We were lucky to catch up with Meet Daniella Leoni & Daniel Henao recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Daniella & Daniel, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?
When we were brainstorming ideas for our brand, we wanted to come up with a name that would be fun, inviting, a tad mysterious and that would give couples the opportunity to open themselves up to new experiences.
Why Don’t We? came from the idea of leaving an open ended question for new possibilities, as in, Why Don’t We Try It?
Daniella, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
When the world stopped during the pandemic and we were all stuck at home finding new ways to entertain ourselves. Daniel and me (yes, we are Daniel and Daniella, lol) had the time to organize ideas that had been circling our minds for a while. We had been talking about products that would provide the tools and opportunities for couples to continuously date each other regardless of the time they have been together or their different routines.
We began to identify while talking to other couples what their usual complaints about their relationships were, and we agreed on the fact that time, routines, kids, etc… drive us away from prioritizing our relationships, when in reality a healthy relationship is the foundation of a household and should always be among our top priorities. So we teamed up with professional family therapists and psychologist to materialize our ideas of providing the tools for couples to work on and prioritize their relationship in a fun way.
We believe the honeymoon phase can last forever if you actively work on it, and that we would probably all like each other a little bit more if we did more things that made us smile and spent more time doing things we truly enjoy while really connecting. So we built are brand focusing exclusively on couples. We want to provide a range of products and tools for all sorts of couples, taking into consideration people’s different likes and dislikes or the stage in the relationship that they are in.
Whether you are looking to break the routine, spend more quality time together, or really spice things up, we’ll have a product for you. It has now been two years since we launched our first product and we can proudly say that today we have four products in the market with 3 more in production and have an established brand presence in the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, Germany and Spain, all in their corresponding languages and cultural adaptations.
Our passion and purpose for what we do truly drives our business. We don’t only want to sell products, but we want to provide tools that would really help others improve their relationships, create stronger bonds and build a strong and healthy foundation for the rest of their lives. Our products are carefully and meticulously thought out and consulted with professionals in the field so we can provide a positive experience that will bring couples closer together.
When asked about what we sell, our first response is: we sell happiness! and we truly believe in that. Healthy relationships are a key part of life; however, it doesn’t take away from the fact that healthy relationships are also hard work. We want to ease the workload and help you achieve that by doing the work for you, and ultimately provide a finished product that you can actually enjoy playing or doing. When our own personal needs are met within our own personal relationships, we become happier individuals. Feeling positive emotions everyday has a huge effect on our happiness and well-being; thus, how we came to our motto of CHANGING THE WORLD ONE HAPPY COUPLE AT A TIME!
We pride ourselves on being a brand that only does products for couples and we don’t want to deviate from that. So, we are constantly committed to coming up with new ideas. We want to be a huge reference on where to turn when you want to do something special with your loved one and we are positive on the value we can bring to your relationships.
The products that we currently have in the market are:
1. Conversation Starters for Couples & Friends
You don’t need a special set up, fancy dinners or really setting time aside to connect with each other. You can use these cards while cooking dinner, laying on the couch, driving somewhere, before going to sleep, or any time you’d like to spark some creative, fun and meaningful conversations to get to know each other better.
This game brings 120 different conversation starters that range from deep and thought-provoking topics to fun hypothetical scenarios that will help break the ice, release tension from the day, bring tons of laughter and interesting learnings from one another. Many of our clients have incorporated this as a daily tradition in their routines and improved their relationships by deepening their connection to one another.
2. Spice It Up!
An intimacy building game for couples who want to connect on deeper levels and keep the passion alive over time. This game brings the fun, the romance and the spiciness all in one with three different decks that will take your date night from cool to very hot. 150 cards that are designed to gradually get steamier as the night progresses and include some great intimate conversations, fun flirting and sexy bedroom games.
Whether you’ve been together for a little or a long time, this game will spice up the bedroom and keep the passion alive over time.
3. One Year of Dates
Relationships are an investment that will continue to strengthen as you dedicate time and effort. The more effort you put in, the more you will get out. Going on dates gives you the chance to focus exclusively on each other, spend more quality time and experiment new things together.
This product brings a year’s worth of date ideas to help you do just that. 52 dates, one for each week of the year with activities that will help you step out of your comfort zone and bring you closer together, and the opportunity to document all of it so you can remember it forever.
By committing to investing this time in your relationship, you are telling each other “You are worth my time”.
4. Better Together
Giving you the tools from the very start to make your honeymoon phase last forever. A very unique and special gift for newly engaged or married couples. This gift box sets the foundation for a long-lasting relationship. It includes a Book of Firsts, where you can document all your major milestones in your first years of marriage, as well as a bucket list for newlyweds. Most importantly, it brings a years worth of advice, a compilation of all the practices you should always remember for a healthy and long-lasting marriage. It also brings a set of His & Hers pens, not to mention the box has a display of beautiful messages and details for the lucky couple.
How’d you meet your business partner?
Daniel and I met through some friends in common who were dating at the time, and funnily enough are also called Daniel and Daniella. It seems like a joke, but this is actually a true story, lol.
We met at a time when we were both ending previous marriages. Considering we were recently divorced, I was skeptical about life in general and we actually dated for three months before we even had our first kiss. The wait was definitely worth it since it has been six years from when we had that first kiss and we have managed to build a beautiful relationship and a successful business out of it.
Our own personal experiences have provided so much insight into how to make our own relationship work, how to keep the spark alive and how to prioritize each other. We have come up with healthy practices in our own relationship that made us want to share with the world what works wonders for us.
Working with your partner has also brought a new set of learning curves. We both have extremely different work methods and we both had to learn to respect each other even through our disagreements. We are very much aware that none of this would be worth it if it meant that working together would drift us apart, so we actively work on having personal space and not letting work issues interfere with our relationship.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
We started this business idea at a time where the whole world stopped. There was so much uncertainty on what was happening or how things would turn out. At a time where everybody was being extra careful, we decided to go all out and invest the money we were saving into an idea that we didn’t know was going to work.
Our initial product was one we don’t currently have in the market today. It was more of a rated R gift box for couples that also included some date ideas to try in the bedroom; however, we faced many roadblocks since there are basically no friendly ways to advertise adult products. People were buying our boxes, but we had no way to massively reach others to get our product out there. Regardless of encountering this major roadblock we decided to launch a different product and were able to increase our sales significantly enough to keep pushing this business idea forward. For an entire year and a half, all our profit was reinvested in the company giving us the opportunity to increase our sales and our line of products.
After we were able to maintain a steady sales flow and having had significant growth in little time, it was time for us to decide whether we would keep this as a side business or truly go ALL IN. Since Daniel was the one who had a better paying job with great benefits, we made the decision that I would be the first to quit my job. We wanted to do things gradually because we were now aiming to become financially independent and we didn’t want to loose our safety nets all at once.
After a few months of being fully committed to the company, being able to increase sales and establishing financial stability, Daniel finally quit his job; however, two weeks after he quit the war between Ukraine and Russia exploded and our sales declined significantly. Feeling extremely nervous doesn’t even begin to describe it; however, we decided we were going to push forward, so we packed our bags, sold absolutely all of our belongings and moved out of the US so we could live somewhere that would reduce our living costs significantly and would allow us to keep working on our business together.
Leaving fear aside and making this decision has not only brought great learning experiences, but also the opportunity to still grow our business and add more people to our team for whom we are truly grateful for.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.makinghappycouples.com
- Instagram: @makinghappycouples
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/makinghappycouples
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/whydontwe/
- Other: TikTok: @makinghappycouples