Our Journey

Meet the Founder

Luke Merickel, Found & Made

I have been building things since I was in junior high. What started as reselling, drop-shipping, and wholesale experiments turned into something I never expected: a genuine education in what actually moves people. Over 20+ different shops, countless trial and error moments, and years of learning what works and what doesn't gave me a foundation that no classroom could fully replicate.

But what changed everything wasn't a business strategy. It was perspective.

As I got older, I started to see the real weight that large corporations carry on consumer culture. The way Amazon and Walmart have reshaped not just where we shop, but how disconnected we've become from the people actually making things. I don't think those companies are the enemy, but I do believe we have dramatically undervalued what exists right outside our front door.

Travel accelerated everything. Once I hit my twenties, I started visiting countries like Mexico, Canada, England, and Japan. In every single place I visited, the thing that made it feel real was the local goods. The coffee shop nobody outside the neighborhood knows about. The market stall that's been there for thirty years. The maker selling something you cannot find anywhere else on earth. Local commerce is the heartbeat of a culture. Tourism thrives on it. Communities are built on it. And I became obsessed with finding a way to make it more accessible.

Back in college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, I actually tried to build this exact concept. I got around five to ten local businesses on board, had the framework in place, and was genuinely excited about where it was going. Then graduation came, a move across the state followed, and I had to walk away from something I believed in. That didn't sit right with me.

When I moved to Los Angeles, something clicked. This city is overflowing with makers, creators, roasters, designers, chefs, and artists who pour everything into what they build. I fell in love with that. And I realized I had the skillset to do something about it.

I'm not selling a product. I'm selling the people behind it.

So I started over. Here. In Los Angeles.

Found & Made is the result of all of that. Every box we build is a curation of the people, the craft, and the culture that makes a city worth living in. The plan is to scale this well beyond Los Angeles: other cities, other countries, other cultures, always rooted in the same belief that the best things in this world are made by people with real passion and real purpose.

We're just getting started.