Our Founder’s Story

Hi, my name is Weiwei (pronounced “Way Way”) Fellman. You can call me “Vivian”.

I’m the founder of Kota Botanics, a premium hemp CBD and plant-based health supplements company located in Fargo, North Dakota. I’m a proud first-generation immigrant from China to the United States. I was born and raised in south west China. I lived in Beijing for ten years after I graduated from college. Then I met my husband who’s a Fargo native studying mandarin in Beijing in 2004. We started dating and got engaged. I eventually moved to Fargo from Beijing in 2009 and have been living in this beautiful place since then. I became a lawful US citizen in May 2019 after I’ve lived in the US for almost 10 years, . 

I enjoy exercising, running (I ran a marathon in 2018, the biggest physical challenge in my life!), staying active and being close to nature. I also loved helping others to achieve their fitness and wellness goals. Things were going great until my youngest son Patrick was born in 2016. Patrick was born with an issue on one of his pulmonary valves. We had to spend 4 weeks at NICU of Masonic Children Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota for treatments. After we returned home from the NICU, I started experiencing severe anxiety and panic attacks. I tried exercising, yoga and meditation, nothing seemed to help until I started experimenting with CBD in late 2018. 

Being raised in China, I am familiar with the benefits of plant-based medicine (Traditional Chinese Medicine) for illness treatments and wellness improvement. Still, CBD was quite a new thing to me. I was amazed on how much my mental and physical health have improved with a little help from CBD oil. I believe in its power and I know a lot more people could benefit from it as well. 

Late 2019, I decided to leave my stable corporate job and started Kota Botanics ™ , a premium CBD wellness retail shop in Fargo, ND. Within a year, we became the largest premium CBD wellness retailer in North Dakota. Our business was growing, but I never gave up the idea of starting our own premium CBD brand. After months and months of extensive searching, I finally found an artisanal family hemp farm in upstate New York that I could trust and eventually partnered with. Late 2020, we launched “Kota Botanics ™”, a premium artisanal hemp CBD wellness brand. Our phytocannabinoid-rich hemp is organically grown in the US, non-GMO, free of pesticides, herbicides, heavy medals, and solvents. We use supercritical CO2 extraction methods to ensure the highest concentration of a full profile of cannabinoids (CBD, CBG, CBN, CBC) extracted from the plant. We tasted each batch through a well-known certified third-party lab twice to guarantee potency, quality, and accuracy in dosing. We use the finest organic, plant-based, regenerative ingredients to formulate our products to ensure the quality, efficiency and safety.

“Kota 康太” means “Happiness” and “Longevity” in Japanese. We are so excited for you to join us to improve your mental and physical wellness by experiencing with the finest premium products and services that you deserve. 

Let’s build a happy life, together in a “KOTA” way.

With love,

Vivian (Weiwei)