Join Tri Delta CEO Mindy Tucker, Southern Methodist, as she chats with Megan Jett Trottier, Texas Tech, founder and CEO of Oh My Mahjong. Uncover how Megan turned her love for Mahjong into a thriving business that perfectly mixes her creativity with Chinese tradition and community. Tune in to hear how she built her company, how she empowers women through her brand and why Mahjong is having a major moment!
What started as a hobby in college for Megan became a creative passion—and during the pandemic, an opportunity to build something bigger.
Now Megan leads a predominantly female team, employs fellow Tri Deltas and fosters a sense of community through her brand. She shares how Mahjong has become a powerful way to connect, create and empower others—especially women.
You’ll hear about her journey from artist to entrepreneur, the challenges of launching a company and why Mahjong is growing in popularity. Megan offers insights on embracing failure, balancing work and life, and spreading Mahjong to a new generation.
Whether you’re an advanced Mahjong player or have never played before, this episode will leave you inspired and maybe even ready to pick up the tiles yourself!
This transcript was created using automated technologies and may contain errors. Welcome to the Let's Talk Tri Delta podcast. I'm Mindy Tucker, Tri Delta CEO. I'm so excited to welcome today's guest, Megan Jett Trottier. From our Phi Eta chapter at Texas Tech, she is the founder and CEO of Oh My Mahjong. Her mahjong journey started when she was in her college days, but it really kicked into high gear when she rekindled her love for mahjong during COVID. Lots of us found new things to do during COVID. As her passion for mahjong deepened, it sparked an idea to create her own product line, and that line pays tribute to the game's rich heritage. And so today, she combines her passion for art with her love for mahjong, aspiring to leave a lasting impact, transforming the ancient game into a medium that this has for self -expression and creativity and that everybody is starting to enjoy a whole lot more. So through the brand of Oh My Mahjong, she invites players to explore the beauty and joy of Mahjong, igniting their imagination and empowering them really to create their own traditions within this game. Her timing could not have been better. Mahjong has become an extremely popular game over the last few years. Everybody is into it. I feel like I hear about it all the time. So I can't wait to get her take on that and hear her story. And are you a Mahjong player? If not, maybe at the end of this podcast, you will be. I don't play, but I'm so excited to learn a little bit more and maybe find somebody who will finally teach me how to do this thing, how to play this game. So Megan, I'm excited to hear from you today. Welcome to the podcast. - Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. - So let's go back to the beginning here for a minute. How did you decide to attend Texas Tech and what brought you to Tri Delta? - So I'm from West Texas, which I feel like West Texas girls go to tech. Coming from West Texas, Lubbock seemed like a really big town. I remember driving into it when I moved, calling my mom who was following me saying this town's huge, I'm going to get lost. Which is funny now because I'm in Dallas. But it's just all perspective of coming from a smaller West Texas town. So tech was an easy choice. And then Tri Delta, I was the first person in my family to really rush. So sororities were all new to me. But it was the place that I felt most at home. And the older girls within Tri Delt that were rushing me, it just clicked. And I knew it was where I was supposed to be and still some of my lifelong friends are Tri Delts. One of the girls that does customer service for OMM is one of my sorority sisters that we ironically did like rush together, like we were in charge of it. So it's just funny how these relationships still come in 20 plus years later. - Yes, they do, they do. I love that. It is a lifetime. You meet new people along the way who are Tri Deltas, but you're also still so close to those ones that you were with in the chapter in your collegiate days. I love that. Totally. You said that Mahjong, your love for Mahjong started in college. How did that come about? How'd you learn about it? And what drew you to play? So actually, it's Tri Delt sorority sister, who was in my pledge class. She was a hoot of a person and she had a love of games gambling all the things she was just a riot she was from Houston and her grandmother played mahjong and so she knew mahjong and would play in spring break freshman year she said i want to teach you this game and i was always down for whatever so there was a big group of us her mom was with us in mexico and they taught me mahjong while everyone else went out and did whatever in Mexico during the day. And so we started playing and then we lived together sophomore year and we would play when we wouldn't go out at night. There were two other girls that lived with us and so we would all just get together and play and then her and I would play and so I loved it but then it was not really a common game amongst young people. So I wanted to play it again but never knew who to play with because no one knew what it was. Right. Yeah. Not very prevalent. No, especially in West Texas. It was not prevalent at all. Yeah. So fast forward a little bit. You're an artist. You have a family. You have a day job. But what what sort of made you think, okay, I'm just going to drop everything now and turn this love of mahjong into a business. Yeah. So, you know, from college, I got upset when I graduated, never played again, because like I was talking about, who are you going to find to play? Come COVID 2020, spring of 2020, like May, a good mom friend was like, I think we should pick up and all learn mahjong together to three other friends. And I was like, wait, stop, I'm so excited, I have a set I've had since college, let's all play. So we started a weekly group that we rotate homes, sit outside, do all the things, and play mahjong starting May of 2020. So through that, I was