We are currently in the thick of staying-at-home and focusing on social distancing. This is a very challenging time for so many people and so many small businesses. We love supporting local and wanted to do our part in showcasing some fantastic small businesses every week.
Contents
- 1 What is unique about your business or What made you choose this type of business?
- 2 What is your favourite small business (aside from your own)?
- 3 If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
- 4 What are your long term business goals?
- 5 What is your funniest/weirdest/most memorable experience with a customer or client?
What is unique about your business or What made you choose this type of business?
Two years ago we (Me, Ashley and my husband, Chris, along with our two dogs) were in a near fatal car accident that left us with a wide array of injuries including broken ribs, a displaced uterus, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, three herniated discs in my back, a torn wrist and more. We used our knowledge in ancient medicine from our travels and holistic studies in Ayurvedic Medicine, Indonesian medicine, Mayan Medicine and traditional studies from all around the world to formulate our plant based, traditional healing elixirs, to get us off pharmaceutical medications.
Within two weeks of drinking our Jamu Recover, we were completely off pain killers. Our other elixirs followed the success of drinking Jamu Recover. I suffered from mild agoraphobia, where I was too anxious to leave the house due to the PTSD I suffered after the accident, so we formulated Calm Your Crazy, which kept me off anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications. Due to the brain injuries we sustained in the accident, we were having difficulty remembering simple things such as our friend’s names and what we were about to say mid-sentence, which is when Chris recalled the amazing effects of rosemary during his travels in Italy. Backed by a study from the University of Cambridge, we found that Rosemary Water had incredible healing effects on the brain, which is what we formulated to help us with our memory. Due to our damaged ribs and the inability to breathe fully, we were unable to detoxify the toxins out of our chest (that usually occurs when exhaling), as a result we found that we were very susceptible to illness such as the common cold, we then formulated a spicy, fiery elixir to help soothe our throats and boost our immunity, called Bandrek Immunity, an ancient Indonesian elixir that is used as their immune boosting elixir to fight any cough or flu – and did it ever work for us!
We started Antidote Healing as a passion project to share these amazing herbal elixirs with the world. If it helped us this much, we knew it would help others.
Fast forward to today and our elixirs are not only helping those who drink our beverages, but also local businesses and aboriginal farmers in Hawaii (who we do direct trade with) and we have started a movement called Local Supporting Local, where we have helped to support the local companies around us in a movement of giving abundance to our local community during this time of need.
What is your favourite small business (aside from your own)?
Oh there is way too many to choose from! It’s probably a tie between @KojiFineFoods, @SoulBiteFood @PommeNaturalMarket for all different reasons!
Koji Fine Foods – because we love the small business owner / creator, Denver, who is creating traditional Japanese foods that are super healthy and tasty. His creations are traditional and yet very forward thinking.
Soul Bite Food – because of the amazing people who are doing this initiative and give away 50% of their profits to their charity initiatives.
Pomme Natural Market – once again for the amazing people who work there and the amazing service we receive every time we go there.
If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
Make sure you have a lot of $$$ saved because starting a business will be one of the most expensive endeavors you’ll take on. The other thing is to get a mentor to help you.
What are your long term business goals?
Our goal is that through the proceeds of Antidote, we can help serve a larger purpose of saving 100 acres of rainforest land in Central America. Through our search for healing around the world, we were exposed to issues that are happening in the rainforest that really touched us to our core. Sadly, the rainforest is being burned down, torn down and destroyed at an exponentially fast rate due to agricultural farming. One acre of rainforest land has more biodiversity than all of North America (that is more biodiversity and life than all of Canada and the United States combined!).
This spiked us to create a fund called the Be A Hero Foundation, where a portion of our proceeds go to saving the rainforest in Belize. If we save the rainforest, we not only improve our air quality and water sources to us locally in Canada and the USA, but we save the animals, the local people of the area and all the untold plant medicine and herbal cures that reside in the rainforest.
What is your funniest/weirdest/most memorable experience with a customer or client?
Our business coach initially not believing in our product, but later trying it and finding that she had no more pain and was able to walk up the stairs without issues! She later turned out to be our biggest supporter!
Thanks to Ashley and Chris at Antidote Healing for taking the time to tell us all about their small business.
