had picked one out, mapped the route, and was getting close to making it happen. But by then, something else had become more important than the road trip. Instead of buying the van, I bought a plane ticket to Finland.

I came over intending to visit. Then I met Mira in person and I never wanted to leave.

So I didn’t.

That was eight years ago.

We got married, and today I have a large Finnish family with six stepchildren, ranging from younger kids to young adults. These days, Mira and I are also waiting—patiently, or at least pretending to be patient—for grandchildren.

It is strange to think about how close I came to buying that van. At the time, I thought I was building a way to travel across America and start a new chapter of my life. Instead, the VanLife plan introduced me to the person who would bring me to Finland and change the direction of everything.

I never got the van.

I got a family instead.

I think I made the better deal.

Starting Over in Finland Is Different

Moving to another country in your forties is an interesting way to discover how many things you took for granted. Language is one of them. I have struggled with Finnish, and I still do. Finnish people already know this, but for everyone else: Finnish is not a language that casually meets you halfway. It stands on the other side of the room with its arms crossed and waits to see how serious you are. I’ve learned enough to live here, communicate, understand more than I used to, and occasionally convince myself that I’m making progress. Then someone speaks Finnish to me at normal Finnish speed, and I am reminded that there is still plenty of road ahead.

The language barrier also made finding work difficult. I had decades of experience. I had built businesses. I had worked in media, design, video, websites, and plenty of other things. But experience does not automatically translate across borders. Sometimes neither does the person. For a while, I kept trying to figure out where I fit into the Finnish job market. Eventually I realized I was asking the wrong question.

I’ve rarely waited for someone else to give me a job, so why was I starting now?

So I Built One

William’s Mill Flavor Company didn’t begin because I woke up one morning with dreams of becoming a spice tycoon. There was no whiteboard, no venture capital, and no guy in a suit telling me to “disrupt the seasoning space.” I just started thinking about what I actually knew. I knew design. I knew how to cook and how to barbecue. I knew how to build a brand. I knew how to build a website. I knew how to make something from very little. And after roughly fifty years in America, including about twenty-five years in Texas, I knew American food.

Not the cartoon version of American food. Not everything covered in cheese and bacon because someone put an American flag next to it. I knew the regional stuff: Texas, the Deep South, the East Coast, Cajun country, diner breakfasts, backyard grilling, and all the little differences that make one place taste like one place and another place taste like somewhere else. That was something I could bring with me.

So I did.

Starting a business in Finland wasn’t me becoming an entrepreneur. It was me becoming one again.

William’s Mill Flavor Company became my way of bringing the American regional food I knew to the country I now call home.

The Part That Matters More Now

There is another difference this time. I’m not building only for myself. I’m a husband and a stepfather in a big family, with kids ranging from younger children to young adults. There are groceries, school, bills, Christmases, and problems that show up without checking the budget first. Normal family life. Somewhere along the way, that became the part of life that mattered most to me.

When I first came to Finland, I wasn’t just moving to another country. I was becoming part of a family, fully. I had spent much of my earlier life chasing experiences, ideas, projects, businesses, and whatever happened to be over the next hill. Then somehow I ended up here and found a place, a role, and a home.

I’m in my fifties now, and I don’t see that as winding down. Quite the opposite. I’m starting again, but this time with a clearer sense of what matters and what I’m building toward.

What Your Order Actually Means

I don’t expect anyone to buy William’s Mill seasoning because of my life story. That would be a terrible business model. The seasoning still has to taste good. The price still has to be fair. The package still has to arrive when it should. If I want a place in your kitchen, I have to earn it.

But when you do order from William’s Mill, there is a real person and a real family on the other side of that purchase. You are helping a small business being built in Finland, by someone who has spent most of his life starting things, occasionally breaking them, learning something, and starting again.

This time with spices.

Could be worse.

— William S.