doing art on the side, I was doing medical sales, art on the side, and was doing some acrylic things and had a small manufacturer overseas. And my mahjong group through the group was like, "Hey, why don't you make something for our tiles to sit in?" And I was like, "Well, I have a manufacturer, let's sure, "why not?" And I had a small Instagram following. And I got these boxes, like drew it out on a sheet of paper. I mean, it was real unprofessional. Sent it to him. I said, Can you make these? He made them and I posted on Instagram and they sold. And I like I was shocked because it was selling way faster than the trays that I had made or anything else. And so it was just through that weekly group, then the weekly group another night was like, Hey, why don't you make a Mac because it's so hard for us to remember which direction to go with this because there's a ton of little nuances in Mahjong and so I was like well let's try that and I made it and I sold it on my Instagram site and they sold again and I was like well this I think we maybe have something that was kind of the beginning of it and you know it was just everything that I would do with it it would sell and so I just kept seeing it picking up and And it just, you know, it slowly, quickly, but slowly turned to the, my full focus. And the other stuff just kind of slowly started to dissipate while I focused on that and came up with new ideas. I love it. Tell me a little bit about the business, like I think I know a couple of things that I want to touch on with you, but you talked about employing tri -deltas or a tri -delta. Female team. How do How do you sort of stepped into this as a female business owner? Yeah, I know it's, you know, I can say who rules the world, moms and women do. There is, I have such a strong team of working moms who just get stuff done. Like, it is funny, we'll be on early, like at night, you can tell when the kids go to bed, we'll be messaging each other. But there, we have 18 people on our team now. Majority women, we do have some great people in our shipping department that aren't, and I laugh every day with them that they're shipping mahjong things because they're, I get first they're like, what in the world is this stuff that we're shipping? Oh, it's humorous. But the rest are for the most part all working moms. And I love it because they just know how to get in there and get stuff done. And so it's a cool environment. You know, kids pickups and kids drop off and you have a sick kid like it's very flexible because that's what I want in my job. Like it's important for me to be around my children but also get to be a mom boss and be able to work and show them that mom can do stuff too. Yeah. How do you think sort of the goals or values values of Tri Delta and your business align, like how did those two things come together for you? Yeah, so I think Tri Delta, like it taught me a ton of stuff while I was there. It, the aspect of Rush and having to constantly talk to people gave me skills that I, like in my 20s, I was like, I couldn't interview for jobs had I not done Rush. Right, I couldn't sell things had I not done rush like it those like early on years of teaching such important things have still carried with me I think to give me the confidence to where I am now but especially in my 20s and 30s and sales and stuff which then has led to helping sell And then I think like being able to work with women and getting to know the power of them and the relationships that can develop through that. So I was rush chair in college. And like I said, one of my sorority sisters who was reference chair, like now she does our customer service. So it's just those lasting relationships and like forming those relationships and the importance of them has carried on too with me. - Yeah, that's nice. I was loved hearing the thread of what women pick up along the way and try to alter and take with and then experiences that you would never imagine would translate into a recruitment rush. Like how would that translate into your business? But it has. - I mean, I think it's just, it makes you like, like you can talk to anyone, you're forced to find similarities with someone, but it helps so much with sales, which I feel like that's all propelled. Everything I've done to get me to where I am. - Yeah. - Kind of like a fearlessness, because you know it's just there's a lot and yeah being afraid to talk to a stranger it's just it was super beneficial. Okay so here's your chance to be an ambassador for the game. Why should someone learn to play Mahjong? What do you feel like you get from this game? So it's really fun so just like talking about sorority and having like fellowship with your friends this is a great way to have fellowship that is like a designated time that you have to put your phone down. It's a very mentally simulating game. So I wouldn't say like you can, if you're playing like truly playing like it's hard to, you know, you can't really be on your phone. It's hard to, you can carry on conversation, but your phones are down, you're focused on the people sitting at the table. And then it's something that you can play forever. So I love that kind of like the relationships within Trydelt, how they, you know, can be forever. Like this is something that starting at 20 and then I could still play at 90 years old. And the ladies that are playing at 90 are sharp as a tack. Like it's nuts. So it keeps you fresh and it maintains these friendships. Like even with the group I play with now, we're all in different places in life five years later, but we still every Wednesday night meet at 6 .45. And, you know, I probably wouldn't see them, I mean, yeah, there's like one that I would see regularly. Other than that, I wouldn't see the other two, but we've kept in touch with the game, like Vajang. - Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that you are passionate about in terms of starting the business and promoting the game is it's a way to create community. - Totally. And I think that's why it's done so well too. I think it's why it's really like propelled in the recent years coming out of COVID