I’ve always taken my health and wellness very seriously. From the food that I eat to the ingredients I use in my skincare, to my meditation and yoga routine, I’ve always viewed my overall wellness in a holistic sense where your mental and physical health are integral parts of that.
While I had always been able to easily find well-designed, high-quality and safe products for most of my wellness routines, my sexual wellness somehow always felt clunky or tacky. The vibrators and lube on the market didn’t appeal to me and the buying experience was uncomfortably heteronormative and there was nothing that remotely insinuated pleasure and wellness. I knew there had to be a better way to do this so I created LBDO; luxury sexual wellness products to break taboos and speak to modern Australians. The lessons I learned here may seem niche, but can be applied to any tough to crack or taboo industry.
LBDO did not come from a place of wanting to disrupt for the sake of it, but rather a response to a cultural and social change in how we were approaching sexual wellness. To disrupt the status quo and challenge people’s values with no responsive purpose to a greater movement will result in huge energy and financial expenditure with likely minimal results; often it is not worth it.
There will always be hurdles when starting a business, especially in a taboo industry. I’ve received judgement and doubt from others and faced restrictions on social media (Facebook and Instagram don’t allow you to advertise any sexual wellness products which has made it difficult to engage with customers). There were definitely moments where I was given the opportunity to second guess myself, however, this is where one’s moral drive needs to kick in. This is where it becomes important that you have not launched in a taboo industry just for the shock value. Similarly, sales cannot be your primary focus, but rather the focus on changing societal values and views. Sales and growth can be a core element of course, but they should not be the end goal.
My business strategy was to boost the voices and conversations already happening around sex and pleasure instead of attempting to start a movement within the zeitgeist. This approach reduces the resource drain of starting a conversation and movement from scratch. This, however, does make it harder to measure the success of your voice within the movement. However, there are ways to see the impact you’ve had beyond just anecdotal insights.
One example of how one can measure the impact of their voice is to look at other markers of success. One maker for us for example was when LBDO launched on leading online beauty retailer, Adore Beauty. This proved there was both demand for the product and a view that the product was apt to sit in a wellness section on a website alongside ‘normal’ products and similarly be profitable with sales having jumped 200 per cent compared to last year. This launch could be seen from a one-dimensional sales standpoint, but when breaking into a niche or taboo market you must look at how you’re placing and making an impact more broadly within relevant markets.
Starting a business is never easy but for ourselves and our communities to grow, we must embrace the entrepreneurial spirit and strive to achieve our business and personal goals. Breaking down barriers in more manageable ways might not always feel like a revolution, but if you pick your time and audience you can crack a whole taboo.
