We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful RAPHAEL AQUI. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with RAPHAEL below.

RAPHAEL, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

When starting the journey of entrepreneurship I realized there was a lot I didn’t know that truly went into the process. I thought it would be simple you know, get an L.L.C and that would be all you need. The saying it takes money to make money never became so real till I began the actual process. lucky for me I had made the right connections prior and I started asking all the right questions. The most common response was you need to leverage you money to work for you. so I worked for another company in New York City in my industry to get a true understanding of how to operiate that particular kind of business. I saw the do’s the don’ts and the never again. It also mostly gave me great perspective on the needs of the demographic I wanted to work with as well as help me earn enough money to start my own business. So I quit my job cause I thought it would be best to start focusing more on growing my business,. lucky my partner was up to the challenge of taking care of home responsibilities such as rent and bills. With what little I had saved After applying for the L.L.C. My business partner and I started to discuss what the next few months were gonna look like. We began getting merch. organizing photoshoots, working on our website, making meetings with banks and other financial consultants and I realized quitting my job when I did wasn’t the best move minus all personal issues not being able to support my lifestyle let alone my business as an equal contributor was hurting me emotionally. looking back at it now everything happened the way it was supposed to cause Now I have a part time job that allows me enough room to focus on my business and make adequate money to support my need both personal and business and with all the work I did during my time focusing on my business solely is starting to come thru in the best way. So what I learned was taking a risk is never easy but it can be worth it if you learn to leverage it to work for you and not against you.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When I was in high school I would spend my summers as part of a C.A.M,B.A.s Team RAPP community outreach program that would educate and promote safe sex practices to different neighborhoods in Brooklyn, NY. I learned a lot about the 5 forms of abuse as well as the different ways to contract and spread S.T.D and S.T.I’s and the differences between them and how to go about seeking proper medications. I would also spend a lot of time at various L.G.B.Q.T.I.A.+ centers in nyc such as The Door in Tribeca. H.M.I in Astor place. The Yes Center in The west village. and G.M.H.C in midtown. Spending time learning about the differences in the community as well as discovering who i am as a person. Learning the various issues and the ways to tackle them later came in handy worked at The Pleasure chest Philadelphia where I got introduced to the proper way to communicate with customers about there sexual needs and the proper products to use and how to apply it to sexual wellness. With these past experience I realized there was a need for sexual wellness information and having people to ask and who will be honest with them with no judgement and willingness to do the research to find products and vetted information to help with the inquiries.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When i was living in Philadelphia I truly wanted to be a film producer. i wrote scripts and even did short videos as well as went to school to purse this ambition. I wind up getting sick during the pandemic. My appendix ruptured so I had to fall behind a semester and found myself indebted to the school I was attending. I was on bed rest for 3 months and in that time I had to reevaluate my life and the state of the world and i realized that for me to be who I want to be I may need to take a different route. So I decided to start a business for myself that would give me both security and freedom to chase any and all passions I would seek to follow and so The Garden Of Hedone came to be.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I meet Xavier thru a mutual friend and over the time we spoke we become close. We trusted each other and i helped him get into the industry of sexual wellness. After a few months of talking and planning we decided to go into business together and now we are closer than ever.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gardenofhedone.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.g.o.h
• Other: https://linktr.ee/gardenofhedone

Image Credits
photos token by Fotos-locos llc