and people are looking for like true connections and putting down the phones and having a way to connect and use your brain and not just feel like you're fried from watching TV or on your, you know, doing things like that. And then it's also become this really beautiful thing. So especially in the South, everyone loves, you know, all the designs and layers and this and that, it's almost become like a tablescape. So I think it's fun to, you know, when you host, you get to choose which mat you're going to use, and which tiles, and what accessories. And so it's almost this new, like, southern table scape of your mahjong table scape. Yeah, I love that you've stepped right into that, given them sort of a creative way to play the game and express themselves. It's fun. It does look like a table scape. When I see it, it's, you know, it's just beautiful. Yeah. So I'm going to shift gears a little bit. What do but where do you think your entrepreneurial spirit comes from? - It's a great question. I got career tested in my 20s 'cause I was just kind of floundering in between, I was in retail, then I was in corporate and anyways, I got tested and it was came back that I would make a great entrepreneur and I was like, what in the world does that mean? Like what kind of business am I supposed to do? Like it was, I mean, it just-- - There's nowhere to apply for that. - Oh, I'm like, how do you, like I'm 25 years old, I don't know how to become an entrepreneur. So I think the ability to be resilient and pivot and make quick decisions and not harp on things has given me a lot of strengths and entrepreneurship, being flexible. I think those are some things where they came from. I don't know, childhood, adapting, I don't know. But I think those are some of the really important things of, you know, if something works, great, if it doesn't, we pivot. And it's just constant figuring out what it is to like go down the right path. - Yeah. What are some of the big lessons you've learned as you've, and maybe some of the unexpected lessons you've learned in starting a business? - I think it takes a lot of work. I don't think I realized like the amount, it gets so much work, but it's so worth it. Like I'm big on like seasons of life and I'm like this season of life is like a hardworking season, but then I know another season may be a lot more relaxing. I think there's a lot of sacrifices, which sometimes I'm like, what in the world am I doing? So those are just, you know, high level lessons that you hear people say, but then when you experience them, it hits a little different. But I mean, yeah, I think the value of being flexible is like one of the main things that I can say. And also, fine, like if something bad happens, I'm like, there has to be a way to turn this into something positive. So being able to like to fix and it's true, like like we had this big kind of debacle in the fall with some stuff and I was just stressed to the nines for several weeks trying to figure it out. And now it's come out to benefit us immensely. But I think it's all the perspective we put on it, but I was like, I know this is gonna be good, just how do we turn it into that? 'Cause right now I wanna like pull my hair out. So I think always trying to like find the way to look at it from a positive perspective or the lesson it taught you is really important. Yeah, I love that. Lessons are good. Not always expected, but good. Yeah, I agree. So you just talked about hard work. And I love asking this question because I am one. I've got middle school boys downstairs doing who knows what at the moment. They all gather here after school. Beauty of working from home. I get more time with them. But also there's middle school boys downstairs. How do you balance it all? You've got work, family, business, like how do you do it? - I don't know. No, I mean, I feel like, you know, like I was talking about seasons, like it is a lot of like family time and work because there's not a lot of time for other things right now. I have little boys, so I have a seven and almost nine year old in a couple of days and then we have one in college. but so the little guys, it's like, you know, trying to be available from four on. And then after they go to bed, I get on my computer. And there was a time in the fall that I was working every weekend. Now I'm like, okay, we're shutting the computer on the weekends. So it's just trying to give as much as I can to that. And then, you know, knowing maybe in a couple of months, the more friendship stuff will come about, but it's kind of limited right now because between work and travel and kids I'm like the husband like those are the priorities at the moment so it's just and being okay with that like I'm like it's just a season and and in a couple of months it will be slower so it's just being okay with the spine. I do think I do agree with that I do think you have to settle into the season concept that it's not it might be hard for a month or two you have this push or that push and it ebbs and flows and some things will be easier in two months and some things will be harder and you just sort of roll with it. - Yeah. - Yeah, moms were all resilient, right? - I mean, moms, it's just really remarkable to me, especially being in business now with all these moms, it's just what we can do while multitasking, while we go to market in Atlanta and all the women on the team are moms. So husbands are calling and this is happening and it's just, but they're just multi -tasking and getting it all done. It's just, it's not that funny. I was on a trip last week. I was actually out of the country standing with a bunch of moms and we were all dealing with stuff back home. And I was like, we are out of the country and we are still managing this. - We're still managing it all and getting it done probably more efficiently than the people back at home. - Hopefully, yeah. Your kids play the game. So the nine -year -old will, I feel like the seven -year -old I don't have the patience for. So we do like a mat, we do an abbreviated kid version. We're really into like chess as a family right now. So we'll play chess at nights. I would like to pivot into mahjong, but it's almost like, I think because it is mom's game, they're like mom. So I'm like, but if I can play chess with you, I actually am really getting into chess with them. So I'm like, that's fun for me and it works my brain. - Yeah, you just care about the time with them too, so. - Yeah, yeah, so it's maybe one day they'll play with me. - So what's next for you and your company? - I don't know, that's a great question. I feel like I'm not a very, not like a crazy planner. I'm more about like seeing the opportunity and kind of being, it sounds really cheesy, but like a leaf down the river and like seeing where I'm supposed to go versus forcing it. We have found that people love new stuff so we keep coming out with new colors and new designs. We've gotten into Rummikub which is a different another tile game and made it pretty and cute and so it's that and it's you know coming out with more Mahjong stuff helping spread it I feel like just like you were saying in California, it hasn't hit like I don't, there's so much more potential for Mahjong to take off in certain areas. So I think growing it and spreading it to more and more people and sharing the love of the game and something that can bring people together is the goal and then all the cool stuff along the way being open and receptive to it. Yeah. Do you see younger generations, like younger people embracing it or is that a is that a growth market for you? I think it's a huge growth market. I think sorority houses like I would love to do stuff with Tri Delta houses like there's so much growth with within the college market. I think it's hitting you know girls are doing it at camp now they're doing it like mom and me classes so I think it's starting but I think there's a lot of potential for that and young brains get it really fast. Like they can get it and like people will be like, I got my kid and they were kicking my butt in no time. Like it's, you know, the older brains, I'm like, it takes us longer. There's a lot more. Yeah, but it's nuts how their little brains can get it. So I think, I don't see it going away. And I think it's just gonna become more and more popular for younger people, which is cool. Cause then a little role can play with her great -grandmother. Like, I mean, that's what's so cool about the game. - I love that. That's what's fun about game, all the games that I learned in my life, cards and stuff like that, I learned from my grandmother. So I think that's like, it does sort of bridge that gap. And now that you've said college campuses and sort of how, like, are we gonna see a Treadalda branded mahjong? - I would love to do something with, like, or with all the houses or, you like or do like we could even do like a color what you know the so something that's cool about my tiles is that they stay true to traditional chinese images so they're all based on like the ancient chinese tiles and then they've just been updated with a lot of fun color uh so it's something that could be really cool to do like a colorway with the stripes in the blues and yellows and then a pansy for the flowers or you know like stuff that um I think it would be really cool. I would love to do more with Tri Delta with Mahjong because I think there's it could be really a fun sisterhood activity for the girls. Yeah we have a board member who I know is we have a board member who I know is probably listening and just lost her mind because she will think that is such a cool idea so um I'm excited to share that with her. I think it would be really really fun. I - I think it would be awesome. I think there's a lot of potential there. So that can be, you know, maybe by the end of 2025, we have something really cool coming out. - Love it. Good goal. - Your leaf just floated down the river to us. - Yeah. No, I see it. Just these ideas, they come like, but I'm all about, I'm like, if you close it off, these ideas don't come. You've just got to talk through it and stuff comes. - Yeah, I love it. So, okay. How can our listeners follow you, buy your products, learn how to play, what links or good advice do you have for us on that? - Yeah, so I will say, like if you want to learn Mahjong, it's definitely not something you go and Google. It's hard, it's kind of hard to learn. I would say it takes two classes, like two lessons of like two hours each. So it's a bit of a commitment, but we have teachers all over the country. So if you go to our website omimahjong .com and you say find a teacher, it'll show you a US map and we have over 300 across the U .S. So what's great is get a group of three other friends, commit to it, find a teacher in your area, reach out to them, get a class scheduled, and that's the best way, and then you have your little group that you can play with monthly, weekly, whenever. And then our website, Oh My Mahjong .com and our Instagram, Oh My Mahjong, I give a bunch of teaching tips and tricks through it, so those are great ways and that's how you can get our product and then we're on the shelves in stores and even markets. - So fun. Well, I love hearing your story. It's so fun to have you come with us. I hope this is just the beginning of a fun relationship where we're all playing on the Tri Delta Mahjong sets. - I'm glad that would be, I love it. Yeah, all the chapters have their own set at the house. This would be so fun. - Love it, love it. Well, thank you, Megan, for sharing your story. What a fun story to hear from today. I love hearing sisters come and share their stories. There's always the thread of Tri Delta and how it influenced the business. So thank you for being here. Appreciate you. So for our listeners out there, now when you pay your Tri Delta alumnae dues, you have the option to level up and get even more benefits for your membership. So hope you'll check into that at tridelta .org /dues -and -benefits. Check it out and see what you might be missing out on. We hope you'll like, subscribe, and rate our podcast. We have three stars in our crescent, but we love those five -star ratings, so keep 'em coming. Thanks for joining us, and until next time, Delta Love.